Not everyone in Hollywood is happy with the film industry's historic AI deal. A provision allowing for the creation of digital replicas and synthetic performers could, critics argue, decrease the number of jobs available to both performers and crew. This, in turn, could allow big-name stars--and their AI-generated clones--to feature in multiple projects at once, pushing out emerging actors as Hollywood becomes awash with synthetic performers. Feelings are so strong that 14 percent of the national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA for short, actually voted against taking the deal to its general membership for ratification. Leaders of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, in contrast, overwhelmingly agreed to have their members accept the agreements they hammered out with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

On Monday, the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, held a members-only webinar to discuss the contract the union tentatively agreed upon last week with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). If ratified, the contract will officially end the longest labor strike in the guild's history. For many in the industry, artificial intelligence was one of the strike's most contentious, fear-inducing components. Over the weekend, SAG released details of their agreed AI terms, an expansive set of protections that require consent and compensation for all actors, regardless of status. With this agreement, SAG has gone substantially further than the Directors Guild of America (DGA) or the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who preceded them in coming to terms with the AMPTP.

The thread was 10 tweets long--verbose by X standards--and 219 words, but there was just one word that stuck out. The message, posted on the @SAG-AFTRA account, summed up everything the actors union had fought to get in the tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. In the context of the rapid rise of generative AI, it's worth reading in full: "We have achieved a deal of extraordinary scope that includes'above-pattern' minimum compensation increases, unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI, and for the first time establishes a streaming participation bonus." "Threat," of course, is how many people have come to view artificial intelligence. US president Joe Biden's recent executive order on the technology was seen as, in part, a way to address the risks the technology presents to national security.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has officially ended its strike, which lasted for 118 days, after reaching a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. In its announcement, it said it was able to secure a contract "valued at over 1 billion dollars" and that it was able to negotiate "above-pattern" compensation increases, as well as "unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI." In a contract valued at over one billion dollars, we have achieved a deal of extraordinary scope that includes "above-pattern" minimum compensation increases, unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI,... pic.twitter.com/lQe6snkQsY The union will release more details about the agreement after its national board looks it over on Friday for "review and consideration." However, generative AI became the sticking point that prevented both parties from being able to strike a deal earlier than this.

After 118 days on the picket lines, the longest such strike in Hollywood's history, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has reached a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Both sides were mum about the terms of the deal Wednesday night, but it comes following a long struggle over the use of artificial intelligence on actors' performances and actors' demands for residual payments for shows and films that play on streaming services. A committee from SAG, which represents thousands of film and television actors, approved the agreement Wednesday. The strike itself, which has featured pickets outside the offices of Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others, will end Thursday morning. It's expected that the tentative deal will head to the union's national board to be approved on Friday.

SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood performers, has reportedly responded to studios' "last, best and final" offer to end the strike, rejecting clauses letting studios re-use AI-created likenesses of high-demand and deceased performers without consent from their estate or families. "They can't have that loophole to exploit performers," a union-side source told The Hollywood Reporter. "We could not allow that language to stand." Reportedly, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) would "secure AI scans" for Schedule F performers -- union members earning more than $32,000 per TV episode or $60,000 per film. Studios would pay once to scan the likenesses of these performers without paying for their use or re-use -- essentially giving them eternal rights to their face after paying once upfront.

SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood performers, has reportedly responded to studios' "last, best and final" offer to end the strike, rejecting clauses that would let them re-use AI-created likenesses of high-demand and deceased performers without consent. The union allegedly plans to make a counter-offer that removes the current AI-related language. "They can't have that loophole to exploit performers," a union-side source told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday. "We could not allow that language to stand." THR reports that The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) proposed to "secure AI scans" for Schedule F performers (union members earning more than $32,000 per TV episode or $60,000 per film).

SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood performers, has reportedly responded to studios' "last, best and final" offer to end the strike, rejecting clauses that would let them re-use AI-created likenesses of high-demand and deceased performers without consent. The union allegedly plans to make a counter-offer that removes the current AI-related language. "They can't have that loophole to exploit performers," a union-side source told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday. "We could not allow that language to stand." THR reports that The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) proposed to "secure AI scans" for Schedule F performers (union members earning more than $32,000 per TV episode or $60,000 per film).

I've been in the entertainment industry since I was nine. I joined the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) when I was 11 in 1977, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) when I was 22, and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) the following year. I got my start as a child actor on Broadway, studied film at NYU, then went on to act in movies like The Lost Boys and the Bill & Ted franchise while writing and directing my own narrative work. I've lived through several labor crises and strikes, but none like our current work shutdown, which began last spring when all three unions' contracts were simultaneously due for renegotiation and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) refused their terms. The unifying stress point for labor is the devaluing of the worker, which reached a boiling point with the rapid advancement of highly sophisticated and ubiquitous machine learning tools. Actors have been replaced by AI replications of their likenesses, or their voices have been stolen outright.

Back in May, just a week into the the Writers Guild of America's strike, John August, a member of the union's negotiating committee and writer of Charlie's Angels, described his personal dystopia: "the Nora Ephron problem"--a world in which artificial intelligence evolves to become a writer so profound it can mimic the style of a surefire hitmaker. The synthetic Nora Ephron may yet come to pass, but the deal struck this week between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) will go some way toward protecting writers against its impact. In short, the contract stipulates that AI can't be used to write or rewrite any scripts or treatments, ensures that studios will disclose if any material given to writers is AI-generated, and protects writers from having their scripts used to train AI without their say-so. Provisions in the contract also stipulate that script scribes can use AI for themselves. At a time when people in many professions fear that generative AI is coming for their jobs, the WGA's new contract has the potential to be precedent-setting, not just in Hollywood, where the actors' strike continues, but in industries across the US and the world.