SAG-AFTRA advisor Justine Bateman is a member of the guild, as well as a writer, producer, director, and a former actor, and this isn’t her first rodeo when it comes to the complicated and often fraught territory of guild negotiations. Bateman served on SAG’s national board of directors until 2009, and was also part of the union’s negotiating committee, navigating through multiple contracts. This year’s negotiations saw her helping the union traverse one of the most contentious issues at the root of the strike: Hollywood’s use of generative AI.
Bateman is bullish about making sure members understand exactly what the terms within the tentative agreement could mean for them before they cast their votes.
“I'm not here to advocate for any particular vote,” says Bateman. “I'm saying, ‘Let me spell out how these allowances and loopholes can be used against you.’ And so if you choose to ratify it, be prepared to get your agents and your lawyers to protect you.”
Among her flags is the new contract’s language on synthetic performers, which she argues falls short of what other entertainment guilds have secured following their respective negotiations earlier this year.
“The WGA got a definition of a writer as a human. DGA got a definition of a director, AD … as a human,” Bateman notes. “I would have liked, and I advised them to get that language in the SAG contract, that the definition of a performer — that would fulfill the role of a human character — has to be a human. But that's not in there. … That whole synthetic performer, the human-looking AI objects, I think creates a real problem.”
SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland isn’t as weary. He makes a case for the tentative agreement as the best deal possible, explaining that SAG-AFTRA’s committee took its time to carefully parse through the ins and outs of separate proposals. On AI, he says that no other union has brokered a deal that prohibits its use. He says the committee’s strategy has always been about finding ways to use the technology to members’ advantages.
“We can't stop the advance of technology — we never have been able to, not just us, but anyone in this world, whether it was the printing press, the atom bomb, the Industrial Revolution,” says Crabtree-Ireland. “Our strategy has been to use the power and leverage we could create to channel how the implementation occurs in a direction that is supportive of what our members need, rather than using all of that energy trying to block this technology in a futile effort to prevent it from happening.”
He adds that contract language does not allow studios to spring AI on performers, who have the option to agree to its use. Crabtree-Ireland likens it to performers who are asked to temporarily relocate to another country for a project.
“That is why it's so important to have informed consent — so that you have all the information you need to make your decision about what works for you,” he says. “If you have already been engaged to work on the project, and then they decide they want a digital replica, or then they present consent to you, you can say yes or no. And if you say no, you'll still have to be paid for that project.”
Crabtree-Ireland acknowledges that uncertainties remain as AI technology evolves, as does the subsequent anxiety that it creates for SAG-AFTRA members.
“I'm not trying to tell members that this deal is perfect. I'm not trying to tell members that they shouldn't be concerned about AI. Both of those things are correct,” he says. “But what I would say to members is this contract right now, before this new deal, had no protections for AI in it at all. Blank page. Now we're going to have more than a dozen pages of detailed limitations on what the companies can and cannot do with AI as far as digital replication, with generative AI. We have incredible protections for background actors in this contract.”
He adds that the new AI language serves as guardrails that help position the guild in future contract negotiations.
“The fact that we get notice of any kind of use of synthetic performers so we know when that's happening, and we have the right to bargain over that… The fact that we have protections against the use of digital replicas now, even if they're created outside the project for independently created digital replicas — we have protections,” he says. “That's extraordinary and that really has value. So I do think that our members are far better off with these provisions than they would be with any other alternative.”
Many KCRW staff are members of SAG-AFTRA, though we are under a separate contract from the agreement at issue between actors and studios.