Hollywood’s video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.
The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.
SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the studios will not make a deal over the regulation of generative AI. Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.
I fully support them, but it is a sad irony that the dystopian cyberpunk stories they told are starting to come true, and they are probably the protagonists.
What would JC Denton do?
Apparently he would do all three of becoming a cybernetic dictator ruler of the illuminati, while also plunging humanity into a dark age without technology, but also connect them all to one consciousness.
We need humans in the economy, and art is our soul. I don’t want to see our artists replaced by robots.
It’s a process that’s been going on for a long time. It used to be that if you wanted to listen to music you needed a human artist to physically play it for you, but recordings have been normalized for so long that nobody gives it a second thought.
Heck, this is computer games we’re talking about. Much of the performance is inherently “robotic” on some level already.
That’s not what people said back when recorded music first became prevalent.
Eventually the current hue and cry over AI voice actors will likely subside too.
I wonder how AI Bros will defend Hollywood in this instance.
What makes you think they would? I might be considered that by some and I don’t want AI used in place of real actors because human actors bring something unique to their performances an AI never could. If the actor agrees to allow an AI mimic due to scheduling problems for ADR or whatever, they should get paid every cent they would’ve been if they’d recorded it themselves.
Maybe I’m not AI Bro enough to be on the wrong side of this.
There are many types of AI Bros. They can be researchers who like to explore and develop the potential of AI, others who like to see AI-related research and like to explain how AI works to people who are not into the subject. Finally, there are those who say you can make money with a few steps or by doing nothing.
others who like to see AI-related research and like to explain how AI works to people who are not into the subject
This. And I’m fairly out of step with the zeitgeist as far as AI “plagerism” goes.
But I don’t think AI is a replacement for an actual human, nor do I think it should be. Or could be. It’s a toy. It’s a tool, but it is not a product because it is inherently unreliable and inferior, and given the limitations of the current technology I believe it always will be - at least until they build something completely different from the current technology.
Wouldn’t this just make them invest more heavily in AI so this can’t happen a second time?
Well, this strike only affects the video game industry in the United States. The video game industries in other countries are still going and can use AI in development, we just have to see how this plays out in the future.
For example, in the future, if American actors decide to participate in Chinese or Indian video games and they use AI, they will have to accept the terms that the developer wants in their project or let someone else take their role.
They deserve the best deals and pay, but I do hope ai is implemented in gaming. Massive RPGs would benefit so much from ai generated convos with NPCs and using ai to help make combat and encounters better. You can’t have a voice actor in a studio delivering unlimited dialogue anyways, so it’s not like putting ai in there to do that is a bad idea imo
