As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix’s $900,000 AI product manager role is far from the only such opening right now. One job at Prime Video promises compensation of up to $300,000 for someone who wants to «define the next big thing in localizing content, enhancing content, or making it accessible using state-of-the-art Generative AI and Computer Vision tech.» Since the SAG-AFTRA strike began, Disney has put up numerous AI-related job listings, including some in the company’s media and Imagineering branches — fields typically driven by human creatives.
Some of these postings claim to be on the right side of AI development. For instance, one Sony opening for an «ethics» engineer in the AI department advertises «AI techniques that empower the imagination and creativity of artists, makers and creators around the world,» per THR. The listing also claims, «Our aim is to advance AI so that it augments — and works in harmony with — humans to benefit society.»
This is common rhetoric used in defense of AI proliferation — the idea that it’s only meant as a tool to make jobs easier and empower creatives further. However, in the case of Hollywood, the creatives in question seem universally opposed to such developments. Given the untenable conditions that writers and actors are calling out, so many high-paying AI job listings could be read as a money-grubbing slap in the face to actual artists.