It’s deja vu all over again. Actors and performers represented by SAG-AFTRA hoisted picket signs, cranked up the music, and marched in front of Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank this morning. These are the performers who are the voices, and in some cases the bodies, for the characters from video games. They went on strike last week when contract talks broke down over … surprise! The use of artificial intelligence.
What are performers worried about?
In short: signing away the rights to their voice and image in perpetuity.
Once upon a time, actors were contracted to work on a film, TV show, video game, or whatever, and even though editing allowed for a lot of manipulation, companies couldn’t generate whole new performances out of the original. Now that performance has become essentially data, voices and likenesses can be shaped in all sorts of ways.
What does the union say?
“We feel very strongly that there needs to be protections in place — contractual protections and also legal protections — that say that people have the right to control the use of their own face, voice likeness, performance, whether that's in digital replication, or even in other types of AI,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said at the picket. Crabtree-Ireland is the national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA and was involved in last year’s strikes. The union has been working on this contract, called the Interactive Media Agreement, since October 2022.
If an actor has no control over their digital likeness, the job market becomes very weird indeed.
“The threat is to have to compete against yourself — to compete against a digital replica of you that somebody else controls,” says Crabtree-Ireland. “Those are things that are really potentially devastating to a performer’s career.”
What does the industry have to say about the strike?
Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, contends that the contract does address the union’s concern. “We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions,” she says in a statement. The contract offer “extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working” and “are among the strongest in the entertainment industry.”
Is AI all bad for actors?
Neither side is totally opposed to AI. For the performers, there are useful applications of the technology, like cloning your voice to correct or tweak small bits of a performance so that the actor doesn’t have to come back into the studio. Should the actor get paid for those tweaks as if it’s a new session? This is the kind of thing these industry contracts of the last few years are hashing out. There are some uses for AI that are convenient for everybody.
Is this strike less of a big deal since video games employ a smaller pool of performers?
While people may not be as aware of this strike as they were when big-name Hollywood actors marched in last year’s strikes, this negotiation is potentially more important.
For one thing, video games are just much bigger business. The value of the industry is debated, but as of 2024 it’s estimated to be over $300 billion — bigger than film and music combined.
For another thing, it’s worth paying attention to because any contract that deals with how companies use a person’s image or voice doesn’t just shape the future of video games or TV or film, but could affect how much control any of us have over our digital selves.
KCRW content staff are members of SAG-AFTRA, but are under a separate contract from the agreement at issue between actors and video game makers.