Performers Worry Artificial Intelligence Will Take Their Jobs
2023-06-10
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1Leaders of the SAG-AFTRA actors' union say the group's members are concerned that they will lose work because of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, tools.
2The labor organization started talks with Hollywood movie studios about a new contract this week.
3Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is the main person speaking with movie studios on behalf of the actors.
4He is SAG-AFTRA's negotiator.
5He said people who work in movies have their stock-in-trade, or their special qualities that make them different from another actor.
6He listed an actor's name, voice, personality and likeness when describing those qualities.
7Crabtree-Ireland wants to be sure actors keep making money from their special qualities.
8For example, the labor organization wants to prevent movie production companies from taking an actor's image in one movie and using it to create a "digital double" for a new movie.
9Crabtree-Ireland said it would not be fair to do that without paying extra.
10Artificial intelligence tools have already been used to make "deepfakes" of well-known actors Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves.
11Reeves called the technology "scary."
12Deepfake is the term for real-looking, but untrue, video.
13AI can be used to make deepfakes.
14AI tools have gained attention since the company OpenAI launched ChatGPT late last year.
15The tools that can create sound and video are known as generative AI.
16They can take real video of a person and make it seem as if the person is saying words that they never said.
17In Hollywood, the technology is being used to make actors look younger or to fix lip synch problems when a movie is dubbed into a different language.
18Justine Bateman is a producer, writer and actor.
19She was on the successful television program Family Ties when she was young.
20Her brother is the well-known actor, Jason Bateman.
21She has a computer science education and is concerned about how AI will change movies and television.
22She said studios could take parts from her old show and make a new season.
23While many actors are worried about AI, others can accept it.
24Harrison Ford and James Earl Jones are two older actors who told moviemakers they could use AI.
25Ford will appear in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
26He first played Indiana Jones in the 1980s.
27Now he is 80 years old.
28In parts of the new movie, Ford appears as a young man.
29Instead of using a different actor, the moviemakers used AI to make Ford look young.
30They used images of his performance in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
31James Earl Jones recently spoke with Vanity Fair magazine.
32He said he agreed to let the producers of Star Wars use AI to recreate his voice.
33Jones is 92 and provides the voice for Darth Vader.
34He said he wants Star Wars producers to use his voice even after he dies.
35It is not the first time Star Wars used AI.
36The company Disney used the technology to put Carrie Fisher into the 2019 film The Rise of Skywalker after she died.
37The actors' labor union wants to be sure anyone acting in a movie has a chance to say "yes" or "no" about using AI every time they accept a job.
38If SAG-AFTRA cannot reach an agreement with the movie companies, it may join the Writers Guild, another labor group, in a strike.
39Both unions want protections in place before signing new contracts.
40If the actors do not push for the protections, Bateman said, creativity and innovation might disappear from movies, television and music.
41She said everything made in the future is going to be based on work from the past.
42"I don't want to live in that world," she said.
43I'm Dan Friedell. And I'm Caty Weaver.