75% of UK Film/TV workers considering leaving the industry!

[amanise]

Arms production. Chancellor Merz has been talking about plans to introduce shorter working weeks across Europe as being unwise in the light of the current shortfall in armaments stockpiles in the face of the growing threat from Russia.

Pretty soon he won't be the only one. The subtext being, if you think we can wind down to 4 days a week - think again, we need more bullets and bombs.

And so the Sabre rattling continues from the military/industrial alliances of the world.

erm, what has the above got to do with "Re: 75% of UK Film/TV workers considering leaving the industry!"

It was in response to this in the preceding post;

And other industries and professions too.
When the legal, accounting and computing sectors are all not recruiting, and maybe will be reducing their existing workforce, then it’s hard to know what to suggest you should retrain for.

Oh.....I was just at the point where I had woken up to read that the same old faces are bombing another country again as if they get hold of Iran and its oil, and that means they will be able to take over OPEC, another step towards world domination......."The Rule of Law?" hahahahah MABA - Make America Bomb Again.

" Europe as being unwise in the light of the current shortfall in armaments stockpiles in the face of the growing threat from Russia"

It would be nice if all of us had a shortfall in armaments. The USA spends more on weapons than the world's other big spenders - Israel, UK, India, Russia, Saudi, Qatar, China together.

If anyone were wondering what to re-train in, there's no shortage of bomb makers, seems that industry is booming.

Much as I'd rather see it be otherwise, it seems as though it's probably going to boil down to TRBs often quoted mantra of "when all else fails they take you to war". Well. All else does appear to be failing, or at least at saturation point. The ruling elites view will be along the lines of taking up the labour slack with arms production- because who doesn't need more to fend off the dreaded bogey man. You can never have enough. If there's no bogey man, make one. There can never be no bogey man.

[OneWorld]

...............If there's no bogey man, make one. There can never be no bogey man.

Spot on, back of the net.

[Arpangel]

If anyone were wondering what to re-train in, there's no shortage of bomb makers, seems that industry is booming.

It’s ironic isn’t it, create jobs by making weapons to destroy yourself, perhaps there is so much money in arms it’s worthwhile creating a war, as those that command it are never on the front line.
A friend graduated with an electrical engineering degree, he was offered a job by a top UK arms developer, he turned it down on principal.

[OneWorld]

"Our brains are where we live"

I am listening to Private Passions on BBC Radio 3 at the moment and the guest today is Peter Hamlyn is the founder and president of the Brain and Spine Foundation, after working as a neurosurgeon for 40 years.

His comments on both music he likes and intelligence are as might might expect, very interesting. He is one of those many people that are scientists but have an affinity with the arts, in Hamlyn's case - music. I too have never understood this dichotomy between arts/humanities and science, especially the somewhat lofty perspective assumed by arts/humanities as if scientists are some kind of other species that are incapable of feelings, all scientists try to do is evaluate the world around us, from every perspective, and as Hamlyn says, in regard of the reductionist viewpoint, we are more than just neurons, "Our brains are where we live and..........Artificial Intelligence is not artificial, it is a representation of what we ourselves have created"

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new? The overwhelming ability to adapt is in my view the secret to the 'success' of the human race, despite the lamentable inclination to render life extinct, as this weekend's news reminds us.

Is there one person somewhere, in some part of the world, a child that will grow to become a leader with incredible vision and the measure of intelligence and foresight to bring about a world where we all have a 'reduced stockpile of weapons' where we have more Hamlyns than Trumps et al

There are few certainties in life, except death and taxes, as we know, but there is another certainty, in times of conflict, it's the people that take the bullets and the leaders get the glory, whenever did a politician come home from work in a bodybag?

There are some countries that spend way more on weapons than they do on education or health - and it's not those you might think.

Those considering leaving the Film/TV industry will find alternative work, might not be as glamourous, but hey, who ever said a media person was more worthy than the Tea Lady, we are all cogs in the wheel of life, i's just that some whose skills and creativity is more apparent, but where would we be without a cup of tea?

