Post

It really doesn't make sense to attribute those job losses to AI-the-technology, because if that were the case we'd be observing AI outputs displacing conventional entertainment products, and they're clearly not. Rather, the impact of AI is that AI-the-business is crowding out other investment.

In both film and video games, you see a ton of *project cancellations* and a general difficulty in funding new projects, which wouldn't be the case if AI was displacing workers in producing those products—you'd expect the opposite, in fact, if it was becoming cheaper to make a movie/game.

But the crowding out is extremely obvious to see, in particular, in video games because just Microsoft by itself is responsible for a huge proportion of the bleeding because they're explicitly divesting from Xbox to plug the gaping financial ulcer that is OpenAI.

Declines also just correlate with the rise of the AI bubble on somewhat coincidental terms. *all* at-home entertainment was overinvested in during the peak of covid, and we're experiencing a hangover crash from that, for example, which is now being compounded by AI-driven misinvestment.

What is happening is not that AI-generated cultural goods are replacing human-made cultural goods; what is happening is that capital is flowing out of the production of cultural goods *entirely,* making us all poorer for it.

If you want really clear evidence that this displacement is not happening: US domestic box office, as of today, totals about $7.7b. Last year it was $8.6; it's still September and we have the whole holiday season to go, box office will undoubtedly grow YOY.

And you might think "well they're replacing film workers with AI", except how the fuck is AI supposed to replace a gaffer? Movie budgets have not meaningfully dropped; they're not shooting fewer days to make a movie.

It's also important to understand the current moment in the entertainment industries as one in which the large corporations that run these sectors are engaged in disciplining their labor forces through mass unemployment, using the investment crunch as a window of opportunity to do so.

It is really important to understand that anyone trying to claim this is a "technological transition" is either deeply misguided or trying to sell you something. What this is, is a deliberate act of harm being done by people with names and addresses.

I imagine if you took the tech VC money out of the entertainment industry, pound-for-pound everything is working less well, making less money and being seen less widely? They really did just break so much