Recently, a rumor widely shared online—drawing intense scrutiny from the film and television sector—claims that Hengdian Film & TV intends to collaborate with ByteDance to gather and archive digital profiles, facial features, and acting records of 150,000 extras, analyzing them in depth so that “in the future, extras will no longer be required.” This news immediately ignited fierce discussions on social media about whether AI technology could broadly undermine the livelihoods of ordinary actors.
In response to the widespread public outcry, on October 28, Liu Xing, head of public relations for Doubao, publicly clarified that the assertion that “Hengdian is partnering with ByteDance to feed the likenesses and voices of 150,000 extras into ByteDance’s large models” is entirely false. He urged the public not to believe or spread such misinformation.
According to official statements, the Hengdian Film & TV AI service platform project mentioned in online reports was originally conceived and implemented with the goal of building a public digital infrastructure for the industry. The initiative aims to transform static assets like real-world locations within the film studio into high-quality, standardized datasets, thereby helping production crews more efficiently carry out location scouting, pre-production planning, and on-set shooting. At the same time, it seeks to lower the barrier for small and medium-sized film and television enterprises to adopt AI technologies, enabling more creators to produce high-quality works.
Regarding data ownership and privacy rights, Volcano Engine, a subsidiary of ByteDance, plays only a technical support role in this project. All underlying data assets remain clearly owned by Hengdian or other legally authorized parties. If the project involves the use of any individual’s likeness or voice, explicit consent must be obtained from the person concerned, and none of the resulting data will ever be used to train any of ByteDance’s large-scale models.