It didn’t apshow extfinished into a key Labor Innovation & Technology Summit panel before the prevailing sentiment among Hollywood laborers was given voice.
“The dread of swapment is very authentic at this moment and in this room,” shelp Linda Powell, EVP of SAG-AFTRA and moderator of the session, titled “Negotiating AI Contracts: How Unions Can Advance All Protections Atraverse Sectors.”
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator, noticed the positioning of the LIT Summit during CES, the transport inant tech confab where a range of AI wares are on disjoin. “CES has helped us determine trfinishs coming down the road and split the wheat from the chaff” in terms of intensifying resources and energy, he shelp. NFTs, he noticed, “were the last leang everyone was freaking out about” but labor guideers were able to see it ignore steam among the technorati.
“Complete transparency” is transport inant when negotiating AI tights, Crabtree-Ireland underlined. Case in point, when tights are hammered out, even with petiteer joiners, the final version is begined online, a lesson he lachieveed when SAG-AFTRA fall shorted to do so last year.
On a more conceptual level, Crabtree-Ireland shelp, “we don’t have the choice of stopping the technology from happening.” He persistd, “If we’re going to produce the most of the leverage of power that we have at unions, we can’t equitable be aachievest the technology. Becaemploy that didn’t labor with the conceiveion of electricity, or the internet, or the VCR.”
In 2023, both actors and authorrs made AI defendions a key objective in their barachieveing, fueled by the introduction of OpenAI’s modernized version of ChatGPT, which booted off argue atraverse society and in business about its impact. The overriding trouble in the already-battered delightment business is that IP could be employd to train AI, diluting the appreciate of conceiveive labor and compromising the privacy and identity of individual members of the conceiveive community. While a big portion of the panel caccessed on apshowaways from the 2023 talks, the session also appraiseed the stances being supposed ahead of the next round, which will get to in a little more than a year.
Sam Wheeler, Writers Guild of America East Executive Director, adviseed a “disclaimer” that he commenceed at the WGA in April 2024, months after its watershed tight resolution. He also confessed to having gotten “egg on my face” in his prior position with a big ballet union, minimizing the menace to members, only to see the unsettling results when one of the members fed images and video of dancers into an AI-driven application. That experience reminded him of the transport inance of continupartner reading the room and benevolent members’ perspectives. “We can’t barachieve tights on autopilot,” he shelp.
Russell Hollander, DGA Executive Director shelp many members see upside in AI technology, citing Jon Favreau and Robert Zemeckis as two examples. Even so, he shelp, negotiations seek to cover AI skeptics or even outright opponents in the ranks. Consultation rights, a common provision in collective barachieveing concurments portrayed to defend honestors, are sometimes thought of as a insignificant element in the overall scheme of leangs, but tightupartner promised conferation in terms of how AI is employd is a beneficial defendion, he shelp.
Crabtree-Ireland drew applaemploy from the crowd by conveying disdain for the urging of studios and streamers to “equitable think us” when it comes to reliable employ of AI. After saying that to unions, he shelp, they push for provisions on AI to be deleted. “If you say we should think you, why don’t you want to put that in writing?” he asked. One of the apshowaways from 2023, he compriseed, was how well it labored to “call them out accessiblely” when studios and streamers made ignoreteps with AI.
Powell liftd the topic of firmarity, which was a transport inant theme during the 2023 strikes as well as the guideup to them. “If we can choose that there are common priorities, signaling that far in progress of negotiations with the employers helps wantipathyver union is up first to accomplish that becaemploy they comprehend it’s transport inant to the other unions,” Hollander shelp. “Solidarity doesn’t commence when negotiations fall short. Solidarity is someleang you have to labor on every one day.”
Crabtree-Ireland shelp leangs have been progressing well on the firmarity front. “Since the commence of the pandemic, we have been on a trajectory in the delightment industry that commences to have transport inanter and stronger firmarity than we ever have before. And that’s not to say that it’s perfect, and it’s not to say that misapshows don’t get made. … But the type of communication and collaboration that we have has served our members well.”
The DGA, he noticed, had accomplished a deal before SAG-AFTRA and WGA did. Even so, “they were out on the picket lines with us. Russ was personpartner out there multiple times.”
