In a previous article, I posed the question: How good is Convenience for Business.? A few things, since that last article, have changed. Netflix backed out of the deal to buy Warner Bros after Paramount/Skydance made an offer Warner Bros. could not refuse. But the essence of that write up was the reductive effect of convenience on the revenue generation in the movie industry. Making creation and consumption too convenient would shrink the industry in frightening ways. This morning I came upon an article in the The Guardian that resurrected this issue in my mind once more: Creator of AI Actor Tilly Norwood Says She Received Death Threats Over the Project.

The fact that a creative engineer is getting death threats is no laughing matter. In the world of innovation, death threats are an indication that what you have threatens a profitable status quo. Upsetting the apple cart as the saying goes. This engineer came up with a digital product that is designed to disrupt a profession that has been one of the main revenue drivers in Hollywood: The Movie Star. A movie star is not just an actor. They are talent, brand and economy all in one because they possess, rather unwittingly, what society (or marketing propaganda) deems a mini-god. An idol. For an actor to graduate into being a movie star there are so many screen tests; from the studio, to casting, production and eventually wide audiences. Several actors have made it past the first three and perished at the box office. Why? That’s a different article. But let us take a look at the cost of disruption while making Artificial Intelligence our new genie.

As more enterprise incorporates artificial intelligence into their operations, we are faced with a major overhauls in labor. Prospect of efficiency and reduced cost from the employer side. Loss of work for the employees. However, in our market driven economy consumption is still the main driver of revenue. Who does the consuming? People with income. Jobs. Jobs pay people to buy and pay for goods and services.

Work is to be transmutation of sorts. With the increase in efficiency through technology, a lot of work feels less transmutational. Less rewarding. There is still the trope of the dissatisfied office worker who goes into work to stare at a screen only to return home to stare at another screen. For both enterprise and employee the reduction in transmutation at work, (especially white-collar) has made it feel less rewarding. Artificial intelligence exacerbates this sentiment to a certain level of detriment. And enterprises/employers have taken note. When employees are shoved out of the “primary customer” to the “excess cost” category, there will be consequences.

Now, a lot of companies that sell Artificial Intelligence services have gotten out ahead of this by selling their product upfront. If you have been spending $10M on labor per year over the past five years, pay me $5M a year for the next ten and you will save $50M in labor. That makes a for a good bonus column for the executive suite. But the labor that is spared when several corporations do this creates a vacuum in the revenue column that savings may be able to hide – but only for some time.

The people you lay off will soon be unable to pay for the products and services that are now being made with renewed efficiency. But then, we have another issue: How do we verify the integrity of the new efficiency? How do we know whether what is now being offered fulfills both the utility and integrity of the product?

Back to the AI actor, Tilly Norwood above. The engineer in question is being paid sums of money for her product to be used on the same level as any trained and market tested actor for a fraction of the cost. If this artificial actor does not achieve mass or even market appeal, who is left to correct? Having A.I performers cuts off not just actors, but most likely, casting, make-up and hair, fitness trainers, voice coaches and acting coaches to name a few. When these aspects of the acting side of the industry are diminished into pivoting into other careers and industries, who is left to correct or restore the integrity of the category? Who is left to vouch and thus be primary customer? Thus my main issue here is: there is an overinvestment in Artificial Intelligence replacing labor but not enough consideration for Artificial intelligence enhancing or supporting providence for consumption.

However, this is not the end. Hope is not lost. Opportunity may be reborn. There could be investment in pivoting from disruption. If A.I actors fail at the box office, who gets to invest in regenerating the “movie star” that the market deserves. If self-driving cars become too dangerous, who invests in retooling them for human drivers should the occasion require it. For all the advancement artificial intelligence may bring us, it may be wise for there to be an investment in holding onto the market tested alternatives especially in areas where the innovation does not improve the product or service. But if companies are ready to pay for the disruption without sufficient consideration of an off-ramp then not only are we being rushed into dystopia, we may rushing up a cliff at the steepest gradient. Someone needs to invest in parachutes.

by Julian Michael Yong.