SAG-AFTRA’s Likely Strategy: Make AI Performers as Expensive as Humans
Chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland's remarks came just a month before the union enters its latest round of negotiations with studios and streamers on Feb. 9.
In Duncan Crabtree-Ireland’s ideal world, hiring Tilly Norwood would cost just as much as hiring a real actress.
Here’s the thinking: A lack of cost savings could dissuade employers from using AI-generated performers instead of real actors like Emma Stone or Viola Davis. “In my opinion, if synthetics cost the same as a human, they’re going to choose a human every time,” Crabtree-Ireland said.
The national executive director and chief negotiator of the actors union SAG-AFTRA enumerated on his dollars-and-cents approach to what the labor group calls “synthetic performers” in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday. His remarks previewed the tack that the union may take when its negotiations with studios and streamers begin on Feb. 9, where AI is again expected to be a top issue.
Speaking to Puck’s Matt Belloni (a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter), Crabtree-Ireland acknowledged that the union still had unfinished business when it came to completely AI-generated actors from its last contract negotiation in 2023.
“Frankly, we didn’t get as much as I would have liked on the synthetic performance piece,” he said, noting that the union did receive notice requirements and bargaining rights if an AI performer is used in place of a human.
In recent dealmaking, though — for the union’s commercials contract, for instance, and its contract with major record labels — the labor group negotiated something different: financial penalties for using AI-generated performers. In the union’s 2024 record label deal, if employers use a synthetic voice in a track, they have to pay the same streaming royalties as they would have for a human singer.
