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The problem with any effort to stop technology is that it won't work in the long run. Right now, there are only a handful of companies that have the computing power to run an LLM like ChatGPT, so it's somewhat feasible to control. But once the technology can run on your home PC, there is no amount of legislation or unionization that can control its use. And that statement is not to say anything is good or bad. The reality is simply that we have very limited ability to control the distribution and use of software. Switching to opinion mode, I believe that the technology is ultimately a good thing. I think limiting the use of technology, in order to preserve jobs, is bad in the long run. I believe it's better for humans if cars drive themselves and we don't need to employ human truck drivers. It's better for humans to give everyone the ability to make entire movies, simply by describing it to a computer. The big problem is that our economic model won't support it. And I'm not talking about studios and unions--the fundamental problem is that digital goods can be infinitely duplicated at no cost, and every economy is based on shifting finite packages. The same applies to AI, but with the new meta-layer being that the actual, duplicated product of AI isn't a digital good, it's a skillset for producing that digital good. I don't have all the right words to describe exactly what I'm trying to say. The example I give is that right now, self driving cars are not as good as people. But the moment any car can drive itself better than a human, every car will be able to. We have to keep training new truck drivers to do the same task. That is not true of a duplicatable AI skillset. So to bring this back to my original point, we can try to prevent self driving cars in an effort to protect truck drivers, but someday, someone will still achieve it and at that moment, the software will exist, and unlike a physical product, it can be copied all over the world simultaneously. So instead of preventing technology or its use, we need to adapt our economic model to better serve humans in lieu of our new abilities.

https://leicarumors.com/2023/07/26/the-latest-af-35-150mm-f-2-2-8-full-frame-lens-is-rumored-to-be-samyangs-first-leica-l-mount-lens.aspx I think they have people on social media checking which lens have the highest request.

Leica lens, inbound! Musing recently (over many things), especially the announcement of Samyang joining the L Mount alliance and the potential of the 35-150mm (but would rather have the Tamron based on reviews) and my ‘wounded’ S5ii, I have had to come up with a solution for the next 50% of my annual workload which takes place over the next 8 weeks. Dropping from 3 cameras to 2 whilst one is being fixed, is not an option. Renting is out of the question. Buying a potential non-L Mount camera was tempting but a bit too costly, especially as a camera is useless without lenses…and I only have L Mount lenses. The only recent cameras I’d consider right now are; R3, Z9 and Z8 and a lot of 💰 So I bought a used (excellent condition) Leica 24-90mm f2.8/4 from MBP UK at 40% of what the things cost new. Why? That itch needed scratching (this lens has been in and out of my shopping basket numerous times over the last couple of years), but more importantly, my non-AF functioning S5ii has meant my meagre lens options don’t work for my needs with the specific combo I own. Now I can have a bit of a re-jiggle lens-wise and for those that are interested in such things: Wounded S5ii gets the Sigma crop 18-50mm as a static plus sometimes gimbal unit. It’s video only and the AF just works in an auto sense so that’s fine and can go in to be fixed when my season ends. The fully functioning S5ii gets the Sigma FF 28-70mm f2.8 and is my principal roving video unit. It was hybrid use. It’s now video dedicated. The chonky boy (S1H with battery grip) gets the ‘new’ 24-90mm f2.8/4 for principally stills duty, all day long, but that lens gets flipped for the 70-200mm f4 for ceremonies & speeches and hybrid duty. The slight irony however is the combo of S1H plus battery grip plus 70-200 was already 2.5kg and bordering on the offensive, but the 24-90 is even heavier 🤪 However, use-ability and image quality trumps size & weight (within reason) and that extra 20mm over a 24/28-70 really does take it into portait territory so is a big plus. It won’t arrive for this weekends’ wedding, but other than the size & weight (a known quantity having the 70-200), I have a good feeling about this specific combo… Yes, I’d prefer it to be more compact and lighter, but we’ll see and it HAS to be the last tweak for this year because I really need some consistency now for the next /remaining 20 or so days of shooting.