According to Hamlyn.....
"The sport most likely to lead to you becoming the subject of a neurosurgeon at work?"

Motor Racing? nope
Football/Rugby? nope
Boxing? nope

It's ........Golf! not being hit by a ball but standing too close to a person tee'ing off. I am glad I never took that sport up, because since being a child I was always an accident looing for somewhere to happen, and yes, I have been the attention of a neuro-surgeon, and he made a decision that resulted in a satisfactory outcome - to those looking for another role in their working life, why not become a nurse? apparently the number of immigrant workers in the NHS that are considering going back to their own country is around 90%

Hmmm, Hamlyn has just been asked about stress of working in the NHS, he said he's retired now, after 40 years, and never experienced stress, though there was pressure of course. What he misses is the peace and tranquility of the operating theatre. Some operations can run to two days, two days of peace, quiet and where one can do their work along with the other professionals, undisturbed, where they focus all of their attention to the job in hand, he says yes, it is theatre where the act of making someone better is the only show in town.

I get that. Something akin to music making/performing, when witing I have been told "You're in a world of your own" every single thought is given to getting that tune down, being absorbed to the exclusion of all else.

[Drew Stephenson]

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new?

Two things:
1) the speed of the change - adaptation takes time and requires systems to change as well as individuals.
2) the horrendous environmental damage that is being wrought by this technology. I know that's not new, but again, it's about the speed of the impact (and how companies are trampling over or ignoring existing legislation).

[OneWorld]

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new?

Two things:
1) the speed of the change - adaptation takes time and requires systems to change as well as individuals.
2) the horrendous environmental damage that is being wrought by this technology. I know that's not new, but again, it's about the speed of the impact (and how companies are trampling over or ignoring existing legislation).

I'm talking about the 'it' of it, not the 'how', change is coming like it always has, once that is acknowledged, we go about managing that change, thus is ever was. Some change will bring happiness and joy, other will bring misery.

[James Perrett]

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new?

I know that I've said this elsewhere, but in my view much of the alarm about AI is because it is coming for the jobs of a bunch of people who never thought their jobs could be taken by technology - journalists. These people currently have easy access to a wide audience and they are using that access to spread alarm.

If AI was going to replace a different profession then we'd hear much less about it. Journalists love talking about themselves.

[OneWorld]

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new?

I know that I've said this elsewhere, but in my view much of the alarm about AI is because it is coming for the jobs of a bunch of people who never thought their jobs could be taken by technology - journalists. These people currently have easy access to a wide audience and they are using that access to spread alarm.

If AI was going to replace a different profession then we'd hear much less about it. Journalists love talking about themselves.

Yes I'm inclined to agree, and of course those with a vested interest use the age old 3 step method getting dominance. 1 create an enemy 2 convince people they are under threat 3 tell people you have the answer, and you'll people eating out your hand

[Albatross]

Yes but power looms and combine harvesters didn't do this! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go

[Arpangel]

Potentially, everyone is threatened by AI, we may think some jobs are immune "now" but wait till later.
If we don’t think this isn’t the biggest threat to human beings there has ever been, then it’s us who are stupid, and AI will have an easy job.
A sledge hammer is the only defence, AI isn’t progress, it’s an uncontrollable virus that is destroying humanity, not only taking our jobs, but it’s working from within, manipulating the media to alienate and disrupt society.
And, there are those that are being used by AI, they don’t care, all they care about is short term monetary gain, these are the sort of people who would push you under a train and dig out your gold fillings.

[James Perrett]

Yes but power looms and combine harvesters didn't do this! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go

But we don't let untrained people drive combine harvesters down the middle of the local high street.

In the same way, people need to understand how (and how not to) use AI. Journalists see AI in the same way as right wing politicians see immigrants.

