{"id":646754,"date":"2026-05-03T10:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/646754\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:47:07","slug":"how-a-i-is-transforming-chinas-entertainment-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/646754\/","title":{"rendered":"How A.I. Is Transforming China\u2019s Entertainment Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">When Li Jiao\u2019e moved to Hengdian, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/12\/02\/world\/asia\/china-films-movies-hengdian.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a major filming hub in eastern China<\/a>, in 2024, he had only bit parts in microdramas. Still, he was thrilled. After years of bouncing between  unrelated jobs, he was finally chasing his dream of being an actor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">As time passed, he started getting a few speaking lines, often in comedic roles. Sometimes, people recognized him in public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">But in recent months, roles evaporated, he said. Group chats where people shared opportunities went silent. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThere\u2019s nothing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like it was raining, and then suddenly the rain stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">He said the drop was partly because a major streaming platform raised its standards for what it was buying. was trying to weed out lower-quality shows. But he thought the hype around A.I. was another reason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Fears of actors being replaced by A.I. gathered steam recently after a major streaming site <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/east-asia\/china-iqiyi-artificial-intelligence-database-actors-likeness-outrage-6070081\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> that it had created a database of more than 100 actors whose likenesses could be available for future A.I. productions. While the platform described the move as a way to ease actors\u2019 workloads, many commenters online said it would only accelerate job losses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">A different microdrama platform also announced that it had removed a popular show after two social media users discovered that their likenesses had been used, without their permission, to create villains in the show. The platform, which is owned by ByteDance, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/mp.weixin.qq.com\/s\/4b6dYCICVh4pzemhtEUDJg\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> it would strengthen its review mechanisms to prevent similar cases in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Chinese regulators last month <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.news.cn\/politics\/20260403\/f41c2154feb9429da3e0e9fa78353823\/c.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">introduced rules<\/a> requiring people\u2019s consent before they can be used as digital avatars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Li said he did not oppose the use of A.I. in entertainment but thought the industry was applying it in the wrong way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThey\u2019re still just imitating humans or trying to make things more humanlike,\u201d he said. \u201cThey should be trying to unleash more imagination, taking a more unconventional route.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">He continued: \u201cAfter all, our fundamental value as humans is in our ability to imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The DirectorWang Yushun, 37<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Li Jiao\u2019e moved to Hengdian, a major filming hub in eastern China, in 2024, he had only&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105,312921],"class_list":["post-646754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology","tag-vis-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}