Actors have responded with concern as it’s announced that SAG-AFTRA has signed a deal with a tech firm that specialises in AI voice synthesis.
Months after Hollywood labour unions brought the film industry to a halt, concerns surrounding the use of AI in movie-making still linger.
On the 9th January, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced that it had signed a new agreement with Replica Studios, a company which specialises in the use of AI to generate human-sounding voices.
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said that ‘groundbreaking’ agreement would offer “the best protection against the unauthorised digital simulation of their voice, adding that, “We are happy to partner with Replica Studios, because this is a great example of AI being done right.”
A number of tweets/posts published on Twitter/X – as collated by IGN’s Rebekah Valentine – suggest that actors don’t share SAG-AFTRA’s enthusiasm, however.
“The fact that they don’t include any details of the agreement makes me immediately pessimistic,” reads one post by Jennifer Caitlin Roberts. “There is no way this is actually good for us.”
“Does leadership not understand that we actually like working?” writes Kamran Nikhad. “I don’t want my AI replica being used in AAA games. I want to actually *work* on those AAA games.”
Read more: James Cameron, 4K remasters, and the use of AI
The concern is that, if filmmakers or game developers can use a piece of software to generate a synthesised version of their voice, where does that leave the actor? Aside from the financial aspect – which is a legitimate anxiety all by itself – there’s the artistic aspect to consider. Even if an actor is paid whenever someone uses a digital version of their voice, that’s still not the same as performance or self-expression.
For its part, SAG-AFTRA insists that making a deal with AI companies – rather than attempting to get the use of AI voices banned outright – is the correct route to take. In a statement later published on Twitter/X, the union’s executive director and chief negotiator also argued that the deal with Replica Studios was simply an extension of the terms agreed on by SAG-AFTRA members when the strikes were settled in 2023:
“Our AI deal with Replica Studios is an important step in ensuring the ethical application of these technologies in a way that ensures the use of members’ voices occurs only with informed consent and fair compensation. This is a deal that covers one company, with regard to the development of video games. This deal does not impact our IMA negotiations. Rather, it sets a model for our industry, building on the terms approved by 80% of our members just a month ago, and we hope to see more companies adopting agreements like this one.”
In the face of growing concerns among artists of all kinds, the adoption of AI in multiple industries is continuing apace. Videogame companies Ubisoft and MiHoYo have already agreed to use Nvidia’s AI-driven tech to bring human-seeming characters, capable of conversing with players, into their games. And with SAG-AFTRA’s deal, we’re likely to hear a lot of Replica Studios’ synthesised voices in videogames and elsewhere.
