When Li Jiao’e moved to Hengdian, a major filming hub in eastern China, 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.
As time passed, he started getting a few speaking lines, often in comedic roles. Sometimes, people recognized him in public.
But in recent months, roles evaporated, he said. Group chats where people shared opportunities went silent.
“There’s nothing,” he said. “It’s like it was raining, and then suddenly the rain stopped.”
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.
Fears of actors being replaced by A.I. gathered steam recently after a major streaming site announced 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’ workloads, many commenters online said it would only accelerate job losses.
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, said it would strengthen its review mechanisms to prevent similar cases in the future.
Chinese regulators last month introduced rules requiring people’s consent before they can be used as digital avatars.
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.
“They’re still just imitating humans or trying to make things more humanlike,” he said. “They should be trying to unleash more imagination, taking a more unconventional route.”
He continued: “After all, our fundamental value as humans is in our ability to imagine.”
