SAG-AFTRA Video Game Workers Strike Continues Fight for AI ‘Consent and Compensation’

Hollywood’s battle over artificial intelligence has shifted to the interactive front. SAG-AFTRA has called its second video game industry strike in eight years due to a standoff with major video game producers over provisions to protect voice actors and motion capture artists from abuse of the nascent technology.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Sarah Elmaleh, chair of the guild’s negotiating committee for the interactive media agreement, said the provisions proposed by the video game companies that signed the contract — which include Disney, Warner Bros. Games, Electronic Arts and Activision — were “partially but dangerously incomplete.”

“If your performance is being replicated, you deserve to have access to critical information,” Elmaleh said.