moderator
Megan K. Smith, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
panelists
Brian Ahern, WME
Mike Mauer, SaveLive / Sparrow
Jason Thomas, Tapit
Ed Ulbrich “Metaphysics”
The rise of artificial intelligence has been so rapid and pervasive in society's consciousness with such suddenness that all of its risks, pitfalls, and benefits have been confused. It's important to remember that AI has many different meanings, each with different drawbacks and benefits.
“What we were seeing during the[writers and actors]strike was that all aspects of AI were merging into this one AI Borg that was trying to capture us all.” said Ed Ulbrich of Metaphysical AI. “So a lot of what we have to do is educate people about what we're doing and how we're creating content, but there's a lot of fear.”
But in reality, as he said, “The genie is out of the bottle,” and artists and their teams (and venues and their teams, and promoters and their teams) can harness that power and protect themselves from evil spirits. We have plans for how to protect both. danger.
“You have to have a strategy,” says Tapit's Jason Thomas. “To gain an advantage, you need to use data to your advantage.…Organizations have little information about their customer base. Festivals and venues only know 25% of their customers by name.”
And that kind of analysis is handled very well by AI. WME's Blaine Ahern said agents have been trying to secure the data promoters and venues have on ticket buyers “since I was an assistant coming out of the mailroom.”
“Having access to data means we can sell to fans in a more efficient way. We will be able to sell more tickets and merchandise in the long run. But there are a lot of gatekeepers of data and It prevents us from doing what we should be doing,” he said.
Viewing behavior and ticket buying behavior are good indicators of future ticket buying trends, but for years they were really the only data points anyone had. Mike Mauer of SaveLive/Sparrow said these proven and true data points only scratch the surface.
“AI is very good at finding trends and doing analysis in places we didn’t know existed. “We have 200 markers to show you. We're going to discover correlations that we've never seen before,” he said, and all the agents in the room got excited.
That's good news.
The bad news is that the US doesn't really understand the elements of protection. Can you copyright your AI-generated likeness or your biometric information? This is still a litigious issue, as we await lawsuits, administrative hearings, and proposed legislation. In the meantime, “we are light years behind China and the EU,” said Megan K. Smith, but artist teams must respond by: We are wary not only of the misuse of their likenesses, but also of their voices.
And the time to do it is…well, maybe yesterday, but now is fine.
“This industry has always been plagued by short-termism and lack of prospects,” Thomas said. “Either embrace AI as an opportunity, or you'll be in trouble.”
