LOS ANGELES – For more than a year and a half, leaders of the Hollywood actors’ union have been negotiating with video game companies a new contract that covers the artists who bring their titles to life.
But while Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists negotiators made gains in negotiating pay and job security in their video game contract or interactive media deal, leaders say negotiations have stalled over a fundamental issue. : Protections over the use of artificial intelligence.
“It’s the main obstacle to reaching an agreement, and this area of contract has been around for some time,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, executive director of SAG-AFTRA. “The fundamental issue at this time is the reluctance of this negotiating group to provide an equal level of protection against the dangers of AI for all of our members.”
Union leaders say they are not “totally anti-AI.” But voice actors and other video game artists are worried that the uncontrolled use of AI could provide game creators with a way to replace them – by training an AI to replicate an actor’s voice or to create a digital replica of their likeness. without consent.
In some cases, the role of an AI voice is often invisible and used to clean up a recording in later stages of production or to make a character appear older or younger at a different stage in their virtual life.
“Our concern is the idea that all this work translates into grain for the mill that replaces us,” said Sarah Elmaleh, president of the interactive negotiating committee. “They don’t need to call us back, you don’t need to be told what they used to create their material.”
The union maintained one last option in its battle for a contract: calling a strike. Crabtree-Ireland said the union hopes to avoid a work stoppage but will “do whatever is necessary to ensure our members are treated fairly.”
“Anyone who thinks we are afraid to go on strike, or that we won’t go on strike, has clearly not been paying attention,” he added.
SAG-AFTRA members voted to give leadership the authority to attack video game companies in September. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s union strikes, which lasted four months.
Scott Lambright, an actor who has voiced monsters and non-player characters for games, said AI could threaten jobs by making it cheaper to use a generated voice while reducing the quality of vocal performance as art.
“Emotionally, it will be superficial,” he said.
AI could also deprive some actors of the chance to land smaller roles, like NPCs, where they can hone their craft before landing bigger roles, Lambright said.
“Having these roles gives you confidence in yourself to take on a bigger role,” he said. “And if someone doesn’t have access to NPC roles, telling a small part of a story… you won’t have confidence in leading something.”
The last interactive contract, negotiated in 2017, did not provide for protections around AI. The agreement covers more than 2,500 “off-camera performers (voice-over), on-camera performers (motion capture, stunt doubles), stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers and background performers,” according to the union.
The negotiating group of major video game producers is willing to implement protections for voice actors, SAG-AFTRA said, but will not go so far as to include other performers, including stunt performers and motion capture artists.
Video game companies covered by the interactive agreement include Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc. WB Games Inc.
Audrey Cooling, a spokeswoman for the companies, said they are negotiating in good faith and have “made tremendous progress.”
“We have reached tentative agreements on the vast majority of proposals and remain optimistic that we can reach agreement soon,” Cooling said in an emailed statement.
Amid the tense negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a new, separate contract in February that covered independent and low-budget video game projects. The staggered-budget independent interactive media deal contains some of the AI protections that video game industry giants have rejected.
The union also announced a side deal with voice AI company Replica Studios in January. The agreement, which SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher Called “a great example of AI being done right,” it allows major studios to work with unionized actors to create and license a digital replica of their voice. It sets terms that also allow artists to opt out of having their voices used in perpetuity.
This type of agency is why contractual protections are important, said Tim Friedlander, president of the National Voice Actors Association.
There is currently no technology to monitor what happens to actors’ audio files, he said — it’s unclear whether decades of recordings have ever been used to train AI models. Artists, he said, essentially send their audio files to the person who recorded them and trust them to ensure that those recordings “will be safe.”
Unchecked AI can lead to ethical questions, especially when it comes to a so-called “synthetic voice” that generates voice work that the original actor may not morally agree with.
“If my voice is out there…doing something that I wouldn’t say, now I’m potentially in conflict with myself. Now I’m losing work because of my own voice,” Friedlander said.
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