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n2d4 18 hours ago [-]
Amazon is actually much more reasonable than the headline makes it seem:
> “We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” a spokesperson for Amazon said to Variety in a statement. “We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”
Well, yeah, I kind of agree. Amazon probably shouldn't be the one producing the film, and it sounds like they're working to get the rights sold to someone else.
The headline also sucks because "after" means "months after with no evidence that it's related". It's just clickbait all around.
schmichael 17 hours ago [-]
Amazon dropped the movie after announcing a partnership with OpenAI. The headline clearly communicates the only demonstrable action Amazon has taken.
Whether they're actually going to sell it is TBD. Until they do, they've taken no concrete action except cancel it. I don't think this article is clickbait.
testbjjl 15 hours ago [-]
Watching what is done versus what is said is an increasingly important executive level function when words can be generated for just a few tokens.
ulfw 5 hours ago [-]
You don't need "tokens" to lie
See Trump
n2d4 17 hours ago [-]
What makes you think they've canceled it? Did you read past the headline?
What should they have done here — keep the movie despite the obvious conflict of interest? Be more secretive about the fact they're trying to separate so no one can write articles like these?
If they did the right thing, it would look exactly like this. And I think it's generally a good idea to assume good faith (even with corporations) — you can still get your pitchforks up if they do refuse to give away the rights to movie.
afavour 17 hours ago [-]
> I think it's generally a good idea to assume good faith (even with corporations) — you can still get your pitchforks up if they do refuse to give away the rights to movie
I take the opposing viewpoint. They don’t have to “refuse” to give away the movie rights, they can just… not do it. Pitchforks in three months or is that still reasonable? Six months? Two years?
I don’t believe a word they say until I see action that backs it up.
Look at their distribution of the Melania movie. It was very obviously a money losing favour to Trump. But they’d never admit as such because why would they? And what do I gain by taking them at their word that it’s a wonderful piece of film deserving of the money spent on it when that’s obviously untrue?
tqi 16 hours ago [-]
You should probably also take the opposing views of corporate media, especially a tabloid rag like the independent, and assume their intent is to foment the maximum amount of outrage possible in order to drive ad impressions.
apecat 15 hours ago [-]
What on earth are you on about? The article is referring to Variety, which refers to Puck as having broken the story. Are Variety, the renowned trade publication, and Puck, an independent and journalist-owned publication also "tabloid rags"?
…yes? Here I am reacting to a direct quote from the studio, not the article itself.
Fraterkes 17 hours ago [-]
Why do you agree that Amazon shouldn't be the one producing the film if you don't believe there's any evidence them dropping it is related to the partnership?
n2d4 17 hours ago [-]
1. Because Amazon is a bigtech corp making a film about another bigtech corp. Plenty of conflicts of interest here (in either direction).
2. Regardless of whether it is or isn't related, implying they are without any evidence is just speculation. There's a reason they didn't say "months after" in the headline, even though it would be much more informative and much less confusing!
You also seem to conflate "there's evidence for" and "you believe that". Those are very distinct statements. "you don't believe there's evidence for X" doesn't make sense here — I said "there is no evidence for X in the article", that's a fact, not a belief.
TurdF3rguson 17 hours ago [-]
He's agreeing with like, the universe, man.
adjejmxbdjdn 4 hours ago [-]
Until they actually do “find another home for the movie”, that statement exists for one reason and one reason only.
And you fell for it.
17 hours ago [-]
Lerc 17 hours ago [-]
>The headline also sucks because "after" means "months after with no evidence that it's related". It's just clickbait all around.
post hoc ergo propter hoc is how print media imply a unstated fact without falling foul of Betteridge's law of headlines.
n2d4 17 hours ago [-]
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. You are correct, and it is so rampant these days that I wish we just banned the word "after" in headlines.
Lerc 16 hours ago [-]
I am quite certain that I am being downvoted because there are people who no longer care about the quality of arguments and think that a poor argument in support of their cause is a good thing.
The bulk of downvotes I have received fall into two categories. One is from people who disagree with me, and the other is from people who believe that my critique of a bad argument means that I believe the opposite to the conclusion of the argument.
The latter is the one that bugs me more. Because I feel that a bad argument in support of a conclusion that I believe is damaging to the understanding of the conclusion because it represents a refuge that anyone arguing the opposite can cling to in order to undermine good arguments. They can legitimately ask "Why should I believe your good argument, if you express a similar degree of support for an obviously flawed argument" It signals that the position is held because of allegiance, not because it is correct.
