Some Actors Concerned About AI Provisions In SAG-AFTRA Contract As Ratification Deadline Approaches

Actors now have all of the details of the tentative contract negotiated by SAG-AFTRA leadership over the course of their nearly four-month strike.

Negotiators point to wage increases and more streaming residuals for some as wins in the more than $1 billion deal.

But for many performers, the existential threat of artificial intelligence still looms large, and they have concerns about how the technology will affect their profession going forward.

“A lot of people are scared right now,” Erik Passoja, a SAG-AFTRA member and union conference delegate, told LAist.

Passoja said most of the questions and concerns he sees from many performers focus on the AI provisions in the tentative contract. He said he shares some of those concerns. In the past he’s been surprised to find his face slapped on a character he didn’t originally portray in a video game.

On the left: Erik Passoja's headshot; On the right: an image of Passoja's digital likeness in a video game

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Headshot courtesy Erik Passoja

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Now, Passoja said, ethical guidelines have to catch up to technology that has already taken off. And state and federal legislators need to get protections in place.

“So that we can come up with some legislation that basically says this, ‘My digital identity is mine,’” Passoja said. “And that’s what I’m fighting for. My face, my voice, my movement is mine.”

Questions remain about enforcement: How will the union make sure that performers’ digital likenesses aren’t used without consent and compensation? Passoja proposes using technology — already used by some big companies — to digitally watermark and fingerprint performers' likenesses so that they can be tracked and identified downstream.

“If they do use us, the operative word for it is — cha-ching,” Passoja said.

A self-professed AI nerd, Passoja said he imagined a future in which actors might be able to do two jobs at once: being physically on set while their digital identity works elsewhere.

Ultimately, Passoja thinks people in the entertainment industry are going to lose work because of artificial intelligence. And right now he’s particularly worried about people who do stunt work and those who play non-human characters in projects like Star Wars.

What’s in the contract

To say all of this is uncharted territory is an understatement. There are new provisions in the tentative SAG-AFTRA contract that are industry firsts.

For example, the union won required consent from actors, meaning that there has to be mandatory consent for studios who want to scan and use a performer’s digital replica.

If a digital replica of a performer is used for the same project for which it was created, the producers would then have to estimate how many working days that would have required the actor to do, and pay them their daily rate for that work.

Studios and streamers will also have to pay residuals for the digital replica work just as they would on a regular performance.

Still, SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has said union leadership weren’t able to get everything they wanted on AI.

“We do not have the ability to stop AI from happening,” Crabtree-Ireland said during a recent Q&A session on Instagram. “And past history from the printing press to the industrial revolution to the invention of television to the invention of the internet shows you just can’t block the technology from happening

“So we didn’t want to waste our leverage and our bargaining power trying to do something that was impossible,” he told the actors who tuned in.

If you want more information on AI, digital replicas and how they are affecting actors and the entertainment industry, Passoja and other experts will take part in a virtual panel on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at 6:30 p.m. PT.