Disney & Open AI reach 3-year Licensing Agreement

[Mad Dog]

CNBC exclusive announcement just now. Interview with Iger at 10:30 AM

 

[Grabnar]

Lol what an absurd waste of money and IP. I'm sure that putting your best characters into the slop machine will only increase their value in the long term!

The only benefit to this I think is that it focuses your ability to police IP in all of the other models more efficiently.

 

[Jerroddragon]

AI is going to end us

I just don't see how this benefits anyone really, just feels like within 10 years most jobs will be gone and the corporations will own everything

 

[Mad Dog]

AI is going to end us

I just don't see how this benefits anyone really, just feels like within 10 years most jobs will be gone and the corporations will own everything

I don't think it will be that dire. But I believe it will be a near Armageddon for all those highly paid tech software and IT engineers
that will need to scamper to find new occupations that utilize their skills. Throughout history, when occupations disappear, new
ones ultimately replace them. There's basically no, or few, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, furniture woodworkers, spinners, weavers,
candle makers, masons, artisans, or even farmers anymore. New occupations are usually formed as economies change. But, yes,
certain occupations disappear, and the high tech jobs will probably be the ones most negatively affected by AI. The irony is that those
are the guys that elevated AI.

 

[Grabnar]

I don't think it will be that dire. But I believe it will be a near Armageddon for all those highly paid tech software and IT engineers
that will need to scamper to find new occupations that utilize their skills. Throughout history, when occupations disappear, new
ones ultimately replace them. There's basically no, or few, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, furniture woodworkers, spinners, weavers,
candle makers, masons, artisans, or even farmers anymore. New occupations are usually formed as economies change. But, yes,
certain occupations disappear, and the high tech jobs will probably be the ones most negatively affected by AI. The irony is that those
are the guys that elevated AI.

The funniest thing about this is that just due to the inherent limitations of the technology it cannot create new things. Every field that gets replaced by AI will end up stagnating at current levels if not worse due to model drift. It's just not a good technology or real replacement for people.

I will also note that as a STEM worker encouraged to use AI for "help" at work most of the time it just spits out absolutely incorrect BS that is not helpful. For these specialized fields you really need to train an individual model to *maybe* help you, none of these general models are great and are usually actively harmful such as the rise of "Vibe coding" 5 Vibe Coding Failures That Prove AI Can't Replace Developers Yet

But that said it won't prevent companies from doing the Jack Welch thing and cutting staffing down to the bone for zero returns. Blood for the money gods, all hail next quarter.

 

[Galactus]

I don't think it will be that dire. But I believe it will be a near Armageddon for all those highly paid tech software and IT engineers
that will need to scamper to find new occupations that utilize their skills. Throughout history, when occupations disappear, new
ones ultimately replace them. There's basically no, or few, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, furniture woodworkers, spinners, weavers,
candle makers, masons, artisans, or even farmers anymore. New occupations are usually formed as economies change. But, yes,
certain occupations disappear, and the high tech jobs will probably be the ones most negatively affected by AI. The irony is that those
are the guys that elevated AI.

I am one of those people and I think you drastically overestimate what these systems can do. I use them every day and they're awesome but they need supervising and are about the level of a junior engineer/really really specialized engineer that can't see the big picture. Armageddon for junior engineers, I'd agree. I think we'll see >50% of attrition in the junior ranks but unless there's a step function paradigm shift on the order of the original innovation behind ChatGPT, I'm not terribly fearful for my job in the next 5-10 years.

Now about this Disney article in particular, we'll wait and see how long Disney is okay with this when someone gets Mickey to do something racist or hateful...

 

[Grabnar]

I am one of those people and I think you drastically overestimate what these systems can do. I use them every day and they're awesome but they need supervising and are about the level of a junior engineer/really really specialized engineer that can't see the big picture. Armageddon for junior engineers, I'd agree. I think we'll see >50% of attrition in the junior ranks but unless there's a step function paradigm shift on the order of the original innovation behind ChatGPT, I'm not terribly fearful for my job in the next 5-10 years.

I will say the apocalypse for these fields will be in 5-10 years as there is no junior dev to replace senior devs as they retire or move out of companies. Skilled tech workers will be worth their weight in gold as they fix LLM failures.