Even scarier is that it raises the spectre of people passionately advocating for a position when they themselves do not respect the opinion, but simply acknowledge that this is the position of their allegiance.
There is experimental evidence for this on both sides of American politics with people being tested flipping their opinions on identical policies just by presenting them as being the favoured opinion of a different side.
iamflimflam1 18 hours ago [-]
Headlines are there to trigger people. It’s a shame that hacker news folk fall for them too often.
JumpCrisscross 18 hours ago [-]
There is clearly a church-and-state issue with tech platforms owning studios. On the other hand, they have the cash. Not sure how we solve this without directly plumbing the cash to independent studios through a tax on tech funding a subsidy on independent studios.
humodz 18 hours ago [-]
In the 1940s it was common for studios to own movie theaters, but the Supreme Court ruled that this violated antitrust laws and forced them to sell off their theaters.
To me it's the same situation again, but now the theaters (streaming platforms) owning the studios.
Sadly the era of government that split up studios and theaters is long gone. Hollywood is built on a different time between things like this and its flavor of unions that cover the biggest players in the industry.
Closest thing we have to a Hollywood today is games, but game makers can also make consoles and industry wide unions would never happen. Is there some unionization in games? Yeah, but I haven't heard of any single one that cover a significant number of different studios
reactordev 18 hours ago [-]
And a federal government openly encouraging it
vovavili 18 hours ago [-]
>a tax on tech funding a subsidy on independent studios
Forcing consumers to subsidize an expensive taste sounds like a peculiar idea.
ok_dad 18 hours ago [-]
More like ensuring culture and art isn’t captured by the big conglomerate.
18 hours ago [-]
nonethewiser 18 hours ago [-]
How is it different than media companies owning studios? Or simply studios existing? Studios publish viewpoints.
What you’re saying seems to completely ignore the first amendment.
ok_dad 18 hours ago [-]
The first amendment is for humans fuck the corps
nonethewiser 18 hours ago [-]
But in practice no, the government cannot compel speech like this due to the first amendment
boca_honey 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ok_dad 17 hours ago [-]
Sure but I’m not saying it’s not legal right now, I’m saying fuck the corps, free speech is for humans. Fuck the Supreme Court of a ~decade ago, too, for fucking this up.
boca_honey 17 hours ago [-]
Free speech is for anyone who has speech. That includes non-humans now. You might be in the wrong side of history.
ok_dad 16 hours ago [-]
“Anyone“
A fucking clanker isn’t an anyone
A loose grouping of humans isn’t an anyone
Corps aren’t people
JumpCrisscross 5 hours ago [-]
> A loose grouping of humans isn’t an anyone
Now do a union, newspaper or political party.
Collective rights are real. We don’t need to sanctify them. But let’s not swing the other way. That way leads back to kings, where personal riches and power trump collective action.
zeroonetwothree 17 hours ago [-]
Persons, not humans.
ok_dad 16 hours ago [-]
Persons == humans and all the arguments otherwise are dumb
vkou 17 hours ago [-]
It's also the reason a lot of crap has flourished, too. I'll take a bit less tech progress if it meant less of it.
fred_is_fred 13 hours ago [-]
This is the same studio that did the Melania movie.
lotsofpulp 18 hours ago [-]
There is no church-and-state issue because the state is not stopping anyone from distributing video to whoever wants it.
It’s trivial to make and distribute a video (or text website or audio recording). Just because one business does not want to pay for it does not entitle the public to it, like any other media.
nonethewiser 18 hours ago [-]
Yeah the church and state comparison is funny. The principles guiding separation of church and state are why the government can’t stop or punish tech companies from having studios.
What he’s suggesting is to violate the first amendment. You cant just tell tech companies they cant have studios.
16 hours ago [-]
vkou 17 hours ago [-]
Yet we could tell the studio companies that they can't have theatres. How did that not violate it? Has the amendment changed in the past century? Were the judges just stupid?
Maybe it's not so simple?
lotsofpulp 14 hours ago [-]
Regardless of the legal mechanisms, there is clearly a difference in power dynamics when people could only share media via specific venues compares to now when people have basically zero barrier to sharing any and all media.
newshackr 18 hours ago [-]
They already paid for it though. The movie was done.
nonethewiser 18 hours ago [-]
So the government should force them to publish the viewpoint against their will?
bluefirebrand 18 hours ago [-]
> It’s trivial to make and distribute a video
It's trivial to shout into the void
It's nontrivial to get heard
Freedom of speech is not sufficient in a world where it is so easy for the powerful to drown out all but the biggest voices
cassonmars 18 hours ago [-]
This feels like a strange take to me. With the internet, it has never been easier for people anywhere in the (connected) world to find an audience, which we've seen to great and detrimental effects. Prior to this, reaching widespread audiences _required_ powerful entities (publishers, marketers, broadcasters).
