Unable To Stop AI, SAG-AFTRA Mulls a Studio Tax On Digital Performers (variety.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: In the future, studios that use synthetic actors in place of humans might have to pay a royalty into a union fund. That's one of the ideas kicking around as SAG-AFTRA prepares to sit down with the studios on Feb. 9. Artificial intelligence was central to the 2023 actors strike, and it's only gotten more urgent since. Social media is awash in slop, while user-made videos of Leia and Elsa are soon to debut on Disney+. And then there's Tilly Norwood -- the digital creation that crystallized AI fears last fall. Though SAG-AFTRA won some AI protections in the strike, it can't stop Tilly and her ilk from taking actors' jobs. As negotiations with studios begin early ahead of the June contract deadline, AI remains the most existential concern. Actors are also pushing to revisit streaming residuals, arguing that current "success bonuses" fall far short of the rerun-based income that once sustained middle-class careers. They also note the strain caused from long streaming hiatuses, exclusivity clauses, and self-taped auditions.
ILM is fucked! (Score:3, Funny)
If they put this into place, will they have to pay per CPU? Per MB of memory? Per GPU card? Will ComcastUniversal name all of their computers Wesley.Snipes and only pay for a single instance?
And the most important questions are:
If they push this through will they have to let AI generatied actresses join the union?
When the majority of actors are AI instances, will they vote an AI as president of the union?
Re: ILM is fucked! (Score:3)
If they put this into place, will they have to pay per CPU? Per MB of memory? Per GPU card? Will ComcastUniversal name all of their computers Wesley.Snipes and only pay for a single instance?
Per animated/simulated character - WTF does processor core count have to do with displacing actors?
In other news, the International Brotherhood of Buggy Whip Craftsmen is considering imposing a tax horseless carriages to compensate workers displaced by the new form of transportation...
If people started reading books instead of watching plays, tv shows or movies, I suspect SAG-AFTRA would want to tax publishers for the characters in the books.
Re: ILM is fucked! (Score:4, Insightful)
If the money going to the union will be paid to the human actors who join the union, how can I join this union? I too can act. I have done it many times in office when I was late to meetings. I do it at home sometimes, when I have to do the dishes. I am a good actor, a great actor.
Not sure I can back them on this (Score:5, Interesting)
The real threat here is that AI will get good enough that producers, directors and writers can work together to achieve their artistic vision without actors. That's very different from business people vibe coding a bunch of insecure spaghetti code garbage. In this case, I'm sympathetic, but not nearly as much as other industries because actors have always been just a cost of allowing creatives upstream of them in the industry to realize their vision.
Re:Not sure I can back them on this (Score:5, Insightful)
But if it's one thing life has taught me, good enough is always good enough.
Re: Not sure I can back them on this (Score:2)
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Human actors can only hope AI doesn't get good enough. But there are many bad actors in Hollywood too. At least AI can replace them for starters.
Re: Not sure I can back them on this (Score:2)
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Re:Not sure I can back them on this (Score:5, Insightful)
That's very different from business people vibe coding a bunch of insecure spaghetti code garbage.
Interesting statement. It leaves me asking in what ways though?
I could say CRUD app crapped out of no-code thing like copilot, or the result of a vibe coding session by lay person has a lot in common with a genAI video as well.
On this topic I keep coming back to. If AI generates a movie, novel, song, etc and people enjoy it. What is "wrong" with that? We all wear clothes and use textiles practically everywhere. When was the last time you heard anyone demanding something woven by hand or complaining you can't get something hand woven? Your wife or daughters might knit, they might have an entire room full of skeins of various colored yarns, did they spin a single one from raw fiber with their finger tips, let alone a spinning wheel etc?
Fundamentally people look at the Venn diagram of art and entertainment and they picture entertainment as a circle entirely inside art. Maybe that is just a historical accident. Art is an expression, an expression requires saying something even if that something left to the audience to interpret, maybe we can have entertainment that isn't art. It can look like art without saying anything by virtue of having no speaker. Again we could decry consumption of 'ai slop' as a waste of time and maybe it is but how is that different then uncritically consuming art, which people do every day?
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If AI generates a movie, novel, song, etc. and people enjoy it. What is "wrong" with that?
Fair point. Just plain old automation taking yet another mundane thing we humans do. Acting this time.
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On this topic I keep coming back to. If AI generates a movie, novel, song, etc and people enjoy it. What is "wrong" with that? We all wear clothes and use textiles practically everywhere. When was the last time you heard anyone demanding something woven by hand or complaining you can't get something hand woven?
This. Is it disruptive? Yes. But it is also just how it is. Will it put actors and actresses out of work? Yes. But no one guarantees me my job, if technology comes along to replace what I'm doing now, I adapt and move to something else.
