AI concerns spur video game workers to go on strike starting Friday

Video game performers with SAG-AFTRA will strike beginning Friday as AI "loopholes" have caused concerns.

Beginning at 12:01 Friday morning, video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists will strike over artificial intelligence protections.

This is the second strike for SAG-AFTRA performers in video games. While the union has conceded that wages and job safety have made gains in video game contracts, AI in interactive media continues to be a source of insecurity.

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SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez shared at the presser on Thursday that some performers' work may be treated as "data" under current AI guidance.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can. We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now," said Rodriguez.

Nearly two years of negotiations with gaming creators like Warner Brothers and the Walt Disney Company have led to the strike.

SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee shared with the AP that the definition of "performer" may differ between the union and the gaming companies.

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Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the gaming companies involved,  with the AP that the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

Cooling added, "We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations."

Andi Norris, an actor, said to the AP "the performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier."

"We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer," Norris argued.

According to SAG-AFTRA, the video game agreement represents 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers."

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.