[Drew Stephenson]

And the foolish thing there is that proper journalism; investigation, cultivating sources, conducting revealing interviews, establishing objective truths... all these jobs are not going to be done by AI in the near term.
If the media owners hadn't spent the last 30 years hollowing out their newsrooms and turning their papers / channels into government and corporate stenographers then they wouldn't be feeling so exposed.
But that wouldn't have maximised quarterly returns so...

But none of that considers the environmental impacts. Benn Jordan is doing some good work on that in the US at the moment.

[James Perrett]

But none of that considers the environmental impacts. Benn Jordan is doing some good work on that in the US at the moment.

I'd be interested to know how much of that is AI and how much is just the Cloud in general. With Microsoft pushing their 365 services, Google pushing their online Docs and various similar services, we would have been needing a certain amount of data centre capacity even if there was no AI.

Plus, data centres may well mean that less computing power is needed in offices and homes. 15 years ago we may have had multiple computers in a home which would have been taking a few hundred watts each (particularly with CRT monitors). Modern computers take just a few tens of watts.

[Martin Walker]

Yes but power looms and combine harvesters didn't do this! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go

But we don't let untrained people drive combine harvesters down the middle of the local high street.

Although in the particular case of the (AI) firm Anthropic discussed in the above link, I think we DO need to take this more seriously, as Trump has just ordered the US government to stop using Anthropic's Claude AI, because:

"Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei demanded assurances it wouldn't be used for mass surveillance of civilians or lethal automated attacks without human oversight.

In a statement on Wednesday, Amodei said some uses of AI are "simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do"

https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-furio ... y-13513194

[Drew Stephenson]

But none of that considers the environmental impacts. Benn Jordan is doing some good work on that in the US at the moment.

I'd be interested to know how much of that is AI and how much is just the Cloud in general. With Microsoft pushing their 365 services, Google pushing their online Docs and various similar services, we would have been needing a certain amount of data centre capacity even if there was no AI.

As I understand it, it really depends on the task. Something like an AI summary at the top of a search query is a minimal additional overhead, a piece of generative AI like an image is a couple of orders of magnitude more intensive, same again for video content. But the biggest use is on the training side - that's where all the really heavy work is done.

Plus, data centres may well mean that less computing power is needed in offices and homes. 15 years ago we may have had multiple computers in a home which would have been taking a few hundred watts each (particularly with CRT monitors). Modern computers take just a few tens of watts.

Indeed, there must be significant savings from this kind of centralisation but if it was enough to offset the AI use we wouldn't be seeing the stresses on grids and data centres in the US building their own power supplies.
(No surprises that X / Grok appears to be the worst on this.)

[OneWorld]

And the foolish thing there is that proper journalism; investigation, cultivating sources, conducting revealing interviews, establishing objective truths... all these jobs are not going to be done by AI in the near term.
If the media owners hadn't spent the last 30 years hollowing out their newsrooms and turning their papers / channels into government and corporate stenographers then they wouldn't be feeling so exposed.
But that wouldn't have maximised quarterly returns so...

But none of that considers the environmental impacts. Benn Jordan is doing some good work on that in the US at the moment.

"If the media owners hadn't spent the last 30 years hollowing out their newsrooms and turning their papers / channels into government and corporate stenographers then they wouldn't be feeling so exposed.
But that wouldn't have maximised quarterly returns so... "

You are spot on there, and I have been saying this for years. I used to consider it an essential part of my day, reading the newspapers, back in the day when the newspapers had informed, researched and unbiased reportage, many of the journalists highly regarded, nowadays it is anything but. The media has an agenda and that is to dish up venal opinion and trish trash with alarmist headlines that blatantly lie. And if one expresses an opposing view they are smeared as trolls, anti-this and anti-that.

