SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland Says Union & AMPTP “Pretty Far Apart On AI”; Studios “Concerned About The Immediate Impact” Of Strike

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After AMPTP called their AI proposal to SAG-AFTRA yesterday “groundbreaking”, the actors’ union National Executive Director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, still begs to differ. “We’re pretty far apart on AI,” said Crabtree-Ireland, expounding on his argument yesterday that the AMPTP is stiffing background performers on that deal point.

Crabtree-Ireland made his comments outside Disney studios today in what was the last stop in a studio day one strike tour with SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. “The companies refuse to recognize that you can’t expect people to sign over their name, image, likeness and voice, their persona to some corporate conglomerate with no right to ever say what they’re going to do with it in the future,” said Crabtree-Ireland. “That is not going to happen, we are not going to agree to terms like that, so the companies have to move in our direction and come up with some reasonable agreement,” he added. “We didn’t come into this negotiation saying ‘Let’s ban AI’,” explained Crabtree-Ireland. “We came into this negotiation saying that AI has to be done in a way that respects actors, respects their human rights to their own bodies, voice, image and likeness.” “Nothing less than that is going to be acceptable.” AMPTP said yesterday that they presented SAG-AFTRA with “a groundbreaking AI proposal which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.” However, in the actors’ guild strike presser yesterday, Crabtree-Ireland rebutted, “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday that our background performers should be able to be scanned