For over three months, screenwriters have been locked in a battle with Hollywood studios over fair pay and the use of AI in productions.
In July, they were joined by the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, over similar concerns.
The dual strike, in part, has been about blocking the studios from replacing human creative talent with AI being trained in their works.
The writers don’t want AI tools to be used to generate literary material from existing content.
The actors don’t want digital replicas of their likenesses and performances to be used to create and edit scenes without consent or compensation.
But this hasn’t stopped Netflix and Disney from staffing up on AI talent.
A job listing on Netflix’s career site recently went viral for seeking its first product management hire to support its machine learning platform.
The role pays $300,000 to $900,000 a year, far more than it pays many of its actors on strike.
Disney has also been beefing up its AI ranks, according to Reuters.
Having come under fire last month for stating that the unions were being unrealistic in their strike demands, Disney’s chief executive officer Bob Iger gave assurances on the company’s Aug. 9 earnings call of his commitment to find solutions for the issues at stake quickly.
But as time drags on, talent is getting starved out. Many had turned to the personalized video platform Cameo for extra income to make ends meet, as they did during the pandemic when productions were shut down. Scrolling through 156 online catalog pages, celebrities like Lindsay Lohan charge fans $400 for video greetings.
Pose star Billy Porter told the Evening Standard that he has to sell his house because of the strike. “I was supposed to be in a new movie and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening.”
“To hear Bob…