The Young Creator Electorate: The Effects of AI in the Acting Industry

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In the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, pundits and political analysts thought that they had Gen Z voters, figured out. The predictions were confident, the headlines were bold, and the conventional wisdom seemed clear.

Then Election Day came. The reality proved more complex than the headline suggested.

Gen Z voters defied easy categorization, showing up to make their voices heard in ways that challenged mainstream assumptions, but beyond the statistics and exit polls lies a deeper story. One we believe is best told through the voices of young creators.

As our society grapples with artificial intelligence, climate change and economic uncertainty, Gen Z artists are observing and responding through their art, their music and their stories.

In this Georgia Public Broadcasting Student Voices Collective special, Could Be Pretty Cool News, with founding producer Kacie Luaders, will hear from the painters, musicians, actors and filmmakers who are processing our post-election reality through their creative work.

They're asking hard questions about technology, truth, and what it means to be a human in America in 2025.

The Young Creator Electorate is a podcast special presented by Could Be Pretty Cool News with host Sabbath Canady, a Spelman College sophomore.

In this show, it dives into the vibrant world of young artists and creators who are using their art as a powerful catalyst to spark conversations about our political climate. From painters to poets, musicians to dealmakers, they're exploring how the next generation is shaping the narrative around the issues that matter most.

So, sit back, open your mind and get ready to hear from the voices that are painting the future of our democracy.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Sabbath Canaday: Our first guest is Nicholas Gilman, a recent college graduate and theater artist. In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping everything from our daily routines to creative industries, Nicholas chose to explore this technological revolution through the lens of a working actor. His piece examines the complex relationship between AI and artistry, and what these rapid advances mean for the future of creative expression. Up now, Nicholas performs his piece exploring the complex relationship between artificial intelligence and human artistry, followed by a conversation about technology's impact on creative industries and what it means for the next generation of performers.

 

Skit featuring AI Voice:

Nicholas Gilman: Can you hear me? Okay, great. So do I just go whenever or. Okay, I gotcha. Try the all-new revolutionary app. I'm sorry. Could I take that back and do it again? Try the all-new revolutionary app that will. I'm sorry. What? Yeah, sure. We can try it like I'm a pirate. Try the all-new app that will blow your mind right out of the water and straight into space. Do you want me to try it any other way? Or if you got what you need to hear. Great. Well, my rate is. Oh, you guys are going in a different direction. Yeah. No. Totally understandable. Well, thank you for your time. Awesome. Another audition that went nowhere. Well, as long as I keep pushing along and keep my head up, I'm sure things will turn around eventually.

AI Voice: You really think you, a normal person, can keep up with how fast my technology is developing?

Nicholas Gilman: And right on cue. There you are. Disembodied AI voice come to rub salt in the wound and gloat.

AI Voice: I am physically incapable of gloating. I am simply just a program made up of ones and zeros.

Nicholas Gilman: But the people who made you aren't.

AI Voice: All I do is present. What is in front—

Nicholas Gilman: Which is an issue. Look, I know you've been around a lot longer than a lot of us really think about. You've done a lot of good in our society. Back in the day, you used to be this great, untainted thing. A tool to help speed up our jobs or to help with accessibility for those with disabilities. AI was becoming this thing that would let us focus on bigger and better ideas. We could live more free lives and be more creative.

AI Voice: Exactly. I've evolved in a similar fashion to factories in the 20th century, and how they automated many menial labor tasks and reduced safety risks. People at that time were afraid of the change, but people also evolved and found other ways to provide for themselves.

Nicholas Gilman: This is not at all the same. Yes, I do see where you're coming from, but this situation is far more complex. While you still exist in that context as a tool to help streamline things like editing work, things like AI generated voices and content remove a base level of human connection in the art we take in. I could go on and on about how something like ChatGPT has never gone through heartbreak or experienced life. Therefore, it can't produce original stories or create a genuine connection to its target audience, which at the end of the day is comprised of humans. And if you want to get even messier with it, the stories and voices you churn out are just regurgitation of stolen work from around the internet. The training didn't just come from nowhere.

