Hollywood's video game actors want to avoid a strike. The sticking point in their talks? AI
Hollywood union SAG-AFTRA has been negotiating its interactive media agreement for more than a year
LOS ANGELES — For more than a year and a half, leaders of Hollywood's actors union have been negotiating with video game companies over a new contract that covers the performers who bring their titles to life.
But while negotiators with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have made gains in bargaining over wages and job safety in their video game contract, or interactive media agreement, leaders say talks have stalled over a key issue: protections over the use of artificial intelligence.
“It is the major obstacle to having an agreement, and this contract area has been for quite some time,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's executive director. “The fundamental issue is, at this moment, an unwillingness by this bargaining group to provide an equal level of protection from the dangers of AI for all our members.”
Union leaders say they aren't “anti-AI altogether.” But voice actors and other video game performers are worried that unchecked use of AI could provide game makers with a means to displace them — by training an AI to replicate an actor's voice, or to create a digital replica of their likeness without consent.
In some cases, the role of an AI voice is often invisible and used to clean up a recording in the later stages of production or to make a character sound older or younger at a different stage of their virtual life.
“Our concern is the idea that all of this work translates into grist for the mill that displaces us,” said Sarah Elmaleh, chair of the interactive negotiating committee. “They do not have to call us back, you do not have to be informed of what they’ve
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