Breaking Bob: Bryan Cranston Shows Support For Strikers, Delivers Rousing Speech Aimed At Disney CEO

Bryan Cranston, known best for his roles as Hal in the early 2000s sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle," and more recently, Walter White in “Breaking Bad,” took to the podium to rally for striking members of SAG-AFTRA, directly confronting Walt Disney Co DIS CEO Bob Iger in an impassioned speech.

“Bob Iger, I know sir that you look at things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us. And beyond that, to listen to us when we tell you, ‘We will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots,'” Cranston said, his voice echoing the tenacity of his famed Breaking Bad character.

The award-winning actor stressed the significance of labor rights and workers’ dignity in his rally speech.

Cranston's fiery declaration comes amidst a labor dispute in Hollywood, where emerging tech advances with AI are stirring concerns among actors and writers, with union members fearing that their jobs and creative control could be threatened by the use of AI.

Read also: Bob Iger Calls Out Strikers, Faces Criticism Over $27-Million Salary, $33-Million House And Working Conditions: ‘Wow, I’m Really Not Valued Here’

As filmmaking increasingly employs AI tech to generate images or de-age actors like Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones,” concerns over job security, intellectual property rights, and creative control have gone from abstract concepts to pressing realities.

Union Concerns Over AI Use: Unions and employers alike acknowledge the broader application of AI tech as inevitable. That said, negotiations are now focused on establishing boundaries between legal and creative control, ensuring that actors and writers are appropriately compensated and recognized for their work.

For example, AI has already been used to recreate the voice of the late Anthony Bourdain for a recent documentary, Fortune reported, which raises the question of how AI should be regulated when it comes to utilizing an actor’s “voice, likeness or performance,” as phrased by SAG-AFTRA.

Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America is aiming to safeguard the recognition of “human-created work,” trying to prevent AI-generated material from being considered as “literary material” or “source material.”

The issue has also sparked a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc META, Benzinga previously reported, with comedian Sarah Silverman among the authors alleging copyright infringement.

The suit argues that ChatGPT can produce a derivative version of an author’s copyrighted book without permission.

Read next: Read also: And The Oscar Goes To … ChatGPT?

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