TRUE, we in the Arts are, as a constituency, somewhat fragmented, and are also underestimated due to no fault of our own. Still, this stage will not persist with the varied market forces and available technology; the arts and cultural industries of this country will hold their own, inevitably.

We must never permit apathy to envelop us, allowing our ignorance to anchor our awareness into the stagnant pond of self-ruin. One of the most significant struggles against creative livelihoods has been occurring for some time now in North America. The threat of the use of the technology of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is such that one scan of actors’ bodies (for actors; especially background actors) and a cheque would give the studio the life service of that image in full life movement for the rest of the actors days on earth and beyond.

The fact is, this is not something new altogether; I’m referring to having old-school models and actor images in 3D pictures product advertising, and even then, there was a limitation on the duration of an image on a billboard, for the few of us around to the fade out period of the old advertising clip art images.

I am one of the first people to develop local fine art for current and historical advertising usages for the simple reason that everyone had access to clipart. It happened where, like the time when the same ‘Three Wise Men’ ended up one Christmas morning on a page in almost every ‘ad’ from different agencies. Luckily, I had created mine, and didn’t have to fight my client to get paid. But, of course, I was inspired by clipart, which sometimes used models in angels, etc. But those models were paid for each ‘ad’ shoot edition.

What is proposed now in the US of A is a callous extermination of a person’s right to earn, as they should, each time they’re committed to the stage, whether the stage is a street, a beach, or in a yard scene. Why is this happening? Because, as I’ve always lamented, the arts can only be managed by artists. Most of the creative souls that established the monolith American Global Entertainment Industry have passed, or are out of the business. Now, you have a super-rich caste of callous producers and CEOs who’re interested in the money and not particularly the talents.

I’ve always maintained that from my experience, most of the promoters I’ve worked with seem to have a deep-seated envy for talent, and express a desire to underpay; not pay, and sometimes humiliate them. This is not only exclusive of promoters and producers; I learnt only last year that the artist who had contracted the Burrowes School of Art team to create the masks for my play, ‘Shadow of the Jaguar’ in1992, which I didn’t produce, did not pay them. I have promised myself, and hope that other artists do so, to be involved in every area of your stuff, if you license it, put it all in the contract.

Some time ago, I commented on AI, Online. It was based on my reference to the opinion of the entrepreneur, Elon Musk, whose endeavours include the rocketry business SpaceX, which is aimed at seeing a human colony on Mars within his lifetime. Mr. Musk described AI as “summoning the Demon” and “the creation of a rival to human intelligence as possibly the greatest threat facing the world.” And he is not alone. –The Economist May 9-15,2015.

My reference to Musk’s statement led to the contact by John Kontos, Athens University, who is seasoned in the evolution of AI. With limited space, I can only refer to page 4, paragraphs 1&2 of this Academic letter by Kontos, titled, MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOFTWARE SYNTHESIS:- “Programmers understand less and less of their programs, as all the operation of their complexity rises above a certain level. This is really dangerous if those programs control critical infrastructure systems like air traffic control systems, power stations and energy grids, but also systems like airplanes and trains.

It is urgent that a new type of software engineering be developed for the implementation of computer systems that ‘know themselves’ and can give crucial answers to the “what if ” and “Why” questions of their users in cases of emergency or failure. Artificial Intelligence can be of help with methods resulting from the research results in the fields of machine consciousness.

Eventually, software systems supporting debugging with explanations of their failures or anomalous behavior will be very useful.”
The manifestation of AI so far in 2023 has cast a dark shadow, as the ‘Marina Fang’ coverage of the plight of Writers, actors and especially background actors face {please visit}. By the grim reality of efforts to render them displaced by the callous usage of this technology. In the very Academia letter by John Kontos, though not referring in this context, A-I can render larger amounts of humans impoverished if not applied with ‘People in mind’