“It really is a war,” says Dermot Flynn about the sudden and growing impact of AI. As an animator and illustrator, it seems he is one of those to find himself in the front line.
“Everybody I speak to now says how quiet it is, how less busy they are.
“And these people who are developing the programmes and systems, they’re not concerned with humanity at all or making the world a better place. It’s just about their own aggrandisement and ego.”
Flynn, who has won a string of awards during 25 years of working with the likes of Apple, Disney, Adidas, the New Yorker and Vogue, has seen his share of change but nothing quite like this.
Social media, he says, resulted in “a glut” of images online but the capacity of AI to look at almost everything out there then generate to order has taken the potential for transformation of the current employment landscape to another level.
Cisac, the international copyright organisation comprised of more than 200 societies in more than 100 countries, estimates total revenues earned by creators in the global music sector will decline 24 per cent by 2028 and 21 per cent in the audiovisual sector in the same period. The international market for “content” of these types produced by AI is set to increase from €3 billion last year to €64 billion in three years’ time.
There will, of course, be new opportunities for people with the right skill sets to earn money from doing things in different ways but for actual creatives, or artists, the research all suggests they are set to be on the wrong end of things in a bad way.
Recently returned from the UK to live in Dublin, where he is balancing work for private clients with lecturing at NCAD, Flynn recently attended a conference on the impact of AI held in Bologna where films such as Terminator 2 and The Matrix were being analysed.
“It’s moving so fast, we really are just trying to keep up,” he says. The “we” includes just not just creatives like himself but also legislators who, he believes, have already been left behind by the first wave of generative AI. “It’s only going to get more difficult when they move on to the second generation.
“It’s just making it more and more difficult for artists and writers and other creative people to make a living. And it was hard enough as it is.
He points to a poster campaign run by Transport for Ireland that attracted a lot of online ire from the creative community for being AI-generated.
“There was something plastic and cold about it, none of the quirkiness of humanity you think people should be looking for in something like it. It felt so disappointing they would do it because you do feel Ireland is somewhere where you feel creativity is traditionally valued.”
The wider battle lines, he suggests, will be between creatives who say they own their copyright and should not be displaced by technology and lobbyists who say the development of AI is for the benefit of mankind.
“That’s the struggle that’s going on,” he says before outlining some of the defensive measures recommended in Bologna which involve not posting original images on social media, taking old ones down and using third-party applications and opt-outs to prevent scraping (web data extraction).
Authors are also seeing their work mined without permission. The Irish Writers’ Union has said it will take legal action against Meta if the Government cannot successfully intervene to have it, and other big tech firms, respect its members’ copyright.
Another affected group are actors, with those providing dialogue to dub films into different languages already feeling the impact of the technology.
Some international studios have sought to use AI instead of actors, says Gerry O’Brien, chair of actors’ union Equity in Ireland, and the wider implications of the technology are quickly becoming apparent.
“The audio area is very difficult because there have been cases now where people’s voices have been data mined then used without their permission. So an artist who would have a career in voiceovers might take a job which they are told is for an educational tool but they sign a total buyout contract, which is very difficult to break, and then find their voice has been data mined, sold on for voiceovers as an example of soft Irish or hard-sell Irish, whatever, and they’re not getting any compensation.”
Controlling the visual equivalent of this whereby a person’s image is mapped to allow filmmakers to use them as extras in future productions with their knowledge was a key element in the agreement struck by US actors’ union Sag-Aftra in 2023 that ended the high-profile dispute that halted so many productions that year.
The same issues will form part of the continuing talks between Equity and producers’ organisations here, O’Brien says, as regulation of AI is absolutely critical to protecting the incomes of actors working in Ireland.
“What was being talked about with Sag-Aftra was based on background performers being scanned, and they were just paid for the day they came in and got scanned, and then their avatar is created, and that was used throughout that film.
“So they only get one day as opposed to their full run of days on the film. So the deal put in clauses about a requirement for fully informed consent but also provisions for payments for the ongoing use of the avatar but it is a minefield,” he says.
Even Dr Barry Scannell, a partner at William Fry who specialises in the area and is a member of the Government appointed AI Advisory Council, described sections of the Sag-Aftra deal as being akin to “reading science fiction”.
Scannell has a strong background in the music sector himself after a period working as director of legal affairs for the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro) and, consequently, with Cisac.
“I think when people think of artists, they think of someone appearing in the 3Arena, or the most famous photographers, whereas the majority of creatives are working people; they might have what people regard as nice jobs but they have a working day and they are trying to earn a living.
“I think it remains to be seen the full extent of the impact AI has on the music industry, but I think other creators and other creative sectors are going to be much more strongly impacted and earlier.”
An advisory council working group he chaired recently suggested it was “imperative the Government considers whether Ireland’s copyright laws and licensing regimes are equipped to address AI disruption”.
The technology, the group’s document on the sector said, also has the potential to be a hugely powerful tool for artists. It said the Government should provide supports in relation to this but there is no getting away from the scale of the challenge for those currently employed and the potential for legal battles to come.
“My suspicion is that over the next few years there will be a huge amount of litigation around copyright, data, all of this. We just haven’t quite got there yet,” he says, using the analogy of penguins on an iceberg surrounded by sea lions.
“Nobody wants to be the first to jump. These are questions that have never been asked of a court before. They are incredibly novel, involving really unique issues, even around jurisdiction: where did the infringement occur? Where is the service? Where is the server? What is a digital reproduction?”
Accommodations, he suggests, will have to be found because there is not going to be any stopping the march of the technology. The best creatives can hope for is to shape the way it is applied.
“It took a long time to strike an equilibrium with streaming,” he says. “It was hard fought. So there has to be a balance between commerciality and practicality. It has to be realistic but again, getting there may well be hard fought.”
