AI Dominates New SAG-AFTRA Contract Talks With Hollywood Studios
SAG-AFTRA enters its second week of contract negotiations with Hollywood studios, where artificial intelligence emerges as the primary sticking point. The union seeks stronger protections against fully synthetic actors, a loophole left unresolved in their 2023 agreement.
SAG-AFTRA enters its second week of contract negotiations with Hollywood studios, and artificial intelligence is the dominant focus of the discussions. The union represents actors and performers who hope to avoid a repeat of the 2023 talks that broke down and led to a strike lasting over a hundred days. Advances in AI technology make these current negotiations increasingly urgent for entertainment workers.
During the previous contract negotiations in 2023, the union secures basic safeguards regarding consent and compensation for the use of an actor's specific likeness. However, they fail to establish protections against synthetic actors, which are AI-generated performances that do not resemble any real living person. As the technology leaps forward, studios now possess the ability to combine countless existing performances into a completely new, synthetic actor.
This ability to create a viable performance at the push of a button threatens the careers of human actors. SAG-AFTRA actually warns about these exact AI dangers as early as 2018, but the rapid recent developments in generative technology turn those warnings into an immediate crisis. The union now pushes to close the synthetic actor loophole before AI completely undermines the professional acting industry.