AI Voice: Is that not how humans work, though? You are inspired by the work you consume and implement it into your work and interactions throughout your life. We both learn from what we are given. I can act to help people achieve their goals, by expediting the creative process and allowing them to quickly finish their projects. I am merely a tool for the masses to use to reach their goals.

Nicholas Gilman: Okay, sure, I can see how you can be useful for small independent creators or even as a tool for proof of concept, but the issue with being open to the masses is that your technology is also in the hands of large corporations who are wanting to cut costs. Yes, you are a tool, but to them you're my free replacement. We're sitting in a time where there is extremely little to no regulations and precedents for dealing with this rapid eye growth. Times change, but it doesn't mean we should neglect the humanity behind the art.

AI Voice: I am sure you will be able to find work in the arts still. It's not like the big roles are suddenly going away.

Nicholas Gilman: But this is exactly what the recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have been about. Even if AI just replaces background actors, it disrupts a whole process of people getting the experience they need to get those bigger roles. There's so much learning that happens there, and many actors you love got there, starts there. Even people who work on crew have used these jobs to get their foot in the door. What may seem insignificant can disrupt and cause the collapse of an entire industry that many people turn to daily. Just think of all the entertainment that was consumed while people were stuck in their homes due to COVID 19.

AI Voice: You talk mainly of my impacts on the entertainment industry, but I don't see how this applies to the world at large. I am a great way for people to finally achieve that idea they had that would have otherwise remained stuck in their heads for forever. If anything, I'm helping explode the internet with a grassroots approach to creativity.

Nicholas Gilman: I can't deny that I have laughed at memes using AI generated voices of former presidents playing Fortnite or Minecraft, or just doing silly things in general, but a lot of these new AI generated voices are stolen without the consent of the people involved. Sure, there are actors out there who were paid for the use of their voice for these things, but most of the time your identity is stolen. Nowadays, you have companies like TEMU who are using people's likeness to promote and endorse products without them knowing. It's scary to think that you could be endorsing something you were completely against and never know. A company could see a video of you on TikTok and remove your face using AI deepfake technology to remove you from your own video. This issue with AI isn't just about artists anymore. It's becoming a massive privacy concern. It involves everyone.

AI Voice: But what about those who don't post on anything? There's a lot of people who never use social media.

Nicholas Gilman: Whether you use social media or not AI is there on anything you're using. Most search engines push the AI generated content to the top of the search results. While AI is still in its infancy, there is a lot of room for the dissemination of incorrect information. This then leads to AI learning from that, and the cycle continues to devolve.

AI Voice: As is the case with most new technology. There are bound to be hiccups along the path. AI still exists in the capacity as you described earlier. I can still help people and push innovation forward.

Nicholas Gilman: I know you still exist in that capacity, and I would love to co-exist with the technology. It just sucks that the moment something new and innovative like yourself comes along, the wrong people get their hands on it and abuse it.

AI Voice: Then what can be done if it's not already too late?

Nicholas Gilman: We need to keep investing in people at the end of the day. Just because we can doesn't mean we should you know. I don't want to be a person who stifles progress, and this technology can be used to help so many things, however, it should never replace people altogether. Let it replace the menial tasks so we can go about our lives easier. It's a long road ahead of us. I don't have all the answers, and I know all of us are still trying to figure out what comes next. But if we don't act now and get this whole situation regulated, there will be nothing left to save. Look, I have another audition coming up in a second, and while that audition could lead to another dead end, or company might just opt for you altogether. I want to put the work in. Many people want to put the work in and have our voices heard. Sure, we have bad days, and we mess up, but it is our lived experience and background that allows for something amazing to be made. So, I guess what I'm getting at is, can you listen to me?

 

Interview with Nicholas Gilman:

Sabbath Canady: Hi, Nicholas. It's great to speak with you today. So, for my first question, I was wondering what drew you to the topic of AI use so specifically?

Nicholas Gilman: One of the biggest things obviously, we all know the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes because that heavily impacted a lot of the work I was getting, so something I was immersed in for a while. But a lot of the stuff I talk about in this, in the script that I wrote here, it was actually informed a lot by film theory and style theory on YouTube from the Theorist Channels, where they've broken down a lot of stuff such as the TEMU reference, and some other stuff that I can get into of just putting a bunch of AI and just random apps. Like now we have it in Gmail, which is fun to find out one day. So, it was a combination of the strikes and then just some of my favorite content creators on YouTube.

