Digital doubles, fake trailers: AI worries Hollywood actors before labor talks

tech.hindustantimes.com:

A search for Wes Anderson on YouTube turns up trailers that the famed director with a distinctive style appears to have made for adaptations of "Star Wars," "Harry Potter" and "The Lord of the Rings" featuring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and other stars.

Artificial intelligence allowed people with no real actors and far smaller resources than major Hollywood studios to generate the fake movie trailers, feeding debate on the issue that will be on the bargaining table when the SAG-AFTRA actors union begins labor talks with studios on June 7.

AI already has divided studios and striking film and television writers, who want assurances that the emerging technology will not be used to generate scripts.

SAG-AFTRA wants to ensure its members can control use of their "digital doubles" and ensure studios pay the actual actors appropriately, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union's chief negotiator.

"The performer's name, likeness, voice, persona - those are the performer's stock and trade," Crabtree-Ireland said. "It's really not fair for companies to attempt to take advantage of that and not fairly compensate performers when they're using their persona in that way."

Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves already have been the subject of widely viewed unauthorized deepfakes - realistic yet fabricated videos created by AI algorithms. Reeves called the technology "scary," in part because it can be deployed without actors' input.

Interest in generative AI exploded globally after the November launch of ChatGPT, the fastest growing app of all time, by Microsoft Corp-backed OpenAI. U.S. and European regulators have demanded guardrails to prevent misinformation, bias, violation of copyrights and invasion of privacy.

Actors and writers envision