‘Black Mirror’ in real life: Hollywood studios planned to scan actors with AI and use their image forever

Hollywood is in shambles as the actors join the writers on the picket line.

Two months after the Writers Guild of America went on strike over issues such as diminished monetary returns under streaming and the question of AI use in developing stories, SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood actors and performers, has also voted to formally walk off the job.

The actors have similar concerns — notably, base and residual pay being undercut by inflation, the structure of streaming platforms, and the threat of unregulated AI use.

The latter issue was in the spotlight on Thursday when Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, discussed a proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that presumably led to negotiations breaking down at the last minute.

Per The Verge, the AMPTP released a statement about their offering to the actors, which included “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”

In response, Crabtree-Ireland said:

“This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday … proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

The Verge notes that the proposal feels like something out of the Black Mirror episode “Joan is Awful,” where AI doesn’t just take over the roles of filmmakers, but of audience members too. (Though, in that case, Salma Hayek portrayed the woman watching at home. So you win some, you lose some.)

Although the AMPTP proposed an actor’s consent initially, surely they can understand how offensive something like this is to background performers. Or maybe they think “day player” means you do something for one day and never get paid again?

Deadline reports AMPTP’s response to the strike, which they called “a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.” First, if the people who depend on the industry are numbered in the thousands, they aren’t “countless” — so maybe it’s time to put the writers back to work. Secondly, the AMPTP is saying this while literally trying to pay background actors less, so the statement isn’t as magnanimous as they assume.

Now, if the AMPTP is done being Captain Save a Ho, maybe they could get back to negotiations with SAG-AFTRA and the WGA to help end these strikes. They’re not going to win this PR battle, and they know it.