Why do you feel differently?
gAI 18 hours ago [-]
At least in the US, it seems like this viewpoint held more water before net neutrality died.
I don't disagree I just don't think it has moved the needle that much. Powerful publishers still direct an enormous amount of the content available online
And there are fewer of them, because they have been consolidating for decades now
Edit: I think that a lot of people overestimate how much online publishing is independent. A vast majority of it is still backed/funded/owned by legacy media and publishers.
I see this all the time with video games. People will say "look at how popular "New Release" is! Indie games are so successful nowadays!" But it turns out that the game they're talking about is backed by a huge publisher
lotsofpulp 12 hours ago [-]
There are 8 billion people in the world, and only 24 hours in a day. There is no reason to expect anyone to hear or see what you are saying, it’s logistically impossible. Even for professionals, hollywood, big news channels, all are becoming less and less relevant.
baq 18 hours ago [-]
I want a movie about Jassy ratting out Amodei to the feds
downrightmike 16 hours ago [-]
"I was told to say X" roll credits
nicce 18 hours ago [-]
Right after taking part of restricting Fable etc?
seasox 18 hours ago [-]
They don‘t even hide it anymore.
throwaway87543 18 hours ago [-]
Amazon can't bury it without alienating Luca Guadagnino. Instead they are allowing anyone else publish it. Maybe A24 will want it, it is screening well.
andix 17 hours ago [-]
Stuff like that happens in every oligarchy.
Either get used to more and more stuff like that, or regulate the sh* out of it. Without stopping stuff like that early on, the concentration of wealth and power only increases.
d--b 18 hours ago [-]
Oh so there will be a sequel!
basisword 18 hours ago [-]
Does Amazon likely have the power to hold this up indefinitely or will it easily be moved to another studio?
Lerc 18 hours ago [-]
"We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home."
They are claiming they will not. Many people would have to have the power to hold it up indefinitely, films get delayed by many different factors. It remains to be seen which happens.
Gagarin1917 18 hours ago [-]
Honestly not that big of a loss. Even if it’s Sam Altman being an ass the entire movie, it still wouldn’t be a good film because it’s about a wet blanket.
He’s not Steve Jobs or something. It’d be about as interesting as a Jeff Bezos film. Nobody cares.
kelvinjps10 17 hours ago [-]
is more about the drama of him being fired of openai it doesn't have to be positive to be interesting
Gagarin1917 17 hours ago [-]
I wasn’t saying it needs to be positive, I’m saying he’s a super boring movie character.
A whole movie about him being fired from OpenAI just doesn’t sound compelling. A simple documentary would be a much better format, and likely more accurate and interesting.
CamperBob2 17 hours ago [-]
Zuckerberg's not a very interesting character but in the hands of a David Fincher, that wasn't a problem. Maybe the same is true for Altman and this director?
zeroonetwothree 17 hours ago [-]
The Facebook founding was interesting, not sure about Z on his own.
ThatMedicIsASpy 16 hours ago [-]
OpenAI played Dota 2 for a couple of years
josefritzishere 19 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
ribosometronome 18 hours ago [-]
It reads like this is meant to be a Social Network style portrayal where Altman is not necessarily portrayed flatteringly or with his approval, no? Where Melania was a payoff to a world leader, dropping this as they're making business deals also seems to be in service of their relationship.
sd9 18 hours ago [-]
It's too early to do a Social Network for OpenAI
boca_honey 17 hours ago [-]
We have the info already. Whole books about it. It is innevitable.
sd9 16 hours ago [-]
I think so too, I just thought the social network was a really good movie and I'd rather the OpenAi movie has an ending, you know. Or to be fair you could just get Sorkin to write it and I would lap it up anyway.
ToucanLoucan 19 hours ago [-]
Because he is one?
ceejayoz 18 hours ago [-]
I wonder how long before we get a Bezos biopic.
jrflowers 18 hours ago [-]
We already had a movie where Kevin Spacey played Lex Luthor
The headline also sucks because "after" means "months after with no evidence that it's related". It's just clickbait all around.
