Unable To Stop AI, SAG-AFTRA Mulls a Studio Tax On Digital Performers (variety.com)
- Reference: 0180696526
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/0633251/unable-to-stop-ai-sag-aftra-mulls-a-studio-tax-on-digital-performers
- Source link: https://variety.com/2026/film/news/sag-aftra-ai-tilly-norwood-tax-digital-performers-1236644931/
> In the future, studios that use synthetic actors in place of humans [1]might have to pay a royalty into a union fund . That's one of the ideas kicking around as SAG-AFTRA prepares to sit down with the studios on Feb. 9. Artificial intelligence was central to the 2023 actors strike, and it's only gotten more urgent since. Social media is awash in slop, while user-made videos of Leia and Elsa are soon to debut on Disney+. And then there's Tilly Norwood -- the digital creation that crystallized AI fears last fall. Though SAG-AFTRA won some AI protections in the strike, it can't stop Tilly and her ilk from taking actors' jobs.
As negotiations with studios begin early ahead of the June contract deadline, AI remains the most existential concern. Actors are also pushing to revisit streaming residuals, arguing that current "success bonuses" fall far short of the rerun-based income that once sustained middle-class careers. They also note the strain caused from long streaming hiatuses, exclusivity clauses, and self-taped auditions.
[1] https://variety.com/2026/film/news/sag-aftra-ai-tilly-norwood-tax-digital-performers-1236644931/
Not sure I can back them on this (Score:4, Interesting)
The real threat here is that AI will get good enough that producers, directors and writers can work together to achieve their artistic vision without actors. That's very different from business people vibe coding a bunch of insecure spaghetti code garbage. In this case, I'm sympathetic, but not nearly as much as other industries because actors have always been just a cost of allowing creatives upstream of them in the industry to realize their vision.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think that can be stopped. Voice acting is just not something we're going to have anymore it's going to be done by computers. It's going to suck really hard for a while too because it's going to sound terrible without a person doing the voices.
But if it's one thing life has taught me, good enough is always good enough.
Re: Not sure I can back them on this (Score:2)
I don't think we'll get to the point where AI is quite good enough. Not for the top tier work, although there's certainly plenty of phoned in performances out there too. There is a lot more that a good actor brings to the role than a glorified text to speech. Emotion, nuance, energy, natural reactions. Celebrities also matter, whether you like that or not. Actor names sell movie tickets, for example. I think where this is all heading towards real actors quitting the field and we'll just have a shittier expe
Re:Not sure I can back them on this (Score:4, Insightful)
> That's very different from business people vibe coding a bunch of insecure spaghetti code garbage.
Interesting statement. It leaves me asking in what ways though?
I could say CRUD app crapped out of no-code thing like copilot, or the result of a vibe coding session by lay person has a lot in common with a genAI video as well.
On this topic I keep coming back to. If AI generates a movie, novel, song, etc and people enjoy it. What is "wrong" with that? We all wear clothes and use textiles practically everywhere. When was the last time you heard anyone demanding something woven by hand or complaining you can't get something hand woven? Your wife or daughters might knit, they might have an entire room full of skeins of various colored yarns, did they spin a single one from raw fiber with their finger tips, let alone a spinning wheel etc?
Fundamentally people look at the Venn diagram of art and entertainment and they picture entertainment as a circle entirely inside art. Maybe that is just a historical accident. Art is an expression, an expression requires saying something even if that something left to the audience to interpret, maybe we can have entertainment that isn't art. It can look like art without saying anything by virtue of having no speaker. Again we could decry consumption of 'ai slop' as a waste of time and maybe it is but how is that different then uncritically consuming art, which people do every day?
while user-made videos of Leia (Score:3)
Carrie Fisher is dead, she can't complain.
Actor strike? (Score:2)
AI is going to cause a casting couch strike. The Harvey Weinsteins of the the world will be inconsolable.
Solidarity (Score:2)
People in tech should be in 100% solidarity with this, as their jobs are as threatened by AI as anyone else's. I'd go even further than that, though. Given climate change, it's time to abandon a linear (or exponential) notion of technological progress. The planet can't support it, and neither can human beings. Ask what our real technological needs are. They certainly don't include whatever this is.