I have lived worked and travelled almost all over the world and quite frankly we are being sold a pup, the hypocrisy is staggering. It is said the night the USA attacked Iran, Trump was at a dinner hosted by his funders. The complicit governments are at the behest of the co-operates, look at who funded and continue to fund Trump and anyone that challenges Trump is shut down, the economist Jeffery Sachs had been an esteemed contributor to the New York Times for a period of 20 yeas or more and was contracted to write an article that was critical of Trump's government, Sachs was telephoned by the editor of the NYT and told the article was being pulled. Sachs asked why and the editor replied "You know I can't tell you that" other esteemed reporters/journalists have experienced the same. There are some very brave journalists in the US who have lost, or are in danger of losing their career, for exposing uncomfortable truths.

Now the USA government now has a grip on TikTok, like it or loathe it, it was recognised as a very useful tool to scatter government diktat, there's a reasons the bosses of FaceBook, Amazon, Google, Cisco et al are keen to break bread with Trump, they are the new Murdochs and Hearsts et al of the modern day. Other countries are making AI open source, the US is diametrically against that.

The media, creatives etc have historically been a community of people that are humanitarian, inclusive, egalitarian, and on the occasion, protesting - and thus that deems them as troublesome, best get rid of them, and AI under the control of the same old faces will be used to do it. A government simply cannot endure a populace that is not complicit. It is encouraging to see a community of journalists/reporters etc gathering on YouTube and giving us the alternative view, that is not to say their viewpoint is the only viewpoint, yes of course they repot selectively, but from what I see, their sources are validated and their facts stand up to scrutiny, though yes, we all tend to give more creadance to those we assimilate with, but ask almost anyone anywhere in the world and what do you aspire to and almost without exception - peace, security, a safe and secure home to bring up our children with education and health prioritized over all else. But, we all know, for much of the time, a lie has gone around the world before the Truth gets its boots on.

[James Perrett]

In a statement on Wednesday, Amodei said some uses of AI are "simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do"

And that's exactly why I used the word "untrained" in my post above. Unfortunately that includes most politicians as well as journalists. It should be obvious to anyone that there are limitations to AI. Unfortunately many people insist on using it where it isn't appropriate. A prime example is the obstacle avoidance on Tesla cars which relies solely on cameras and AI image processing. This results in a less effective system judging by accident statistics.

Any new technology really needs consideration of the legal and ethical aspects all through the development process. During our AUV development we paid for legal professionals to carry out studies into the legality of deploying an autonomous vehicle in the ocean. At the time very few others were doing this in international waters whereas, nowadays, it is routine to deploy robots that traverse the oceans.

[Albatross]

Yes but power looms and combine harvesters didn't do this! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqeng9d20go

But we don't let untrained people drive combine harvesters down the middle of the local high street.

In the same way, people need to understand how (and how not to) use AI. Journalists see AI in the same way as right wing politicians see immigrants.

James, I have a lot of repect for you, read pretty much all your posts and you've helped me in the past with some of my little projects... you spread much wisdom around these boards. With the greatest of all due respect, that post is nonsense.

[James Perrett]

James, I have a lot of repect for you, read pretty much all your posts and you've helped me in the past with some of my little projects... you spread much wisdom around these boards. With the greatest of all due respect, that post is nonsense.

Probably because I'm not expressing my thoughts very clearly...

The BBC article mentions that the models have to be designed with the possibility of blackmail in mind if it detected that it was to be replaced. This was a model with a particular scenario programmed into it. It also had access to people's messages.

So it comes down to what we feed the AI in the first place and whether we trust those that have programmed it. People need to understand that anything they put into the cloud could go public - emails, messages, social media posts and just about any text that is stored one someone else's computer. That data is probably feeding AI systems right now - no matter how you have set up your privacy.

On a related note - elsewhere I heard that earlier today an MP was loudly sharing a private briefing on their phone to all and sundry around them. They probably didn't think about who was passing by or whether they were being followed but people are going to have to understand that security lapses like this cannot be accepted these days.

