Hollywood Goes on Strike: Artists and AI clash has begun

Hollywood actors are going on strike for the first time in over 40 years. The main topic on the agenda of The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) is the growing use of AI where production companies could potentially exploit and for the lack of a better word replace actors and other movie industry professionals.

The chief negotiator for the SAG-AFTRA Duncan Crabtree-Ireland openly criticized movie production companies. According to him, studios have asked to scan the faces of background actors, offering a day’s work payment and in return they would be able to own and use their likeness for any future project with no consent and no compensation.

This is not a scene from the Netflix’s hit show Black Mirror that explores the unanticipated and often dark consequences of ever evolving technologies, but no one could blame you if you drew direct comparisons.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) denied SAG-AFTRA’s claim that digital replicas of background actors would be used in perpetuity without consent or compensation. According to the AMPTP the contract would be signed for a single motion picture and anything beyond that would require a separate contract, therefore consent and bargaining.

Here are some of the other issues laid out by The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB):

• There will be fewer career prospects for authors as AI usage increases.
• AI developers are violating writers’ copyright by utilizing their work without their consent.
• The adoption of AI will reduce writers’ compensation
• When identifying where AI has been used to produce content, AI techniques fall short.
• AI will diminish the economic and national identity contributions made by the UK’s creative sector.

It is apparent that the intellectual battle between people and artificial intelligence has begun. It is very important to impose laws to protect artists, creators, writers, and workers in all industries that could be affected by the constant development of AI technologies before it is too late.