A tax? we're reaching the point where I can in my own office, create movies with AI actors. So a desperation tax will just accelerate the demise.
Perhaps, just perhaps - if Hollywood were to decide to tell better stories, they might stave off the inevitable for a while.
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"The real threat here is that AI will get good enough that producers, directors and writers can work together to achieve their artistic vision without actors. "
The real threat is that it won't get good enough, but they'll do it anyway.
while user-made videos of Leia (Score:3)
Carrie Fisher is dead, she can't complain.
Actor strike? (Score:2)
AI is going to cause a casting couch strike. The Harvey Weinsteins of the the world will be inconsolable.
Solidarity (Score:1, Interesting)
hahahahaha -- NO. (Score:1, Interesting)
I am a very lame producer, but I make really good money at it. It started as a hobby back in 2015.
I use Ai now with all our customers. We will NEVER hire anyone who has EVER used the word "SAG" in their resume or social media profile.
SAG => monopoly => control who can act => if you don't agree with SAG's politics, you can't act.
It's well past time to remove SAG from the market through market forces. Ai is absolutely AMAZING for my client base, they love being able to change the race, gender, loc
Can't see that happening (Score:2)
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Even if studios agree to it when AI gets good enough that a couple of people can make a full movie in days those studios that did agree are closing. Setup a new studio in a non-California state or even non-US local and churn out movies without this union tax. You would need federal level protections for actors and then every single industry would want their protections. Going to be a wild time as AI keeps progressing.
It would be as difficult as eliminating free speech. If I were to make that hypothetical movie in a couple days, what would be the law that could be created that would keep me from showing it, at an indie fair, and even making money with it on say Youtube?
If I were an actor, I would be looking to find employment in a different field.
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Re: Can't see that happening (Score:2)
The union fund payments would almost certainly be cheaper than an actor's salary + residuals.
You realize this SAG-AFTRA "tax" actually gives the studios nothing, they still have to pay the AI team that creates the characters/personslities/renderings that they use in the movie/tv show.
Whatever savings AI promises to bring to movie-making, this SAG-AFTRA fee will just eat into it - I see no compelling reason for studios to agree to this, even if the unions (collectively) go on strike - there are lots of places around the world where a studio can produce a product without union labor, the savings coul
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If ((AIActor.Tax + AIActor.Cost) LessThan (HumanActor.Salary + HumanActor.Residuals)) then Studio.Happy = True
Union overreach (Score:2)
Their argument boils down to "well if it's a synthetic actor, we represent them too, so we are entitled to $".
No, no you aren't.
By that logic, if I draw a stick figure, I "owe" someone some $. If I sell it, I owe them some of that.
To be fair, congress has already laid the ground for this, with the idea that if I draw a big stick figure sexing a little stick figure, that (to some in Congress) is borderline kiddy porn.
Why are we supplementing this again? (Score:2)
In the future, studios that use synthetic actors in place of humans might have to pay a royalty into a union fund..
If human actors and actresses ultimately go extinct, what exactly are we supplementing here again? Are the rest of the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd being decimated by AI supposed to somehow give a shit about the "starving" millionaires in Hollyweird trying to secure their future royalties?
And then there's Tilly Norwood..
Yeah, let's talk about Titty Morewood, the AI whore already taking money out of female OF pockets. Are we going to start a fund for all the poor OF models being displaced by AI too? Just how much are we supposed to priori
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It's not that long ago that actors didn't get paid $60,000,000 for a few weeks work making a movie. They may have to go back to the days when they were merely well-paid rather than obscenely well-paid.
That's if we don't return to the historical norm where prostitution was considered more socially acceptable than acting.
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This is about a profession dying in the future; with the currently wealthy using what they have to protect their obscene income. In fact, most people in the industry do not make a lot of money. If they didn't have unions, there would only be few making a living and smaller number making a lot of money (because they'd sign away more before they had enough agency.)
The elite get you hating on the few successful people, many more of which had to work their way up and be lucky if not also be exploited and assaul
piecemeal response to AI (Score:2)
Re: Looker (1981) is around the corner (Score:2)
The only leverage SAG-AFTRA has to implement this is if the other unions (tech crew, writers union, etc) back them up and go on strike also, but not sure this clear money-grab would be supported by the other unions. Also, studios could just ignore the unions and start producing films overseas, beyond the reach of US unions.
No fucking way. Eat shit SAG-AFTRA. (Score:1, Insightful)
Ridiculous (Score:2)
haah (Score:2)
Sag-aftra killed the movie business with their strike against AI. Joke is on them, and I am delighting in the schadenfreude.