LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood's video game actors They went on strike on Friday After negotiations with major game industry players that began more than a year and a half ago came to a halt, artificial intelligence protection.
Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild and the National Federation of Television and Radio Entertainers say the issues behind the labor dispute, and in particular AI, are an existential threat to entertainers: They say the likeness of game voice actors and motion-capture artists could be replicated by AI and used without their consent or fair compensation.
The union says that because of the widely available ability to cheaply and easily create digital replicas of performers' voices, the unregulated use of AI poses as much or more of a threat to performers in the video games industry as it does in the film and television industries.
SAG-AFTRA negotiators said the video game contract reached an agreement on wages and job security, but the two sides disagreed on regulating generative AI.
Audrey Cooling, a spokeswoman for the video game companies, said the studios were providing “meaningful AI protections” for performers in their proposals, but SAG-AFTRA's negotiating committee said the studios' definition of who constitutes a “performer” will be key to understanding who will be protected.
“The industry has been very clear that we do not consider everyone who performs a physical act to be a performer covered under a collective bargaining agreement,” Ray Rodriguez, SAG-AFTRA's chief contracts officer, said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical acts are treated as “data.”
Here are five things to know about the strike, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
Who is covered by the agreement?
According to SAG-AFTRA, the deal covers more than 2,500 “off-camera voice-over performers, on-camera (motion capture and stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers and background performers.”
Which gaming companies are involved?
The union was negotiating with an Industry Bargaining Group made up of signatory video game companies, including divisions of Activision and Electronic Arts. According to the union, the signatory companies are Activision Productions, Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions, Voiceworks Productions and WB Games.
“We are disappointed that we were so close to an agreement and the union chose to walk away. We are ready to resume negotiations,” Cooling said.
This isn't the first time video game actors have gone on strike.
Thursday's labor dispute marked the second time SAG-AFTRA video game performers have struck. The first began in October 2016 after more than a year of negotiations collapsed. The union and the video game companies reached a tentative agreement 11 months later, in September 2017. At the time, that strike, which helped secure a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists, became the longest strike in the union's history since Hollywood's two biggest actors unions merged in 2012.
What does the performer want?
SAG-AFTRA has cited several key issues, including ensuring wages keep up with inflation, protections against the “exploitative use” of artificial intelligence, and safety measures that take into account the physical strain and stress of vocal performance. Union negotiators said: He told The Associated Press that he had made a profit. In negotiations over wages and job security, the game studios reportedly refused to “provide all of their members with the same protection from the dangers of AI.”
“If all performers working in this contract were adequately protected, we wouldn't be here today,” Salah Elmaleh, chair of the Interactive Media Agreement negotiating committee, said in an interview Thursday afternoon.
AI is the problem
Unrestricted use of artificial intelligence has become a sticking point in negotiations, but voice actors and members of the union's bargaining committee say they are not anti-AI. But they worry that unrestricted use of AI could give game makers a way to replace them, by training AI to imitate actors' voices or digitally creating likenesses of them without their consent.
Some argue that AI could also deny inexperienced actors the opportunity to take on smaller background roles, such as non-player characters, that typically allow them to gain experience before taking on bigger roles. Actors say unrestricted use of AI could also raise ethical questions if their voices or likenesses are used to create content they morally disagree with.
SAG-AFTRA crafted a separate deal in February aimed at indies and low-budget video game projects: The Tiered Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement includes some of the AI protections rejected by the video game industry negotiating group.
The union also announced a deal in January with AI voice company Replica Studios that will allow major studios to work with member actors to create and license digital replicas of their voices, with a provision allowing actors to opt out of having their voices used permanently.
