artificial intelligence<\/a>\u00a0protections. Members of the union have said they are not anti-AI. The performers are worried, however, the technology could provide studios with a means to displace them.<\/p>\nDalal said he took it personally when he heard that the video game companies negotiating with SAG-AFTRA over a new contract wanted to consider some movement work \u201cdata\u201d and not performance.<\/p>\n
If gamers were to tally up the cut scenes they watch in a game and compare them with the hours they spend controlling characters and interacting with non-player characters, they would see that they interact with \u201cmovers\u2019\u201d and stunt performers\u2019 work \u201cway more than you interact with my work,\u201d Dalal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the ones selling the world these games live in, when you\u2019re doing combos and pulling off crazy, super cool moves using Force powers, or you\u2019re playing Master Chief, or you\u2019re Spider-Man swinging through the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some actors argue that AI could strip less-experienced actors of the chance to land smaller background roles, such as non-player characters, where they typically cut their teeth before landing larger jobs. The unchecked use of AI, performers say, could also lead to ethical issues if their voices or likenesses are used to create content that they do not morally agree with. That type of ethical dilemma has recently surfaced with game \u201cmods,\u201d in which fans alter and create new game content. Last year, voice actors spoke out against such mods in the role-playing game \u201cSkyrim,\u201d which used AI to generate actors\u2019 performances and cloned their voices for pornographic content.<\/p>\n
In video game motion capture, actors wear special Lycra or neoprene suits with markers on them. In addition to more involved interactions, actors perform basic movements like walking, running or holding an object. Animators grab from those motion capture recordings and chain them together to respond to what someone playing the game is doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat AI is allowing game developers to do, or game studios to do, is generate a lot of those animations automatically from past recordings,\u201d said Brian Smith, an assistant professor at Columbia University\u2019s Department of Computer Science. \u201cNo longer do studios need to gather new recordings for every single game and every type of animation that they would like to create. They can also draw on their archive of past animation.\u201d<\/p>\n
If a studio has motion capture banked from a previous game and wants to create a new character, he said, animators could use those stored recordings as training data.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith generative AI, you can generate new data based on that pattern of prior data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered \u201cmeaningful\u201d AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA\u2019s negotiating committee said that the studios\u2019 definition of who constitutes a \u201cperformer\u201d is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked hard to deliver proposals with reasonable terms that protect the rights of performers while ensuring we can continue to use the most advanced technology to create a great gaming experience for fans,\u201d Cooling said. \u201cWe have proposed terms that provide consent and fair compensation for anyone employed under the (contract) if an AI reproduction or digital replica of their performance is used in games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game companies offered wage increases, she said, with an initial 7% increase in scale rates and an additional 7.64% increase effective in November. That\u2019s an increase of 14.5% over the life of the contract. The studios had also agreed to increases in per diems, payment for overnight travel and a boost in overtime rates and bonus payments, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to reach an agreement with the union that will end this strike,\u201d Cooling said.<\/p>\n
A 2023 report on the global games market from industry tracker Newzoo predicted that video games would begin to include more AI-generated voices, similar to the voice acting in \u201cHigh on Life\u201d from Squanch Games. Game developers, the Amsterdam-based firm said, will use AI to produce unique voices, bypassing the need to source voice actors.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoice actors may see fewer opportunities in the future, especially as game developers use AI to cut development costs and time,\u201d the report said, noting that \u201cbig AAA prestige games like \u2018The Last of Us\u2019 and \u2018God of War\u2019 use motion capture and voice acting similarly to Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other games, such as \u201cCyberpunk 2077,\u201d cast celebrities.<\/p>\n
Actor Ben Prendergast said that data points collected for motion capture don\u2019t pick up the \u201cessence\u201d of someone\u2019s performance as an actor. The same is true, he said, of AI-generated voices that can\u2019t deliver the nuanced choices that go into big scenes \u2014 or smaller, strenuous efforts like screaming for 20 seconds to portray a character\u2019s death by fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big issue is that someone, somewhere has this massive data, and I now have no control over it,\u201d said Prendergast, who voices Fuse in the game \u201cApex Legends.\u201d \u201cNefarious or otherwise, someone can pick up that data now and go, we need a character that\u2019s nine feet tall, that sounds like Ben Prendergast and can fight this battle scene. And I have no idea that that\u2019s going on until the game comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Studios would be able to \u201cget away with that,\u201d he said, unless SAG-AFTRA can secure the AI protections they are fighting for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reminds me a lot of sampling in the \u201880s and \u201990s and 2000s where there were a lot of people getting around sampling classic songs,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an art. If you don\u2019t protect rights over their likeness, or their voice or body and walk now, then you can\u2019t really protect humans from other endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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