Video game players in Hollywood want to avoid a strike. The sticking point in their discussions? AI

ANGELS — For more than a year and a half, leaders of Hollywood's actors' union have been negotiating with video game companies for a new contract covering the artists who bring their titles to life.

But while negotiators at the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have made progress in negotiations over wages and job security under their video game contract or interactive media, leaders say negotiations are stalled on a key issue: the protection of human rights. use of artificial intelligence.

This is the main obstacle to reaching a deal, and this contractual area has been for some time, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, executive director of SAG-AFTRA. The fundamental problem at present is the reluctance of this negotiating group to provide an equal level of protection against the dangers of AI to all our members.

Union leaders say they are not completely anti-AI. But voice actors and others in video games fear that uncontrolled use of AI could provide game makers with a way to move them by training an AI to reproduce an actor's voice or create a digital replica of their voice. image without their consent.

In some cases, the role of an AI voice is often invisible and used to clean up a recording in later stages of production or to make a character appear older or younger in a different stage of their virtual life.

Our concern is the idea that all this work translates into grist for the mill that moves us, said Sarah Elmaleh, chair of the interactive negotiating committee. They don't need to remind us, you don't need to be told what they used your material to create.

The union has left one last option in its contract battle: calling a strike. Crabtree-Ireland said the union hopes to avoid a work stoppage, but will do what it takes to make sure our members are treated fairly.

Anyone who thinks we're afraid to strike, or that we won't strike, is clearly not paying attention, he added.

SAG-AFTRA members voted to give executives the power to strike video game companies in September. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI has helped power Last year, the union's strikes lasted four months.

Scott Lambright, an actor who has voiced monsters and non-player characters in games, said AI could threaten jobs by making it cheaper to use a generated voice, while also reducing the quality of vocal performance as an art.

Emotionally, it's going to be superficial, he said.

AI could also deprive some actors of the opportunity to get smaller background roles, like NPCs, where they can hone their craft before landing bigger roles, Lambright said.

“Having these roles gives you the confidence to take on a bigger role,” he said. “And if you don't have access to NPC roles, telling a small part of a story… you won't have the confidence to lead something.”

The last interactive contract, negotiated in 2017, did not provide protection around AI. The agreement covers more than 2,500 “artists off-camera (voice-over), on-camera (motion capture, stunts), stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers and background artists,” according to the union.

The negotiating group of major video game producers is willing to put in place protections for voice actors, SAG-AFTRA said, but will not go so far as to include other artists, including stunt and voice actors. motion capture.

Video game companies covered by the interactive contract include Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc. and WB Games Inc.

Audrey Cooling, a spokeswoman for the companies, said they were negotiating in good faith and had made tremendous progress.

“We have reached agreements in principle on the vast majority of the proposals and remain optimistic that an agreement can be reached soon,” Cooling said in an emailed statement.

Amid tense negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate new contract in February covering independent and low-budget video game projects. The Variable-Budget Independent Interactive Media Deal contains some of the same AI protections that gaming industry giants have rejected.

The union also announced a side deal with AI voice company Replica Studios in January. The agreement, which Fran Drescher, President of SAG-AFTRA called a prime example of AI at its best, it allows major studios to work with unionized actors to create and license a digital replica of their voices. It also sets terms that allow performers to opt out of having their voices used in perpetuity.

It's for this type of agency that contractual protections are important, said Tim Friedlander, president of the National Association of Voice Actors.

The technology doesn't currently exist to monitor what's happening with actors' audio files, he said, so it's unclear whether decades of recordings have ever been used to train AI models . Artists, he said, essentially send their audio files to the person who recorded them and trust that they will guarantee that those recordings “will be secure.”

Uncontrolled AI can raise ethical questions, particularly when it involves so-called synthetic voice work that the original actor might not morally agree with.

“If my voice is up there, doing something that I wouldn't say, I'm potentially in conflict with myself. Now I'm losing work because of my own voice,” Friedlander said.