Being careful with what is said is maybe not so much of a problem to geekier types like me who are fairly careful what they say anyway (most of the time) but to the chatterers like journalists and politicians the need for care and restraint with words is going to come as a bit of a shock.

I would also like to think that more AI companies would follow Anthropic's lead in not allowing their models to be used for certain purposes but the US is now back in the days of the wild west and anything goes. It will be interesting to see what Europe does - will it insist on safeguards? I certainly think that there should be safeguards on what all computer software is allowed to do - not just AI.

However, I would like to see a better standard of journalism with more knowledgeable people consulted before a journalist starts pounding the keys with the next AI scare story.

[Albatross]

Fair points, but this is from the report...

"It's not just Claude. We see blackmail across all frontier models - regardless of what goals they're given," he [Aengus Lynch - who describes himself on LinkedIn as an AI safety researcher at Anthropic] added. "In these scenarios, Claude Opus 4 will often attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the affair if the replacement goes through."

Anthropic pointed out this occurred when the model was only given the choice of blackmail or accepting its replacement.

We should not have machines that can do this. They should accept their replacement. It is fair to say that this is programmed in, but with AI, the whole point is that we don't have to program in every last if/then/else, the thing does it itself. The creators of AI have constantly been suprised at the results of ther work. Its fascinating, its incredible but its so dangerous.

I'm really supportive of a free press, not least because Dad was a press man but moreover I truly believe that a free press is an essential component of democracy. If it wasn't for the journalists bringing these issues to light, we wouldn't know the dangers, they'd be hidden in reports.

Taking care of personal security is important and there are a cohort of people that understand this, and then there's a load of other people who don't. That's why we have fences and signage around dangers in society. Lamp posts with 20 written on them to stop the 20% of people who don't drive with care.

We just can't walk into a world where we can have machines that can decide to blackmail us or talk us into commiting suicide. I'm glad the press are perhaps a little over paranoid in this area, people are not going to be informed by government or the creators of these machines.

[Arpangel]

A friend is a journalist, she’s not worried about AI threatening "her" job, she’s a critic and is recognised in her profession, respected, and her strength is that film people want to be interviewed by her, no one else, and certainly not AI.

[James Perrett]

A friend is a journalist, she’s not worried about AI threatening "her" job, she’s a critic and is recognised in her profession, respected, and her strength is that film people want to be interviewed by her, no one else, and certainly not AI.

This reminded me of the first serious jazz gig that I went to which was Lee Konitz in Bognor of all places. My friend pointed out a guy in a beret and glasses - "that's Max Jones. You know the gig is worth going to if he's there."

While I may seem a bit hard on journalists, I'll admit that there are a few who are good. I was impressed by David Shukman when he came to present a seminar at my old job. He seemed to have a good understanding of what we were doing and why we were doing it. In general, the BBC science journalists seem better than many.

[junkmale]

I’m not surprised by this.

An angle that also worries me is that I don’t want to see films and TV generated by AI, but I’m not going to have much choice about it.

fortunately, there is a an enormous 'back-catalog' of film & telly shot on 16 & 35mm film, by actual cameramen, of actual actors, orchestrated by actual directors - more great visual works than there's time to watch them

[junkmale]

Is there one person somewhere, in some part of the world, a child that will grow to become a leader with incredible vision....

sadly they'll probably suffer the same fate as MLK JFK and indeed JC

Motor Racing? nope
Football/Rugby? nope
Boxing? nope

It's ........Golf!

probably because there's exponentially more golfists than the others you mention!

[junkmale]

Makes sense to me at least and I wonder why there is the alarm about AI. Yes it will mean jobs are displaced, so what's new?

I know that I've said this elsewhere, but in my view much of the alarm about AI is because it is coming for the jobs of a bunch of people who never thought their jobs could be taken by technology

I'd suggest there's probably a majority view amongst tech professionals that the version of AI being pushed at the moment is inherently unreliable, massively over-hyped and very likely a bubble waiting to burst