New ‘Black Mirror’ Season Tackles Actors’ Anxiety About AI

The SAG-AFTRA union’s chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, has criticized producers’ AI proposals thus far. That sounds exactly like a plot from an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. The recent series six episode “Joan Is Awful” features Hollywood star Salma Hayek grappling with the discovery, according to Technology News UK.

Furthermore, concerns about so-called “performance cloning” are shared by groups other than SAG-AFTRA. “We’re seeing this technology used in a range of things like automated audiobooks, synthesised voiceover work, digital avatars for corporate videos, or also the role of deep fakes that are being used in films,” said Liam Budd of the UK acting union Equity. According to Mr Budd, there is “fear circulating” among Equity members, and the union is working to inform them of their legal rights in this rapidly changing world.

According to writer and filmmaker Justine Bateman, artificial intelligence is not at all necessary in the entertainment sector. “Technology should address a problem, and AI does not address any problems. We don’t need artificial intelligence because there are enough writers, actors, and filmmakers to go around, she said. “The issue it resolves is for the companies that feel their profit margins aren’t wide enough – because if you can get rid of the overhead of having to pay everyone, you can please Wall Street and have better earnings reports,” says the author.