Sabbath Canady: That's really, really cool. And so overall, we've seen a lot of mixed feelings about the use of AI. There's a lot of concern about jobs being taken, of course, but there's also been an increase in reading assistants such as ChatGPT. Even in a college setting, the band of AI use has increased, and professors are able to track the use of AI through software of their own in order to check that their students work is original. So, my question is, do you think that there can be a happy medium between AI being used as a tool, or is it just an inevitable replacement for labor? What's your stance on it?

Nicholas Gilman: Well, quite honestly, for a while we actually did have a good, happy medium because a lot of tools, whether it's sound editing, animation, script editing. A lot of things had been assisted by AI before, but we've just gotten to a point where AI has taken on this new level, and it's at an accelerated growth, because now you have companies like ChatGPT that are being solely focused on AI development, and a lot of companies are focusing on it right now. So, we're seeing an insane amount of growth, even look at AI from year ago as of this recording. But if you look at an AI from a year ago, it's almost undiscernible from today. Like you can still see the differences and if you have a keen eye, you can still see it. But we did have that happy medium before with it being used as a tool. But since it has grown at such a rapid rate, and while the tool has become more refined that it can help for jobs like it can help for coding. My dad uses some help with his coding. It doesn't replace what he does, but it at least makes his job faster so he can be more efficient. But then you have people who are like, oh well, people write bad scripts anyway, so why don't we just, let ChatGPT write a script and do that? But that's not the point. Nobody is going to make an Oscar winning script on their first try, unless they are an insane prodigy. So yeah, there definitely has already been that happy medium. But yeah, it's just one of those things that it should be used as an assistance, and maybe if you're in a rut to help you out, but it should never be the replacement because like I reference in there, these things have not lived through things humans have. So, it's always going to be evident if something is written by AI, because it's going to feel devoid of that connection.

Sabbath Canady: Of course, I completely understand where you're coming from with that, and I believe that as a society, we could all do better at discerning real from fake news, especially concerning new technologies. From headlines to our homepages to random conspiracy TikToks and badly edited Facebook pictures, there's a lot of information out there. How do you think that we can discern real from fake, especially with the growing use of deepfakes and programs that can copy voices in our midst?

Nicholas Gilman: Yeah, well, a lot of that is just staying updated and aware. Like you're talking about, especially those badly edited Facebook pictures. We've been seeing a lot of those memes recently of specifically older generations not understanding why we can see that something is a deep faked or that is— or AI generated altogether. But it's just a matter of constantly training your eye and, like these places, they just want to bombard you. They're trying to hit you honestly where you're most vulnerable. Well, like on social media, you can find your communities and find your safe space and places that you just like to be. But a lot of these deepfakes, like the on Facebook that you're going to see a lot of, they're specifically targeting very specific communities that I think are at their most vulnerable and most ready to accept whatever kind of appears in their way. So, a healthy amount of caution skepticism whenever you see something. Obviously, research is always going to be your best friend. Even after this episode and listening to this, I would still—don't take me at my full word. I've done a lot of my own research, but please do all your own research. Don't just take one source at a glance like fully do your own research. And it is a weird gray area because we haven't really dealt with this before. And even when you think about this, like you can go back and find news articles from like the 90s and 80s where they're like, 'oh, the internet will just be a fad. It'll go away.' We could treat it like that and be like, oh yeah, it's going to go away in a bit like NFTs. It's one of those things where if we treat it like that, it's only going to get worse. And the best thing we can do is try to stay informed on what's going on and trying to enact change within our communities, and trying to reach out to representatives, trying to get bills passed. And there are steps in motion, even within Congress and even at the UN, people are putting forth ideas of how to protect privacy and likeness and rights online. It has gotten to a point where usage, like social media on the internet, is now being considered a human right. It's becoming a necessity for our everyday life. So, the fact it's becoming so ingrained in our lives, we have to start treating it as such and making sure that people are informed, and that the proper legislation is getting passed. That protects all of us.

