On Tuesday, SAG-AFTRA announced a deal with a tech company that allows actors to license their voices to be replicated by artificial intelligence for video games. It comes after a record-long strike where AI’s use by studios was a contentious sticking point for contract negotiators. SAG-AFTRA says the deal shows how AI companies can work with the guild. Some actors worry, however, that they’ll lose control over their voices or be replaced.
The agreement between SAG-AFTRA and Replica Studios is intended to “safely explore” new employment opportunities for actors, according to Elaine Low, staff writer for The Ankler. The deal requires Replica to get consent from actors before using their voices, and actors are allowed to deny the use of their voices in perpetuity.
So far, Low says she’s seen criticism of the deal online: “There were plenty of people who did not feel very good about this deal, because the worry is that with such a fast-moving technology, it's just hard to say how exactly things are going to be implemented … how much control an individual actor really is going to have despite any kind of contractual attempt to rein it in.”
So why did SAG-AFTRA make this deal? Low says it’s part of the guild’s desire to work in concert with this technology that is likely here to stay.
“It's more about how to work alongside this technology that's developing so quickly. So the goal has been to put guardrails around it, which is why the contract ultimately came down to, as they put it, informed consent and compensation around it. Always giving the actors the right to say no. Again, how that will be implemented is yet to be seen.”