 

[Mad Dog]

I am one of those people and I think you drastically overestimate what these systems can do. I use them every day and they're awesome but they need supervising and are about the level of a junior engineer/really really specialized engineer that can't see the big picture. Armageddon for junior engineers, I'd agree. I think we'll see >50% of attrition in the junior ranks but unless there's a step function paradigm shift on the order of the original innovation behind ChatGPT, I'm not terribly fearful for my job in the next 5-10 years.

Now about this Disney article in particular, we'll wait and see how long Disney is okay with this when someone gets Mickey to do something racist or hateful...

I will say the apocalypse for these fields will be in 5-10 years as there is no junior dev to replace senior devs as they retire or move out of companies. Skilled tech workers will be worth their weight in gold as they fix LLM failures.

I agree mostly. I don't think that the mass disappearance, except for very low level, will be soon. I'm really projecting a decade, or two, in the future.
There will always be room for the very highly talented, but I believe the present high number of jobs, which are already becoming tougher to
find than previously, will gradually decrease, and the lower levels will come close to extinction.....But like history shows, new jobs will be created
that we can't even envision at this point. That's why I said it isn't as dire as some may imagine. But a lot of present day tech skills will be the
most affected .AI won't replace plumbers/electricians and the like...AI, like China's educated by rote crowd, probably won't be great
entrepreneurs also
....and will have to steal to be successful.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I don't think it will be that dire. But I believe it will be a near Armageddon for all those highly paid tech software and IT engineers
that will need to scamper to find new occupations that utilize their skills. Throughout history, when occupations disappear, new
ones ultimately replace them. There's basically no, or few, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, furniture woodworkers, spinners, weavers,
candle makers, masons, artisans, or even farmers anymore. New occupations are usually formed as economies change. But, yes,
certain occupations disappear, and the high tech jobs will probably be the ones most negatively affected by AI. The irony is that those
are the guys that elevated AI.

I think we are just in a different time

We have open corruption now and the greatest weather transfers ever happened During Covid and recent years

I think its cool if people don't want to panic but I'll be chicken little and I see ZERO value to AI and what it brings to world for its cost. Instead of helping improve lives and curing cancer we are making cartoons cheaper and making AI ads...wow that's really needed for all the electricity we use for this

We aren't even reporting Job numbers officially right now, so for me its the signs that things are already bad and will just have more and more people out of work. The people in charge want no workers thats the goal, while before replacing a horse with a car was a percent of people but no where near the amount of workers who use PCs. I mean we have Mcdonads and other restaurants slowly making it all screens and only cooks as people working

We will see but I think many are under selling the tech and not seeing how much its grown, we now have videos and pictures that look real...within 2 years of Chat GPT. In 2 more years how many more jobs are going to be lost, with zero replacement

 

[Galactus]

I agree mostly. I don't think that the mass disappearance, except for very low level, will be soon. I'm really projecting a decade, or two, in the future.
There will always be room for the very highly talented, but I believe the present high number of jobs, which are already becoming tougher to
find than previously, will gradually decrease, and the lower levels will come close to extinction.

We will see but I think many are under selling the tech and not seeing how much its grown, we now have videos and pictures that look real...within 2 years of Chat GPT. In 2 more years how many more jobs are going to be lost, with zero replacement

I'm a pretty outspoken bear about these models, which is pretty contrary to a lot of friends also in the industry/closer to the models than I am. If technology tends to be an S curve with slow improvement then an exponential phase and then a leveling off, I believe we're closer to the top. I believe we're getting close to wringing as much juice as we can out of the transformer structure (the breakthrough in LLMs). Given that I believe that the exponential growth is over or nearing an end, I tend to think along the lines of @Grabnar and highly doubt an extinction of SWEs even in a decade or two timespan (hopefully I'll be long into management at that point and if it does come to pass, it won't affect me )

 

[rageofthegods]

10am, that's late enough in the day to drink I think.

