Video Game Voice Actors May Strike Over AI

'Hollywood is bracing for another actors strike, this time against the videogame industry,' according to MarketWatch:

'We're currently in bargaining with all the major game studios, and the major sticking point is AI,' SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said Thursday. 'Actors at all levels are at risk of digital replication. We have strike authorization on that contract and it is, at this point — we could end up going on strike....'

The union, which navigated its way to a new film and TV contract after a 118-day strike against the Hollywood studios last year, is again focusing on regulating artificial intelligence and its impact on wages and jobs. 'It will be a recurring issue with each successive contract' every three years, Crabtree-Ireland said.

Some studios are already using AI-generated voices to save money, the article points out. 'Actors and actresses should be very much afraid,' Chris Mattmann, an adjunct research professor at the University of Southern California's Computer Science Department, says in the article. 'Within three seconds, gen AI can effectively clone a voice.'

The strike could affect Microsoft's Activision Publishing and Disney, as well as other major game publishers including Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and Warner Bros.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.