So dazzling is the Hollywood stardust, however, that the real conflict propelling this dispute is easily obscured. Grasp its outlines, and it is clear that SAG-AFTRA’S strike has the potential to be one of the most consequential labour disputes of all time. It the first major claim by creators for a fair share of whatever AI might fashion from their raw material. It has the capacity to frame similar negotiations for generations to come.
Actor’s union president Fran Dreschler hit the nail on the head: “The eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labour are upon us. What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labour.”
Two factors make this dispute seismic.
The first is that at its core is the economic control of the human input upon which AI depends. The union is demanding “provisions to grant informed consent and fair compensation when a “digital replica” is made, or our performance is changed using AI.”
It is obvious that in the near future, if not already, AI will learn from scenes in films that have already been shot, and recreate the same characters doing different things, or saying alternative words. It can’t do this without the raw material provided by the original actors, but it will be able to replicate their work. The same is true in every field of creation – words, music and pictures.
If creators’ cede their rights in the the raw material on which fresh creations depend, their ability to make a living will be grievously damaged. And remember, like the news media, the stratospheric rewards achieved by a handful of stars are only possible because of a vast army of workers, many of whom are pitifully remunerated and exist in permanent precarity.
If SAG-AFTRA is able to secure some control over these rights, it will be patten-making. All those whose work is consumed by machines and regurgitated as ‘new’ works, will have a chance of being properly compensated. That includes workers far beyond entertainment and news – just think about what machine replication could do to education, the law and medicine.
The second distinguishing factor in this dispute is the parties on the other side of the negotiating table. The employers are represented by Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). This body includes Amazon/MGM, Apple, Disney/ABC/Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount/CBS, Sony, Warner Bros, and Discovery (HBO).
Here are some – although not all – of the big beasts of the emerging AI economy. They are among the defining giants of the information age. Wring a fair deal from them now, and everyone else can build on their precedent. Fail, and we will repeat the mistakes of the early internet age and the rush to give away content. Then technological novelty eclipsed economic sense. Now is the time to learn from that error.
Journalists might imagine our role being simply to report this dispute. In June, however, the Financial Times revealed that News Corp, Axel Springer, The New York Times and The Guardian had all been in talks with the AI giants to secure their slice of the pie.
The story quoted News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson speaking at a conference: “[media’s] collective IP is under threat and for which we should argue vociferously for compensation. AI is designed so the reader will never visit a journalism website, thus fatally undermining that journalism.”
AP and Shutterstock are reported to already have deals with OpenAI.
If journalists are going to be treated fairly, then demonstrating our vociferous support for our SAG-AFTRA colleagues is a good start. But we should also be demanding our own seat at the negotiating table with the tech giants. The news brands will, inevitably, serve their own interests. Time and again we have seen that the best defenders of journalism are journalists ourselves.
We lack the glamour of the silver screen and the celebrity matinee idols, but recognising that we are fundamentally in the same boat as the Hollywood strikers is the first step to navigating the AI revolution so that we all benefit.
Tim Dawson is Deputy General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists.