The growing capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate realistic content, like deep fakes, has got people in Hollywood worried. The emergence of AI is stirring debate among actors, writers, and studios regarding their compensation and content creation. 

AI Is Stirring Debate in Hollywood

The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) recently voiced its concern regarding the emergence of AI deep fakes in Hollywood. According to Interesting Engineering, the actors union is preparing to negotiate labor contracts with studios, and the use of AI is among the top issues.

While some see its potential, others are still concerned about how AI's capacity for content creation is used. SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland noted that the actors' "digital doubles" should be controlled to ensure fair compensation when using their personas. 

"The performer's name, likeness, voice, persona - those are the performer's stock and trade," Crabtree-Ireland told Reuters. "It's really not fair for companies to attempt to take advantage of that and not fairly compensate performers when they're using their persona in that way."

Actors and writers in Hollywood are worried that studios might try to cut costs and boost revenue, and they will be using AI to pump out new content without the production's help and guidance.

That can easily be done with AI technology, which is already being used to erase age marks, alter mouth movements to sync with words, and more. 

Read Also: Hollywood Writers Fight to Restrict AI for Scripts

AI's Impact on Hollywood

AI has been producing hyper-realistic content. For instance, director Wes Anderson's works became a trend in social media as people online created fake movie trailers that bear his distinctive style with the help of AI. 

This technology allowed "digital doubles" of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson to appear in these movie trailers without the Hollywood stars' consent, which sparked concern from the actors union.

According to Reuters, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves have also been victims of unauthorized deep fakes and hyper-realistic AI-generated videos. Reeves described the technology as "scary" as it can be deployed without actors' input.

Actor Leland Morrill noted that productions have started to take his picture from all angles, which he assumes could be used to produce content made by AI. 

"With that type of content, they could use you for part of it, and then create the rest of the character, and then we're not on set anymore and nobody gets paid," he said.

If the union cannot reach a deal on AI and other issues, actors could also go on strike, which would pressure the studios to take action on their demands.

The SAG-AFTRA already asked their members to provide authorization to call a strike if necessary. The union will begin its labor talks with studios on June 7.

Regulators have also investigated AI, specifically OpenAI's ChatGPT, which demanded guardrails to prevent misinformation, bias, violation of copyrights, and invasion of privacy. 

While it is one of the last items mentioned in the summary of negotiating points from the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the debate over AI's role in the creative process is one of the several issues that led writers from Hollywood to strike last May.

Screenwriter and WGA Negotiating Committee Member John August voiced his concerns about AI during the strike. He said: "We don't want our material feeding them, and we also don't want to be fixing their sloppy first drafts." 

Related Article: AI Expert Says Deepfakes Harder to Spot Than Ever Before