The US-based actors’ union Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) warned that “artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to creative professions” as it prepares to fight for improved protections against AI for its members.

SAG-AFTRA union chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland criticized producers for their AI suggestions up until this point.

According to him, studios wanted to be able to scan the faces of background artists for the price of a single day’s labor and then own and use the images of the artists “for the rest of eternity, in any project they want, with no consent and no compensation.”

That is the plot of a Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror episode, if that makes sense.

The current season six episode “Joan Is Awful” featured Hollywood icon Salma Hayek coping with the realization that a production firm could utilize her AI likeness without her permission, as has been quickly noted by US media.

Furthermore, concerns regarding so-called “performance cloning” are shared by groups other than SAG-AFTRA.

Equity acting union representative Liam Budd said: “We’re seeing this technology used in a range of things like automated audiobooks, synthesised voiceover work, digital avatars for corporate videos, or also the role of deepfakes that are being used in films.”

According to Mr. Budd, there is “fear circulating” among Equity members, and the union is working to inform them of their legal rights in this rapidly changing world.

Justine Bateman, a writer and filmmaker, stated earlier this year on the BBC’s Tech Life that she did not believe AI was at all necessary for the entertainment sector.

“Technology should address a problem, yet AI does not address any problems. We don’t need artificial intelligence because there are enough writers, actors, and filmmakers to go around, she remarked.