“You have to reject the idea that [AI] it’s just something that will happen to us and we can’t say anything about it,” he said SAG-aftr National executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland at the start of a panel focusing on AI and entertainment. “I think it definitely can, the question is if we are.” will allow this to happen.”
Variety reports that Crabtree-Ireland joined the voice actors in an intimate panel at San Diego Comic-Con that talked about the specifics of the generative AI threat to working artists and actors. The panel featured voice actors who are part of the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), including Linsay Rousseau (God of War: Ragnarok), Ashley Burch (Mythical quest), Cissy Jones (House of the Owl), Zeke Alton (Call of Duty) and Tim Friedlander (Recording Ragnarok). Friedlander is also the president and founder of NAVA.
The panel mainly discussed how to mitigate the concerns of allowing the AI to generate lines that the actors did not agree with or refused to read. Actors talked about putting talent-first provisions into contracts and lead companies that would ensure any AI was used in collaboration with actors and would also include provisions for proper compensation.
Crabtree-Ireland stated that in addition to battling AI within the entertainment business, AI posed an existential threat, not necessarily because of what it is capable of doing now, but how it might be used in the future and by whom. “All of us can resist the misuse of technology, to really say, ‘We will say what can be done with our bodies, our voices, our faces, our likenesses,’ and we must.”
“I don’t want the next generation of voice actors to not have the potential to build a life that we’ve been able to build in this business,” Burch said. Also discussed on the panel was the fact that restrictive language is now commonplace in contracts, and without proper protection “your first job could be your last job,” Friedlander said.
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