 

[Grabnar]

I'm a pretty outspoken bear about these models, which is pretty contrary to a lot of friends also in the industry/closer to the models than I am. If technology tends to be an S curve with slow improvement then an exponential phase and then a leveling off, I believe we're closer to the top. I believe we're getting close to wringing as much juice as we can out of the transformer structure (the breakthrough in LLMs). Given that I believe that the exponential growth is over or nearing an end, I tend to think along the lines of @Grabnar and highly doubt an extinction of SWEs even in a decade or two timespan (hopefully I'll be long into management at that point and if it does come to pass, it won't affect me )

I'm in 100% agreement on the S-curve thing, we're extremely close to the top and are in an area of such small diminishing returns that you'd need a fundamental breakthrough to make the technology approach anything similar to AGI. Pushing these models to do much more than be a customer service agent that outright lies to you is a waste of time and companies will eventually realize that (or not).

I do think it's interesting that Disney would choose to invest in this now after it's become pretty apparent that there's no way to make money off of running these models, though. IMO this is incredibly indicative of the current leadership having zero vision or creativity for the company. Even judging by bubble standards they're a day late and a dollar short, they might as well have lit this money on fire. The only way it makes ANY sense is if they're using this as an exclusivity license for their IP and characters to try and shut down rampant use on other models. Not that it's easy to police in any capacity, though, given you can just say "Popular cartoon mouse" in your prompt instead of "Mickey" and it'll spit out the same thing.

 

[DOOMBOT]

Remember when Disney was worried about putting their original movies out for home release cause they thought that would significantly devalue their brand?

The Disney Vault has been pilfered almost completely.

 

[Grabnar]

Not that it's easy to police in any capacity, though, given you can just say "Popular cartoon mouse" in your prompt instead of "Mickey" and it'll spit out the same thing.

Case in point, here's Grimace storming the capitol

 

[rageofthegods]

View attachment 28476
View attachment 28477
Case in point, here's Grimace storming the capitol

I never trusted that grinning demon.

 

[Skold]

 

[AvoidTIMtation]

Someone on twitter correctly pointed out the hypocrisy of Disney not allowing a father to put Spiderman on his son's grave only to sign a billion dollar deal with a company that will allow people to make videos with their characters interacting with Hitler.

The biggest problems with AI to me is accelerated destruction of critical thinking. The human brain is being diluted in record time especially in younger generation. ChatGPT is doing everybody's work for them. Along with the fact that a couple of years from now (or sooner) most people won't know or even bother care to decide what's real and what's not. AI slop, even that stuff that LOOKS like slop, is already fooling a lot of people.

 

[Rhian]

Simply, AI is really good at mimicry but it itself cannot think and truly problem solve in ways that’s described or needed. If it doesn’t know something it’ll just make stuff up because being wrong (from my understanding of how it’s trained, I should add) garners a negative reaction so it’ll try it’s best to avoid that any way possible.

The only benefit to this I think is that it focuses your ability to police IP in all of the other models more efficiently.

It would make sense but when applied practically it just doesn’t work. The idea of protecting IP is laughable as there’s numerous instances where content was stolen without permission to build their product; the cat has left the bag for quite a while. Pair that with people directly feeding it content (private or not) which gets passed internally to "improve" future output, it’s nearly impossible to protect anything by their rightful owners. And don’t forget that how 'AI' does it is a mystery because it’s all a "'black box'" and rarely is there an attempt at labeling original sources.

It makes this line from the announcement mean nothing:

Together, the companies will advance human-centered AI that respects the creative industries

What happens when the other AI models copy and learn from it (because they will)? Franky I’m not convinced what ways this could be a boon for Disney in the long term—or short term for that matter—despite what the press release says.

 

[Mad Dog]

I'm no fan of AI, overt fealty/reliance on smartphones for the simplest of tasks, or even most of social media. But the engineers that created it have opened Pandora's Box, and now the tech industry has to live with their Frankenstein.

 

[Tobias]

Iger really wants to torch any goodwill of coming back, huh?

As someone else said on socials, Disney has made copyrights into a fortress. Protecting the brand and character integrity is something they'll go after anyone for...just like Google for using AI of their characters which by the way that was reported today as well!

Disney paying a billion for Open AI is pretty much opening the fortress doors and telling everyone where to shoot the missiles. They're literally sending their characters to the slop mines to chase a market trend that just isn't stable.

This really feels like one of the stupidest decisions they've made in a long while, and that's saying something.