Here’s what we know about the SAG-AFTRA AI voice acting licensing deal

Update January tenth, 9:02PM ET: Shortly after we printed this put up, SAG-AFTRA shared the full textual content of its settlement with Replica Studios in addition to an FAQ doc and a abstract. Our unique story follows.

During CES 2024, SAG-AFTRA introduced an settlement with AI voice know-how firm Replica Studios. The settlement would allow SAG-AFTRA members, particularly voice performers, to work with Replica to create digital replications of their voices. Those voices can then be licensed out to be used in video video games and different interactive media tasks with SAG-AFTRA authored protections.

In the announcement, SAG-AFTRA characterised the deal as a “way for professional voice over artists to safely explore new employment opportunities for their digital voice replicas with industry-leading protections tailored to AI technology.” However, as information of the deal reached the voice performer neighborhood at massive, the response was much less constructive with performers both outright condemning the deal or voicing issues about what this deal means for the future well being and viability of their career.

“Love how we’re paying dues to a union that will throw our jobs to AI and then claim we all agreed to it,” wrote Emi Lo, a voice performer with roles in Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, on X.

“I think the first thing that I would just say is I think there are quite a large number of members who are very pleased with this announcement,” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA nationwide government director and chief negotiator informed The Verge in an interview. “And I think sometimes it’s a mistake to hear a certain number of voices, even if they’re raised in a very concerned or agitated tone as being representative of the entirety of the membership that work this contract or work in this area.”

Crabtree-Ireland added that SAG-AFTRA “will be putting out more information today with greater detail” in order that its membership can higher assess the deal. “We want all of our members to be both well informed about what the contract contains and also to be confident that our contracts protect them in their work lives,” he mentioned.

The SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement, a union contract that covers roughly 140,000 members and has a number of of the online game business’s largest publishers as signatories together with Activision Blizzard, Take-Two, and Electronic Arts, is at present underneath negotiation. Last yr, union members voted in favor of a strike authorization for performers coated underneath that settlement — in different phrases, your favourite online game voice actors can go on strike if these negotiations aren’t profitable.

The Interactive Media Agreement, nevertheless, doesn’t cowl Replica Studios, and this new deal was made individually from that ongoing negotiation.

“This company is not part of that bargaining group,” Crabtree-Ireland mentioned. “The work that [Replica Studios] is going to be doing — creating digital replicas of voices — will now be done solely in compliance with our collective bargaining agreement.”

Basically, Replica will act as a SAG-AFTRA-approved third-party supplier of AI voices to online game corporations. If a SAG-AFTRA member choses to license out their voice, Replica’s settlement ensures that performer will likely be pretty compensated, their voice knowledge will likely be shielded from unauthorized use, and {that a} replicated voice can’t be utilized in a challenge with out the performer’s knowledgeable consent.

“There’s nothing in this agreement that is a lesser term than what was just approved by our membership at large a month ago with an 80 percent ‘yes’ vote in our ratification for the studio and streamer contracts,” Crabtree-Ireland mentioned.

Crabtree-Ireland additionally mentioned that the union’s Interactive Media Agreement committee — which is the committee that oversees all the things online game associated — had struck the deal, having labored on it for over a yr. On X, Aftermath reporter Nathan Grayson shared screenshots of a dialog he had with Sarah Elmaleh, the chair of SAG-AFTRA’s interactive media bargaining unit, which supplied extra context for the deal.

“The performer would sign with [Replica] and [be] covered by them and the license to devs would require the protections and compensation be carried through,” Elmaleh wrote. “Obviously many developers will want to use the same technology directly themselves. Having clear and binding requirements around the transparency, consent, and compensation that Replica is in compliance of, must be included in the fundamental agreement covering this work. That’s why we’re adamant and waiting on a fair deal for the [Interactive Media Agreement.]”

Crabtree-Ireland mentioned that this settlement ought to act as a sign to the online game corporations at present bargaining with SAG-AFTRA to hopefully get them to rethink their place on AI, which has been a sticking level in the negotiating course of.

“This [agreement] is a real sign to the video game companies that companies that know what they’re doing in the AI space are comfortable with making the kinds of commitments contained in this agreement,” he mentioned.

Though this deal was created underneath the auspices of the interactive media bargaining unit, some voice actors are nonetheless nervous that the acceptance of AI in the artistic course of will result in lack of work for all however the hottest performers and the dilution of their artwork.

“I want to ACT,” wrote Chris Hackney, who voiced Rauru in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Rusty in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, on X. “I do not want to sell someone my likeness to use and then pay me. It defeats the purpose of art and performance when neither art is created nor do I perform.”