SAG-AFTRA Inks Deal With Voiceover Studios Over AI Use In Gaming
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Concern about Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to prompt unions to help secure deals to ensure that actors are not eventually taken advantage of by entertainment studios through the use of AI. The initial concerns about AI involved films and television and prompted a strike that lasted for several months last year before agreeing with major movie studios for new protections regarding AI including consent and compensation requirements. SAG-AFTRA recently sought to address similar concerns with the videogame industry.
To this end, SAG-AFTRA inked a deal with the AI Voiceover Studio, Replica Studios, this past Tuesday at CES in Las Vegas. The union’s executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, reported that the terms include informed consent for the use of AI to create digital replicas, as well as the requirements for the safe storage of digital assets, something not addressed in the previous AMPTP deal. The deal only pertains to “digital replicas”- using AI to recreate a performer’s voice- living or dead. The deal does not apply to AI training to create synthetic performances.
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The union executive stressed that the current goal of the union is not to stand in the way of emerging technologies such as AI, which they view as impossible and unproductive, but rather to ensure that such technologies benefit performers. “These are the kind of terms that producers can agree to without disrupting their ability to make content,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “This is an evolutionary step forward. AI technology is not something we can block. It’s not something we can stop. That’s not a tactic or a strategy that’s ever worked for labor in the past.”
Now that SAG-AFTRA has an agreement with Replica Studios, the union is hoping to get other video game studios on board with a similar deal. Those talks are ongoing and the union has voted to authorize a strike while the talks continue. The union, however, is hopeful that a far-reaching agreement with the major videogame studios will be imminently forthcoming.
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Source(s): Variety
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