Whether they're actually going to sell it is TBD. Until they do, they've taken no concrete action except cancel it. I don't think this article is clickbait.
See Trump
What should they have done here — keep the movie despite the obvious conflict of interest? Be more secretive about the fact they're trying to separate so no one can write articles like these?
If they did the right thing, it would look exactly like this. And I think it's generally a good idea to assume good faith (even with corporations) — you can still get your pitchforks up if they do refuse to give away the rights to movie.
I take the opposing viewpoint. They don’t have to “refuse” to give away the movie rights, they can just… not do it. Pitchforks in three months or is that still reasonable? Six months? Two years?
I don’t believe a word they say until I see action that backs it up.
Look at their distribution of the Melania movie. It was very obviously a money losing favour to Trump. But they’d never admit as such because why would they? And what do I gain by taking them at their word that it’s a wonderful piece of film deserving of the money spent on it when that’s obviously untrue?
https://variety.com/2026/film/global/luca-guadagnino-sam-alt...
https://puck.news/amazon-is-dumping-its-sam-altman-movie/
2. Regardless of whether it is or isn't related, implying they are without any evidence is just speculation. There's a reason they didn't say "months after" in the headline, even though it would be much more informative and much less confusing!
You also seem to conflate "there's evidence for" and "you believe that". Those are very distinct statements. "you don't believe there's evidence for X" doesn't make sense here — I said "there is no evidence for X in the article", that's a fact, not a belief.
And you fell for it.
post hoc ergo propter hoc is how print media imply a unstated fact without falling foul of Betteridge's law of headlines.
The bulk of downvotes I have received fall into two categories. One is from people who disagree with me, and the other is from people who believe that my critique of a bad argument means that I believe the opposite to the conclusion of the argument.
The latter is the one that bugs me more. Because I feel that a bad argument in support of a conclusion that I believe is damaging to the understanding of the conclusion because it represents a refuge that anyone arguing the opposite can cling to in order to undermine good arguments. They can legitimately ask "Why should I believe your good argument, if you express a similar degree of support for an obviously flawed argument" It signals that the position is held because of allegiance, not because it is correct.
Even scarier is that it raises the spectre of people passionately advocating for a position when they themselves do not respect the opinion, but simply acknowledge that this is the position of their allegiance.
There is experimental evidence for this on both sides of American politics with people being tested flipping their opinions on identical policies just by presenting them as being the favoured opinion of a different side.
To me it's the same situation again, but now the theaters (streaming platforms) owning the studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
Closest thing we have to a Hollywood today is games, but game makers can also make consoles and industry wide unions would never happen. Is there some unionization in games? Yeah, but I haven't heard of any single one that cover a significant number of different studios
Forcing consumers to subsidize an expensive taste sounds like a peculiar idea.
What you’re saying seems to completely ignore the first amendment.
A fucking clanker isn’t an anyone
A loose grouping of humans isn’t an anyone
Corps aren’t people
Now do a union, newspaper or political party.
Collective rights are real. We don’t need to sanctify them. But let’s not swing the other way. That way leads back to kings, where personal riches and power trump collective action.
It’s trivial to make and distribute a video (or text website or audio recording). Just because one business does not want to pay for it does not entitle the public to it, like any other media.
What he’s suggesting is to violate the first amendment. You cant just tell tech companies they cant have studios.
Maybe it's not so simple?
It's trivial to shout into the void
It's nontrivial to get heard
Freedom of speech is not sufficient in a world where it is so easy for the powerful to drown out all but the biggest voices
Why do you feel differently?
I don't disagree I just don't think it has moved the needle that much. Powerful publishers still direct an enormous amount of the content available online
And there are fewer of them, because they have been consolidating for decades now
Edit: I think that a lot of people overestimate how much online publishing is independent. A vast majority of it is still backed/funded/owned by legacy media and publishers.
I see this all the time with video games. People will say "look at how popular "New Release" is! Indie games are so successful nowadays!" But it turns out that the game they're talking about is backed by a huge publisher
Either get used to more and more stuff like that, or regulate the sh* out of it. Without stopping stuff like that early on, the concentration of wealth and power only increases.
They are claiming they will not. Many people would have to have the power to hold it up indefinitely, films get delayed by many different factors. It remains to be seen which happens.
He’s not Steve Jobs or something. It’d be about as interesting as a Jeff Bezos film. Nobody cares.
A whole movie about him being fired from OpenAI just doesn’t sound compelling. A simple documentary would be a much better format, and likely more accurate and interesting.