Can't see that happening (Score:2)
The studios would have to agree to it. I'm not sure why they'd do that. It's not in their best interests. On the positive side it will leave a lot more time for self important celebrities to get out into the world and physically contribute to the causes they care so much about. I'm looking forward to seeing well known faces downtown feeding the homeless and caring for the elderly. Risking their lives in foreign countries to take care of the disadvantaged people there. It will be very inspiring.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if studios agree to it when AI gets good enough that a couple of people can make a full movie in days those studios that did agree are closing. Setup a new studio in a non-California state or even non-US local and churn out movies without this union tax. You would need federal level protections for actors and then every single industry would want their protections. Going to be a wild time as AI keeps progressing.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know, I can see a financial upside for the studios. The union fund payments would almost certainly be cheaper than an actor's salary + residuals. Plus it would be tacit permission from the union to let studios do this without getting into a fight with them. Which is why I can also see the union members NOT voting for it.
Re: Can't see that happening (Score:2)
> The union fund payments would almost certainly be cheaper than an actor's salary + residuals.
You realize this SAG-AFTRA "tax" actually gives the studios nothing, they still have to pay the AI team that creates the characters/personslities/renderings that they use in the movie/tv show.
Whatever savings AI promises to bring to movie-making, this SAG-AFTRA fee will just eat into it - I see no compelling reason for studios to agree to this, even if the unions (collectively) go on strike - there are lots of places around the world where a studio can produce a product without union labor, the savings coul
Union overreach (Score:1)
Their argument boils down to "well if it's a synthetic actor, we represent them too, so we are entitled to $".
No, no you aren't.
By that logic, if I draw a stick figure, I "owe" someone some $. If I sell it, I owe them some of that.
To be fair, congress has already laid the ground for this, with the idea that if I draw a big stick figure sexing a little stick figure, that (to some in Congress) is borderline kiddy porn.
Why are we supplementing this again? (Score:2)
> In the future, studios that use synthetic actors in place of humans might have to pay a royalty into a union fund..
If human actors and actresses ultimately go extinct, what exactly are we supplementing here again? Are the rest of the paycheck-to-paycheck crowd being decimated by AI supposed to somehow give a shit about the "starving" millionaires in Hollyweird trying to secure their future royalties?
> And then there's Tilly Norwood..
Yeah, let's talk about Titty Morewood, the AI whore already taking money out of female OF pockets. Are we going to start a fund for all the poor OF models being displaced by AI too? Just how much are we supposed to priori
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that long ago that actors didn't get paid $60,000,000 for a few weeks work making a movie. They may have to go back to the days when they were merely well-paid rather than obscenely well-paid.
That's if we don't return to the historical norm where prostitution was considered more socially acceptable than acting.
piecemeal response to AI (Score:2)
Is each AI-displaced group supposed to mount their own defensive response? EVERYONE is affected - some sooner rather than later. This requires a government response to change the economic system or massively support people with UBI. It requires those people with jobs NOW to realize this is a temporary situation.
Re: Looker (1981) is around the corner (Score:2)
The only leverage SAG-AFTRA has to implement this is if the other unions (tech crew, writers union, etc) back them up and go on strike also, but not sure this clear money-grab would be supported by the other unions. Also, studios could just ignore the unions and start producing films overseas, beyond the reach of US unions.
ILM is fucked! (Score:2, Funny)
If they put this into place, will they have to pay per CPU? Per MB of memory? Per GPU card? Will ComcastUniversal name all of their computers Wesley.Snipes and only pay for a single instance?
And the most important questions are:
If they push this through will they have to let AI generatied actresses join the union?
When the majority of actors are AI instances, will they vote an AI as president of the union?
Re: ILM is fucked! (Score:2)
> If they put this into place, will they have to pay per CPU? Per MB of memory? Per GPU card? Will ComcastUniversal name all of their computers Wesley.Snipes and only pay for a single instance?
Per animated/simulated character - WTF does processor core count have to do with displacing actors?
In other news, the International Brotherhood of Buggy Whip Craftsmen is considering imposing a tax horseless carriages to compensate workers displaced by the new form of transportation...
If people started reading books instead of watching plays, tv shows or movies, I suspect SAG-AFTRA would want to tax publishers for the characters in the books.