Hollywood unions are urging attention towards AI’s immediate effects on workers, rather than focusing solely on warnings that advanced systems could eventually destroy humanity. Although entertainment-focused tools are less powerful than frontier models linked to recent safety alarms, they can still threaten jobs by generating digital replicas of actors and automating filmmaking tasks. Studios contacted by The Verge did not comment.

SAG-AFTRA says it secured enforceable safeguards during the 2023 strikes governing how major US entertainment employers use AI, including consent and protections for performers’ likenesses. Its chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, supports concern about AI’s wider social impact but believes some extinction warnings may be exaggerated, while acknowledging that a former Anthropic researcher’s decision to raise the alarm has made the issue harder to dismiss. The unions’ broader aim is to ensure workers can challenge harmful uses of AI through regulation and collective bargaining.