SAN DIEGO: Artificial intelligence (AI) was a key factor in last year's Hollywood walkout, but it has now sparked a second strike by actors working in a much larger industry at the heart of the advancing technology: video games.
The Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG-AFTRA) launched its second strike in nine months on Friday, this time against the gaming giants that dominate an industry that generates more than $100 billion in revenue each year. While many of the demands are the same – including consent and pay for actors whose voices and movements are used by AI to create game characters – the latest round of talks poses unique challenges, union negotiators told AFP.
Technology companies, by their very nature, tend to view actors simply as “data,” said Ray Rodriguez, head negotiator for video game contracts. “The fact that they see themselves as a technology company” is directly related to “their unwillingness to recognize the value of performance,” he said. The walkout began just after midnight on Friday.
The strike concerns about some 2,600 artists who provide voice-over services for video games or are recorded to animate computer-generated characters. The strike comes after more than a year and a half of fruitless negotiations between the unions and companies including Activision, Disney, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Games. Negotiations have been sporadic because video game companies have not appointed full-time negotiators and there is “extreme secrecy,” Rodriguez said.
There are other complicating factors. Video game characters often blend multiple human actors. For example, one person might voice a hero whose work is motion-captured by another actor. Salah Elmaleh, the union's negotiating chair, said it's a “really fun and cool” way to collaborate. But she warned that video game companies are trying to use that ambiguity to create “loopholes” in their own counterproposals. That's because video game companies can use AI not just to recreate specific actors, but to create “new” voices and body movements from composites of human actors. Such use of generative AI could make it much harder for actors to track their work, and therefore harder to opt out of or get paid.
Voice actor Lindsay Rousseau voices supporting characters, non-player characters who provide side quests, characters who die in battle, and creatures. “That's the first job that's going to go away,” she says.
The Screen Actors Guild of America (SAG-AFTRA) launched its second strike in nine months on Friday, this time against the gaming giants that dominate an industry that generates more than $100 billion in revenue each year. While many of the demands are the same – including consent and pay for actors whose voices and movements are used by AI to create game characters – the latest round of talks poses unique challenges, union negotiators told AFP.
Technology companies, by their very nature, tend to view actors simply as “data,” said Ray Rodriguez, head negotiator for video game contracts. “The fact that they see themselves as a technology company” is directly related to “their unwillingness to recognize the value of performance,” he said. The walkout began just after midnight on Friday.
The strike concerns about some 2,600 artists who provide voice-over services for video games or are recorded to animate computer-generated characters. The strike comes after more than a year and a half of fruitless negotiations between the unions and companies including Activision, Disney, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Games. Negotiations have been sporadic because video game companies have not appointed full-time negotiators and there is “extreme secrecy,” Rodriguez said.
There are other complicating factors. Video game characters often blend multiple human actors. For example, one person might voice a hero whose work is motion-captured by another actor. Salah Elmaleh, the union's negotiating chair, said it's a “really fun and cool” way to collaborate. But she warned that video game companies are trying to use that ambiguity to create “loopholes” in their own counterproposals. That's because video game companies can use AI not just to recreate specific actors, but to create “new” voices and body movements from composites of human actors. Such use of generative AI could make it much harder for actors to track their work, and therefore harder to opt out of or get paid.
Voice actor Lindsay Rousseau voices supporting characters, non-player characters who provide side quests, characters who die in battle, and creatures. “That's the first job that's going to go away,” she says.
