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Video Game Voice And Motion Actors Go On Strike Amid Rise In AI Technology 

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Members of the Screen Actors Guild are now striking against the video game industry after negotiations for a new contract that would govern interactive media and video games fell through. 

Part of these negotiations involved the use of artificial intelligence (AI) within video games. According to reports, the guild first began striking on Friday, July 26th, and now 160,000 SAG-AFTRA actors are prevented from taking on new video game projects. 

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Negotiations initially fell through due to multiple disagreements over worker protections in connection to the use of AI. SAG-AFTRA is responsible for negotiating the terms of the interactive media agreement (IMA) with a committee of video game publishers. 

These publishers include Activision, Take-Two, Insomniac Games, WB Games, and others representing a total of 30 signatory companies, according to reports from The Verge.  

While SAG-AFTRA and the groups were able to make agreements on a number of things, the use of AI in the industry has become a major point of debate, leading to the strike. 

For SAG-AFTRA, their position would be to control AI for both voice and motion performers in relation to digital replicas of an actor’s likeness, or utilizing existing performances as the foundation to create new voices or images without the need of the actual performer. 

According to SAG-AFTRA, there was a lot of disagreement regarding which type of performer should be eligible for AI protections. 

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The Verge reported that SAG-AFTRA chief contracts officer Ray Rodriguez said in an interview with Aftermath “the bargaining companies initially wanted to offer protections to voice, not motion performers. So anybody doing a stunt or creature performance, all those folks would have been left unprotected under the employers’ offer.”

“The companies later extended protections to motion performers, but only if the performer is identifiable in the output of the AI digital replica,” Rodriguez said.

“Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me,” said Andi Norris, a member of SAG-AFTRA’s IMA negotiating committee, during a press conference.

 “[The proposal] would leave movement specialists, including stunts, entirely out in the cold, to be replaced … by soulless synthetic performers trained on our actual performances.”

“Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry,” wrote Audrey Cooling, a representative working with the video game companies on the bargaining committee in a statement to The Verge.

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Entertainment Industry Could Collapse If Writer And Actor Strike Isn’t Settled By September, Says Barry Diller 

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Barry Diller, the chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and former Hollywood studio chief, was recently interviewed by CBS’ ‘Face The Nation’ where he stated that Hollywood executives and top-paid actors should take a 25% pay cut to narrow the gap between their salaries and those on the lower end of the pay scale. 

Diller also discussed that if a deal isn’t settled by September 1st, we could see the industry completely collapse. 

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“There’s no trust. You have the actors union saying, ‘How dare these 10 people who run these companies earn all this money and won’t pay us?’ While, if you look at it on the other side, the top 10 actors get paid more than the top 10 executives. I’m not saying either is right. Actually, everybody’s probably overpaid at the top end,” Diller explained. 

“The one idea I had is to say, as a good-faith measure, both the executives and the most-paid actors should take a 25 percent pay cut to try and narrow the difference between those who get highly paid and those that don’t.”

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May 2nd while SAG-AFTRA joined this past Friday. 

Diller stated: “What will happen is, if in fact, it doesn’t get settled until Christmas or so, then, next year, there’s not going to be many programs for anybody to watch. 

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So, you’re going to see subscriptions get pulled, which is going to reduce the revenue of all these movie companies, television companies, the result of which is that there will be no programs. And at just the time, strike is settled, that you want to get back up, there won’t be enough money. So this actually will have devastating effects, if it is not settled soon.”

“The truth is, this [Hollywood] is a huge business both domestically and for world export.… These conditions will potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry.”

Diller also believes the fears over AI in the industry aren’t as serious as others may be making it out to be during this time, explaining how he doesn’t see a world where AI can logistically and realistically take the jobs of real writers and actors. 

“Yes, you can ingest all this stuff and spit out something that sounds like Shakespeare, but guess what? It is not original Shakespeare, and writers will get assisted, not replaced. Most of these actual performing crafts, I don’t think are in danger of artificial intelligence,” he explained.