In June 2023, Paul Skye Lehrman and his partner Linnea Sage were driving near their home in New York City, listening to a podcast about the ongoing strikes in Hollywood and how artificial intelligence (AI) could affect the industry.
The episode was of interest because the couple are voice-over performers and - like many other creatives - fear that human-sounding voice generators could soon be used to replace them.
This particular podcast had a unique hook – they interviewed an AI-powered chat bot, equipped with text-to-speech software, to ask how it thought the use of AI would affect jobs in Hollywood.
But, when it spoke, it sounded just like Mr Lehrman.
That night they spent hours online, searching for clues until they came across the site of text-to-speech platform Lovo. Once there, Ms Sage said she found a copy of her voice as well.
They have now filed a lawsuit against Lovo. The firm has not yet responded to that or the BBC’s requests for comment.
That’s not even close to true though, it just makes it obvious you’ve never been on a building site, in a mine, smelting works, factory or pretty much any traditionally dangerous job.
Creative jobs aren’t widely displaced yet, there’s the hint of that in the future but as of now it’s still an increasing field, especially in content creation and marketing. Manufacturing jobs have been getting replaced rapidly, when my parents were kids a whistle would blow and machinists would flood out the two factories and fill the pubs and streets, now both factories have closed because one factory can make and transport them far cheaper with a thousandth of the workforce. We do have factories in this areas still, they make much more complex things but the majority of their workforce is in the offices because CNC and CV assisted QC replaced the need for people to lug heavy things or twiddle control knobs all day.
I have friends that fucked their back up in their twenties carrying bricks up ladders, this job was common twenty five years ago but is virtually nonexistent now because of automation (largely factory based automation allowing prefab pieces and labour saving tools to out compete people working for minimum wage)
Yes it’s a fun and funny thing to say and I understand the sentiment but look at old pathe news reels showing how farming happens and compare them to a modern farm, automation has been helping people avoid backbreaking labour for decades - they don’t even drive the tractors on a lot of farms these days.
I get what you’re saying. I did bristle a bit at first over the “traditionally dangerous job” bit because I very much did a dangerous job. But you’re right that I didn’t grow up in a manufacturing town or work a factory job. So it would seem automation has already hit the dirty jobs sector pretty hard, it’s just coming for the creative and professional class now. So our thinking about how it’s supposed to work is just behind by a generation.
I wonder how much of our current “affordability” crisis has to do with half the factories and 99% of the workforce being replaced but not necessarily compensated out of the increased productivity? Sure some people were able to step up to higher paying jobs controlling the automation but it’s a rule in economics that not everyone can be promoted or get higher paying jobs. It follows in some schools of thought that workers losing a job through no fault of their own should be compensated.