What Was the Role of AI in Recent Hollywood Labor Disputes?

AI as a Central Sticking Point

When the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the union representing film and television actors, went on strike in 2023, AI’s growing role in the industry was one of the most prominent issues driving those disputes. Both unions raised concerns that went beyond typical wage and residual negotiations, focused specifically on how generative AI could reshape creative labor in ways existing contracts hadn’t anticipated.

Writers were concerned about being asked to rewrite or “punch up” scripts that studios had generated using AI, potentially devaluing their creative role and compensation for what would otherwise be original written work. Actors, meanwhile, raised concerns about digital replicas — AI-generated or AI-enhanced recreations of a performer’s likeness, voice, or performance — being created and reused, including for background performers, without clear consent or fair compensation for that use.

Why This Became Such a Major Point of Contention

The core anxiety driving these negotiations was that AI capabilities were advancing quickly enough to plausibly substitute for, or significantly diminish the value of, work that had always been assumed to require a human writer or performer. For writers, the concern centered on originating creative material — the fear that studios might use AI to generate initial scripts and treat human writers as lower-paid editors of that AI output rather than the original creative source. For actors, the concern was more specifically about likeness and control: an actor’s face, voice, or performance being captured once and then reused indefinitely by AI without their ongoing consent or additional compensation, potentially reducing the amount of new work available to them.

These weren’t abstract, future-facing concerns from either union’s perspective — both argued that the underlying technology was already advanced enough to pose a genuine and immediate threat to standard working conditions and compensation structures in the industry.

The Resulting Agreements

Both unions ultimately reached new contracts with the studios and streaming services that included specific provisions addressing AI, covering areas like consent and compensation requirements for digital replica use, and disclosure or process requirements around AI-generated material in scripts. These agreements are broadly regarded within the industry as an initial, foundational framework rather than a final, permanent resolution, given how quickly the underlying technology continues to change.

Bottom Line

AI’s role in scriptwriting and in creating digital replicas of performers was a defining issue in Hollywood’s 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, resulting in new contract provisions aimed at requiring consent, compensation, and process protections — an initial framework that both unions expect to keep revisiting as AI technology evolves.

Go deeper

• Can Unions Negotiate Specifically Over AI Use in the Workplace?
• What Labor Protections Exist Against AI-Driven Job Displacement?