Streaming giant Netflix has recently been embroiled in controversy after it posted a listing for an Artificial Intelligence job, paying up to almost US$900,000 per year, during the actors and writers strike.
Netflix recently posted a job — officially titled as Product Manager for its Machine Learning Platform — advertising that it’ll pay between USD$300,000 to $900,000 (AUD$1,355,044.50) per year, located in their Los Gatos office. According to the Screen Actor Guild, per news.com.au, actors in the US earn less than US$26,000 a year.
According to the job listing, it said that “Machine learning/artificial intelligence is powering innovation, from personalisation for members to optimizing our payment processing and other revenue-focused initiatives.”
The Intercept also reported that the job listing originally stated that AI was helping the streaming giant by “[creating] great content”. Journalist Ken Klippenstein — who wrote about the Netflix listing — called out the change in a recent tweet.
“The Machine Learning Platform (MLP) provides the foundation for all of this innovation. It offers ML/AI practitioners across Netflix the means to achieve the highest possible impact with their work by making it easy to develop, deploy and improve their machine-learning models,” the job listing currently reads.
Comedian and actor Rob Delaney told The Intercept: “So $900k/yr per soldier in their godless AI army when that amount of earnings could qualify thirty-five actors and their families for SAG-AFTRA health insurance is just ghoulish.
“Having been poor and rich in this business, I can assure you there’s enough money to go around; it’s just about priorities.”
Other folks on Twitter have also called out Netflix for the controversial job post.
Netflix’s official Instagram account has also been flooded with comments from people who are criticising them for not paying their actors and writers.
One of the main concerns SAG-AFTRA was the preferred use of AI in films, which could make the need for actors obsolete.
Recently, Netflix debuted its first AI show, Deep Fake Love. A Spanish reality TV dating show that utilises deep fake technology. We also previously touched on Nicki Minaj‘s reaction to her face being used in another deep fake show, Deep Fake Neighbour Wars.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG national executive director and chief negotiator, said in early July: “ [big studios] propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan of their image, their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity.”
Ugh, it’s super dystopian. It’s like we’re living in a real-life version of Black Mirror.
Image Source: Getty Images / David McNew
