Hollywood’s video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.
The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.
SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.
What makes you think they would? I might be considered that by some and I don’t want AI used in place of real actors because human actors bring something unique to their performances an AI never could. If the actor agrees to allow an AI mimic due to scheduling problems for ADR or whatever, they should get paid every cent they would’ve been if they’d recorded it themselves.
Maybe I’m not AI Bro enough to be on the wrong side of this.
There are many types of AI Bros. They can be researchers who like to explore and develop the potential of AI, others who like to see AI-related research and like to explain how AI works to people who are not into the subject. Finally, there are those who say you can make money with a few steps or by doing nothing.
And I mean the latter. Just like Tech Bros and NFT Bros being in it just for the easy money while disregarding the potential damage.
This. And I’m fairly out of step with the zeitgeist as far as AI “plagerism” goes.
But I don’t think AI is a replacement for an actual human, nor do I think it should be. Or could be. It’s a toy. It’s a tool, but it is not a product because it is inherently unreliable and inferior, and given the limitations of the current technology I believe it always will be - at least until they build something completely different from the current technology.