Hollywood Wants To Use AI Replicas Of Actors For Eternity And Give Them Just One Day's Pay

The tussle between Hollywood studios and the actors' guild SAG-AFTRA has taken a dark turn reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode – the studios want to use AI replicas of actors for eternity for the cost of just one day's pay

What Happened: SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland revealed that Hollywood studios have proposed "protecting" actors' digital likenesses using AI, reported Deadline.

In a statement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) offered "a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors' digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members."

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SAG-AFTRA is a labor union and represents over 160,000 television and movie actors.

Explaining what the AMPTP proposed during negotiations, Crabtree-Ireland said that the studios want SAG-AFTRA members – more specifically, background performers, to give away the rights to their digital likeness for eternity and receive one day's pay in exchange for it.

"This ‘groundbreaking' AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day's pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation," Crabtree-Ireland said.

AI Replacing Humans: Concerns of AI replacing humans have become more widespread than ever before, especially after the rapid surge in popularity this year thanks to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

While SAG-AFTRA maintains that it is not averse to using technology in acting, it said that AI poses an "existential threat" to actors. It joined the Writers Guild of America which has been protesting and on strike for over 70 days.

SAG-AFTRA also posed concerns about studios using AI to replicate performances without consent and compensation. This was also an issue with The Flash which brought back dead actors like Christopher Reeve, Adam West, and George Reaves. While their estates and families may have consented, the dead actors themselves are not around to do so, which raises ethical concerns.

"If we don't stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines," said SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher.

Image Credits – Venti Views on Unsplash

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