I don't know any critical, reputable analysis of AI that disputes how amazing the tech is, in and of itself. The entirety of the convo, union protests, etc, isn't about that at all. It's about protecting the human labor (labor used to power AI tech) from the big corps who have and will continue to use the transformative potential of AI to lay waste to much of the human workforce as we now know it... and not just in the film and arts and entertainment world, but ALL jobs across ALL sectors - including the jobs of the everyday consumers of AI, who won't grasp the larger implications for their own job security until it's too late. As a producer covering this story every week since Chat GPT began to get traction - it's kind of been like watching a reporter in Manhattan covering a tsunami happening in Buffalo - with a tone of awe (even child-like glee) that seems oblivious to the fact that the tsunami is coming their way. So unless people on this site have immense personal wealth and/or really really great pensions - I am definitely a bit concerned about the seemingly one-sided tone on here too.

Nice article! My perspective is as a software engineer, at a company that is making a huge effort to leverage AI faster and better than the industry. I am generally less optimistic than you that AI is "just a tool" and will not result in large swaths of the creative industry losing money. The first point I always make is that it's not about whether AI will replace all jobs, it's about the net gain or loss. As with any technology, AI tools both create and destroy jobs. The question for the economy is how many. Is there a net loss or a net gain? And of course we're not only concerned with number of jobs, but also how much money that job is worth. Across a given economy--for example, the US economy--will AI generated art cause clients/studios/customers to put more, or less net money into photography? My feeling is less. For example, my company ran an ad campaign using AI generated photos. It was done in collaboration with both AI specialists to write prompts, and artists to conceptualize and review. So while we still used a human artist, it would have taken many more people working many more hours to achieve the same thing. The net result was we spent less money towards creative on that particular campaign, meaning less money in the photography industry. It's difficult for me to imagine that AI will result in more money being spent on artistic fields like photography. I'm not talking about money that creatives spend on gear, which is a flow of money from creatives out, I'm talking about the inflow from non-creatives, towards creatives. The other point I'll make is that I don't think anyone should worry about GPT-4. It's very competent at writing code, but as a software engineer, I am confident that the current generation of AI tools cannot do my job. However, I am worried about what GPT-5, or GPT-10, or GPT-20 will do. I see a lot of articles--not necessarily Andrew's--that confidently say AI won't replace X because it's not good enough. It's like looking at a baby and saying, "that child can't even talk! It will never replace me as a news anchor." We must assume that AI will continue to improve exponentially at every task, for the foreseeable future. In this sense, "improve" doesn't necessarily mean "give the scientifically accurate answer" either. Machine learning research goes in parallel with psychology research. A lot of machine learning breakthroughs actually provide ideas and context for studies on human learning, and vice versa. We will be able to both understand and model human behavior better in future generations. My third point is that I disagree that people are fundamentally moved by other people's creations. You write I think that only a very small fraction of moviegoers care at all about who made the content. This sounds like an argument made in favor of practical effects over CGI, and we all know which side won that. People like you and I might love the practical effects in Oppenheimer simply for being practical, but the big CGI franchises crank out multiple films each year worth billions of dollars. If your argument is that the people driving the entertainment market will pay more for carefully crafted art than generic, by the numbers stories and effects, I can't disagree more. Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Shrek sell films and merchandise based off face and name recognition. What percent of fans do you think know who voiced them? 50%, ie 100 million+ people? How many can name a single animator for those characters? What about Master Chief from Halo (originally a one dimensional character literally from Microsoft), how many people can tell you who wrote, voiced, or animated any of the Bungie Halo games? In fact, most Halo fans feel more connected to the original Bungie character than the one from the Halo TV series, despite having a much more prominent actor portrayal. My final point is not specifically about AI. I live in an area of the US where, decades ago, everyone worked in good paying textile mill jobs. Then the US outsourced textile production overseas and everyone lost their jobs. The US and my state economies are larger than ever. Jobs were created in other sectors, and we have a booming tech sector--but very few laid off, middle aged textile workers retrained and started a new successful career. It's plausible that a lot of new, unknown jobs will spring up thanks to AI, but it's also plausible that "photography" shrinks in the same way that textiles did.