Deadline Launches Rendering, A Column About AI & Showbiz — First Topic: Paranoia Over Impasse In UK Actor Contracts
Welcome to Rendering, a new Deadline column reporting at the intersection of AI and showbiz. Published with our TechLine newsletter, Rendering will examine how artificial intelligence is disrupting the entertainment industry, taking you inside key battlegrounds and spotlighting change makers wielding the technology for good and ill.
Why the name Rendering? It describes both the digital and analog processes of creation, be it an actor’s rendering of a character, a technical step in visual effects, or a machine generating an image from a written prompt. Rendering also describes showbiz’s reckoning with AI: a picture is emerging, but it is not yet clearly defined. Our column will endeavor to bring the big issues into focus.
Got a story about AI? Want to tell us about the next big innovation or why AI robbed you of opportunity? Rendering wants to hear from you. Get in contact: jkanter@deadline.com.
This week: paranoia in the UK, where there are still no industry-agreed AI guardrails in performer contracts amid protracted negotiations between actors and producers.
A BAFTA-nominated British comedy writer and actor was incredulous about perceived AI clauses in his Netflix agreement. Divulging details on one of the UK’s biggest podcasts, he revealed that, in the event of his death, his contract would allow the streamer to use a digital recreation of his voice in perpetuity. “It’s the wild west with this stuff, and no one knows what the rules are,” he declared with some alarm.
We are not naming the actor to spare his blushes because, as it turns out, Netflix wasn’t trying to keep him talking from the grave — and his misunderstanding was quietly scrubbed from the record. But even though he was mistaken about the fine print in his contract, the comedian’s flush of paranoia serves to illustrate the fear and loathing around AI principles, or lack thereof, in performer contracts in the UK television industry.
The vexed issue has been a matter of negotiation between actors’ union Equity and producer trade body Pact for more than a year. Unlike in the U.S., there is no deadline or industrial action cliff edge that negotiators are working towards, but the drift is not without consequence. Sources say a resolution is not near, with irritation on both sides over how discussions have played out. “We’re not close, we’re frustrated,” was how someone in the Equity camp characterized talks. Pact CEO John McVay says: “I anticipate a resolution when we get to a resolution.”
AI is far from the only priority, but the deadlock is perplexing when you consider that SAG-AFTRA managed to negotiate basic artificial intelligence guardrails two years ago. Tilly Norwood was a nobody back then. The current UK agreement does not contain a single reference to AI. Equity’s recent deal with the BBC, which encompasses shows like Doctor Who, only includes a holding clause saying AI terms will apply once the industry is agreed.
SAG-AFTRA’s deal with U.S. studios, symbolically endorsed by Equity, included the principle of “informed consent,” meaning clauses around digital replicas should be clearly signposted (specifically in bold, capital letters) and not buried in terms and conditions. Simple stuff, but not standard practice in the UK right now, meaning some agents think broadcasters and streamers are slipping AI conditions into contracts using euphemisms like “simulation.” A respected agent confides: “Artists are paranoid and jumping to bigger conclusions, so it is worrying.”
One flashpoint involves digital scanning. Equity thinks thousands of performers are being body scanned on television sets without having informed consent. The technology largely affects background actors, who, once scanned, can be replicated by AI. Pierre Bergman, a doyen among UK background artists, says many are bounced into scans out of fear of having a “target painted on their back” by employers. Bergman rarely agrees for the simple reason that, without proper guardrails, he thinks producers could use his digital likeness to put him out of work. “It’s like sawing off a branch while I’m sitting on it,” says Bergman, whose credits include Ted Lasso.
The tree analogy speaks to the uncertainty and distrust being sown by AI among many creatives, but that’s not to say there isn’t common ground between parties in the Pact-Equity talks.
Pact agrees that informed consent is an important principle. McVay, the trade body’s boss, becomes exercised at the mere thought of British IP being plundered without permission by unscrupulous tech bros (though he can’t resist saying that agents are paid to catch AI clauses their clients find unpalatable).
Broadcasters and streamers, including Netflix, will tell you that they are talent-first, meaning it is in their interest to keep actors informed about their AI intentions. The Personal Managers Association, which represents the top British agencies, tells us: “We are seeking assurances that there will be terms about and safeguarding the use of client work.”
With the AI tide moving so rapidly, Pact and Equity have a responsibility to capitalize on common ground and lash together a raft without further delay.
