AI has been the top buzzword for tech companies this year and, now, it’s a hot topic on pickets amid Hollywood’s first writers’ and actors’ strike in more than 60 years. Yahoo Finance spoke to four extraordinary actors and writers outside the Netflix (NFLX) Los Angeles office this week about their concerns about AI, a key part of negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA).
“I’m not a Luddite, I’m not afraid of the future, and I don’t think most people in line with me are afraid of the future,” said WGA member Charlie Kesslering, a feature film writer who previously worked on The Late Late Show with James Corden. “The worst-case scenario for me isn’t just about me being replaced as a writer; it’s about no longer having human-made artwork that other humans can connect with…The [Guild’s] AI propositions are only geared towards improving the product and helping us continue to create television and film for audiences around the world. I think the worst thing that could come of it is for those real human stories to get lost in the shuffle.”
WGA member Blythe Ann Johnson, who recently worked on the CW TV series ‘Walker’, is also “personally concerned” about the future of AI in entertainment.
“Right now, the technology may not be available yet, but over time, companies can use AI to try and replicate what we do and save money,” Johnson said. “We know they’ll save pennies when they can… I think it’s important to address that now and define writers and actors as people, not an algorithm.”
“I am very worried that this generation of stars is the last”
Indeed, there are a wide range of concerns at the heart of this strike, and the demands of both SAG and WGA have many overlaps, including an inflation-adjusting pay increase and an improvement in residuals. Ultimately, the reason AI is so fully a part of the conversation is because the goal is to protect workers in a rapidly changing industry, the strikers say. It’s also hard to overstate the importance of Netflix particularly in the context of this strike, after all Netflix represents the massive technological shift that Hollywood has faced over the last few decades.
“Netflix was the beginning of the streaming revolution,” said SAG Fellow Bella Cruz. “They’re making all this money, building this company on the backs of creatives… The threshold to take out insurance with SAG is $26,000 a year, you need that to get health insurance. I mean 85% of the members don’t.”
To some extent, outside of this strike, every time it ends, some artists are more and more interested in taking control of their careers outside the system.
“The thing I’ve done is take it into my own hands and make my plans and hopefully generate income that way,” Cruz said. “What we all need is to recognize that we don’t necessarily need these companies to do everything we do.”
However, there is something about the existential threat of artificial intelligence, the uncanny valley of seeing or imagining yourself saying or doing something that never happened.
“Being more of an up-and-coming actor, I’m concerned about artificial intelligence,” said SAG member Adam Krist. “Some people are concerned about AI, for example, making films entirely on their own, which I guess is a possibility, but I’m also not totally scared or anything like that. My dad is in cybersecurity and I work as a director, so I’ve been using these AI tools and they’re the best.”
For Krist, it’s the ramifications down the line that he’s most concerned about.
“I’m very concerned that… this generation of stars is the last, because they can just keep mapping Harrison Ford’s face onto mine over and over again,” said Krist. “So I get paid less and less and I never get to do what I love to do. People don’t get to know what I do, and also we don’t have anything new … There has to be some sort of protection.”
Ultimately, the prevailing sentiment in the AI pickets is this: that AI, even if it gets better, simply doesn’t have what it takes to make great works of art.
“They’re trying to use artificial intelligence to take the humanity out of art,” said SAG member Alan Starzinski. “The reason life is worth living is because there are ups and downs, ups and downs. It’s like that sign says, ‘AI has no childhood trauma.'”
However, studios and streamers have reportedly been incredibly resistant to unions’ proposals on AI to date. Johnson points out that, for the writers, there’s an anniversary coming up on August 9, they’ve been on strike for 100 days.
“I’d be jumping for joy in the streets if we weren’t here that day, but I don’t imagine we’ll be out of it by then,” she said.
Allie Garfinkle is Senior Tech Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @agarfinks and go LinkedIn.
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