As technology sector researchers and executives increasingly warn about artificial intelligence’s potential existential risks to humanity, labor organizations in entertainment are emphasizing the importance of addressing AI’s current impact on workers rather than focusing solely on speculative future dangers.
Major studios and AI-focused film companies approached by The Verge declined to comment on recent warnings about the technology’s existential threat. However, representatives from the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America East provided perspectives on how AI developments relate to their members’ immediate concerns. The unions distinguished between entertainment-focused AI applications and the advanced language models developed by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that have prompted researchers to raise alarm bells about potential catastrophic outcomes.
SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland indicated that the union recognized early opportunities to shape public discourse about AI in Hollywood and successfully negotiated enforceable protections during recent labor negotiations. These safeguards require studios to obtain permission and provide compensation to actors for AI-generated replicas of their likenesses. Crabtree-Ireland acknowledged concerns about broader societal implications of AI while expressing skepticism about some extinction-level threat narratives, particularly when they come from industry leaders who benefit from the technology’s advancement.
Writers Guild of America East executive director Sam Wheeler took a more critical stance, characterizing tech industry leadership as dishonest while emphasizing that current harms from unregulated AI—including worker displacement, internet degradation, and disinformation—stem from human decision-making rather than technological inevitability. The WGAE noted that its members secured meaningful protections through 148 days of strike action in 2023 and called for government regulation to address AI-related workplace concerns more comprehensively than collective bargaining alone can achieve.
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