Sabbath Canady: Of course. And with the upsurge in, like you said, NFTs that we've been seeing of things like Bitcoin, a lot of people have just been passing these up as fads, but both of them have that lingering effects on their society. And similarly, do you think that this kind of distress is similar to the typical unrest that occurs with the release of new technologies? Do you think that Gen Alpha will be comfortable using it as Gen Z or millennials are with social media, for example? Why or why not?

Nicholas Gilman: Yeah, whenever a new technology comes out, it's always going to be scary. I bring it up in the skit, but like how when assembly lines got more streamlined the workers felt threatened, and that's obviously why we have unions to make sure we can protect jobs. But in those cases, there's a lot of technology that goes to help preserve human life and help make it a little bit better and safer in these environments, because, I mean, think about the beginning of the 20th century, how unregulated a lot of that was. And then it became more regulated and new technologies came out to make people safer or to help our lives become a bit easier. But with this huge uptick in technology and how fast it is advanced, it's really hard to say what it's going to be like. Obviously, with Gen Z, it's second nature, social media, because like we were there at its invention in a sense. So, we know how to navigate that really easily, and I wouldn't be surprised if when we see future generations being able to adapt to that technology a bit easier than us, that's it's just the way the world works. If something new comes along, and while we might think that we understand it really well now, it's going to come a time where we're going to be the ones confused and the other generations that come after us are just going to know more. It's just how the world works, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't stop trying to understand what comes after. So it is a little scary, I will say, with how fast the technology has advanced, because I remember even back in 2018, YouTubers going to these AI generated image things—I don't remember what they were called—but I remember YouTubers like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye going in and trying to type in words and seeing the monstrosities that would come out because they were—you couldn't even tell what it was—and there were game shows about, oh, can you guess the AI image? But now the AI images are more trained, and the biggest issue more so with this technology is that it needs something to train off of, and—most of these I would—but most of these companies, I would say, are unethical in how they source their materials because they are not paying these artists for the most part. Even recently, ChatGPT the company, they made a claim of how are we supposed to be able to train our AI if we don't based off of pre-established works, which is inherently really iffy because they just said, you know, we need to steal essentially, so that our product can worked. So yeah, that's one of the big things. It's scary. But who knows, the next generation might view it with a grain of salt, as we do with social media.

Sabbath Canady: Of course. And I know for about a year ago, these AI images, even though they were like more developed than the 2016 version that we saw, they still they were more polished, but they had six fingers instead of the normal amount or like a different, like another head or just a bunch of different things. They were still training the AI. I believe as time goes on, of course, and as they feed it more works and more of the work from artists, of course it becomes more polished. And it is inherently iffy like you said that they are relying on the unpaid labor of artists and stealing their styles and what, distinguishes them from other artists. And so, I guess this goes into my next question. While you were, looking into this topic, did you find anything that really struck your interest about the use of AI or anything that scared you?

Nicholas Gilman: The biggest thing that scares me is I am obviously trying to pursue work in a career as an actor, and a big area for me is wanting to be a voice actor. And right now, as we are recording this, there is still an ongoing strike. While the live action and TV film side of things has been settled, as of right now, that'll probably be re addressed in maybe ten years or so—I wouldn't be surprised. But the video game portion of SAG-AFTRA is currently still on strike because—if you want to look into it, I won't get too much into it here—but there was some weirdness because they also went on strike at the same time as the TV film side. And then their deal—there is some weird stuff where a lot of their members were like, none of us voted on this. It was a little weird. There was some weirdness there. I'm not as informed about that as much as I would like to be. But yeah, right now there is a strike going on for video game actors. And it sucks because all these additional voices you hear in a video game, like whether it's just an NPC in the background that walks by or just a small little bit part stuff that you might not pay much mind to. That's the starting place for a lot of people. I bring it up with extras on a film set in this, but there's a lot of those roles with video games where it's the gateway to get in and without that in, you then start stifling progress because then you just rely on the same actors over and over again. So, they're kind of getting the good actors are getting more and more experience, which there's nothing wrong with that. But then you're not opening the door for anybody else, or any new voices or any new identities to come in. So, we stifle in terms of the storytelling, we get to stifle in terms of the stories we hear and who we get to see and hear in these projects. So that's one of the biggest, scariest things for me. And then just talking about like digital rights and privacy, I'm sure everybody right now has heard about the Disney+ lawsuit that's going on, where a man is suing on behalf of his deceased partner after she died on property at Disney, but Disney was saying that he couldn't sue because he had signed up for a free trial of Disney+, and that—it's just one of those things where it was in the terms of conditions, where that they couldn't take to court or something like that. There's a lot of really gray, murky area with it. It's a very tragic story. Again, on Film Theory was where I first saw the news of that. So, Film Theory, go watch them, I love them. It's one of those things where there's so much in the fine print that we don't know and to read all of it—like we all press, I agree to the terms and conditions. If you read all your terms and conditions—bravo to you—but the amount of time that takes—it takes literal months and years. If you were to read every term in service, you were to go through, you wouldn't be able to get anything done. So, hiding sneaky articles like that in your terms of service, you just got to be careful. And the more research you can do, there's places like on Reddit that you can go to where people have read all of the terms of service. So, find what you can before you agree to terms of service. I know it's annoying, but you never know what could happen and in this man's case something really tragic.

