Hollywood Labor Leaders At CES Discuss How Their AI Negotiating Strategy Will Ease Members’ “Fear Of Replacement” And The Importance Of Sticking Together

deadline.com:

It didn’t take long into a key Labor Innovation & Technology Summit panel before the prevailing sentiment among Hollywood workers was given voice. “The fear of replacement is very real at this moment and in this room,” said Linda Powell, EVP of SAG-AFTRA and moderator of the session, titled “Negotiating AI Contracts: How Unions Can Advance All Protections Across Sectors.” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator, noted the positioning of the LIT Summit during CES, the major tech confab where a range of AI wares are on display. “CES has helped us identify trends coming down the road and separate the wheat from the chaff” in terms of focusing resources and energy, he said.

NFTs, he noted, “were the last thing everyone was freaking out about” but labor leaders were able to see it lose steam among the technorati. “Complete transparency” is crucial when negotiating AI contracts, Crabtree-Ireland emphasized.

Case in point, when contracts are hammered out, even with smaller players, the final version is published online, a lesson he learned when SAG-AFTRA failed to do so last year.

On a more conceptual level, Crabtree-Ireland said, “we don’t have the choice of stopping the technology from happening.” He continued, “If we’re going to make the most of the leverage of power that we have at unions, we can’t just be against the technology.