Artificial intelligence is a sticking point in the months-long Writers Guild of America strike.
It’s also among actors’ concerns cited in ongoing negotiations with Hollywood studios.
Always-prescient “Black Mirror” tackles these fears in the first episode of its new season.
The Season 6 premiere follows tech executive Joan (Annie Murphy), who is horrified to discover that streaming platform Streamberry — a thinly veiled parody of Netflix — has released a prestige drama called “Joan Is Awful,” which not only parallels her own life but uses AI to generate content by surveilling her through her phone.
After a sympathetic lawyer (Lolly Adefope) explains that Joan unknowingly consented to this by accepting the platform’s terms and conditions, she resorts to increasingly unhinged behavior to shut it down.
While the episode’s premise that AI can create layered realities leans toward science fiction, SAG-AFTRA anticipates that Joan’s reality is closer than we think.
“Imagine waking up to find you are the face of a new advertising campaign — and it’s a product you don’t want to be associated with,” an August 2022 statement from the union reads.“
As technology has evolved, artificial intelligence-powered software has made it possible to create realistic audiovisual, video, and audio content known as ‘deepfakes.’
It makes the above scenario possible and a real threat to those who sign broadly written non-union contracts that allow for unfettered use of a performer’s image or voice.”
AI’s ability to generate video lags significantly behind its audio and text capacities, said Ryan Schmidt, a partner at Bowen Law Group, so it will likely be a while before AI can produce anything as complex and realistic as “Joan Is Awful.”
“But there’s every reason to think it can get there,” Schmidt said, and the law is already running behind.
Lawsuits related to AI are often settled quickly — leaving the…