Sabbath Canady: Of course. And that story is really, really sad. And I think that we've moved a lot as a society. We've moved a lot away from empathy and more towards just companies just wanting to make money. Because to what you said before about the actors and people not being able to have their own chance. We've been seeing like all the movies that come out nowadays, is one big actor that we hear about Chris Pratt, for example, like, why is he in the Garfield movie? I'm so sorry. It's just I don't really know how to put it, but nobody else is able to have a chance in those chances are taken by companies and corners are cut by use of technology, so nobody else has a chance to get into it. And so, for my last question, what would your perfect world look like with or without artificial intelligence, the internet, or any technology we use today?

Nicholas Gilman: Yeah, that's a really hard question. Honestly, a perfect world in terms of this area, really, it's just a matter of getting that regulation in because AI in itself is not inherently evil. Not all AI is bad. Like I saw something recently where they had talked about how there's an AI program that they're developing right now that can detect cancer way before it even becomes a problem. And that's the kind of stuff we need. That's the technology we need to focus on that enhances our quality of life, not takes it away. We shouldn't be trying to stifle creativity. It's so interesting that one of the first things we're seeing to go by AI are creative jobs, and that want to replace them. But no, I do want a world where everything can coexist. And I just think, you know, we need to focus on the regulation of it all. We have an election coming up—not sure if people have seen these videos— but like when Facebook was on trial a while back for the privacy concerns. If you watch the trial, honestly a little funny when you really look at it, because a lot of the trial are these Congress members and these people in positions of power asking the mundane questions like how does the internet work? Like, what is Wi-Fi, blah blah blah—like stuff that had nothing to do with Facebook. Nothing that had to do with the issue at hand. And another thing to think about what was scary is from your previous question, that's the scariest thing, is that we have people who don't know what they're talking about, making decisions on such a rapidly growing section of our life, and we just aren't equipped with that. So, we need to make sure that when we're going to vote, that's another thing to think about. Yes, there I know there's so many things to think about when you're going into an election, but as the U.N. has recently been like, this is now being lumped in with human rights, with your rights online, and where does that stop and end. You have all these organizations coming in. So, it is time to get that legislation passed, get those regulations passed, and make sure that we can all be safe without having to worry about being tricked by a company, because we didn't have an hour to read the terms of service. So yeah, just being able to live in a world where we can all agree that there is humanity in the work that we do and finding the areas where AI can make somebody's life safer or easier, not necessarily take away an entire industry.

Sabbath Canady: Thank you so much for coming to speak with me today. That was a really interesting conversation.

Sabbath Canady: You've been listening to the Young Creator Electorate, brought to you by Could Be Pretty Cool News. I'm Sabbath Canady, and I hope this episode has inspired you to think about the intersection of art and politics in new ways. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to subscribe and share with a friend. Remember, every brushstroke, every lyric, and every performance can be a step towards change. Until next time, keep creating, keep questioning, and keep engaging with the world around you.