The AI Protections Hollywood Actors Got After Their 118-Day Strike

The longest actor's strike in Hollywood history ended with 'groundbreaking' protections against the use of AI, reports CNN:

Studios will have to provide informed consent for the creation of any kind of digital replica of a performer or background actor, with a specific description of the intended use, the union officials said. Compensation for the replica will vary. Notably, the contract also protects background performers from any use of their digital replica without their consent, SAG leadership said. [Even after they are deceased.]

Negotiations over using AI to create synthetic performers continued down to the wire. Union leadership said studios will have to gain consent for any actors whose facial features are used for the AI performer, the studios have to inform actors they're using AI, and the union can bargain over compensation for those affected by it.

The separate deal signed in September with the writer's guild 'also includes assurances that AI cannot write or rewrite literary material,' the article adds, 'and will require AI-generated materials to be disclosed to writers.' Now the president of the actor's union tells the Hollywood Reporter, 'We got everything we wanted with the AI protections, which was key. Plus we're going to be meeting with the AMPTP [the entertainment industry's bargaining unit] twice a year to make sure that our finger remains on the pulse of the progress, and also to align ourselves on the same side with regard to federal regulations and protections against piracy.'
And the union president underscored the importance of AI-related protections to Rolling Stone'
'If we didn't get that package, then what are we doing? We're not really able to protect our members in the way that they needed to be protected... If we didn't get those barricades, what would it be in three years...?'

In the union's initial announcement of the tentative deal on Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA promised it had secured a contract 'of extraordinary scope' valued at more than $1 billion and 'unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI.'

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