Hollywood studios stay silent, unions aren't buying the apocalypse narrative

While Silicon Valley rings alarm bells about artificial intelligence that could wipe out humanity, Hollywood's labor unions want the public focused on what is already happening now. The Verge contacted Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Lionsgate and other studios that have begun using AI, as well as startups building generative tools for the film industry; none responded. The ones who did answer were the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE).

The difference between the tools and the warnings

The AI tools currently used in entertainment productions are not the same systems that触发了 the recent wave of leaks and apocalyptic declarations. They do not look existentially dangerous in the way the models developed at Anthropic and OpenAI do — the models that prompted former researcher Jacob Coxon to resign and alignment team lead Evan Hubinger to warn the technology could "kill all humans" within the next decade. The heads of the major companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and X, have called for an industry-wide slowdown in development. President Donald Trump dismissed the concerns as an overreaction, but other American politicians felt pressure to act legislatively.

What the unions won in the 2023 strike

According to Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator, the union identified early on how AI could threaten members' livelihoods. "We secured enforceable, meaningful guardrails around how the technology is applied by the major employers in our industry," he explained. Those guardrails do not apply directly to OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, but they cover every company that has built a business around creating professional entertainment content in the United States.

Skepticism toward the extinction narrative

Crabtree-Ireland believes "we should be concerned about the broad societal implications of AI," but thinks some of the warnings about extinction-level threats may be overblown. Doomerism has become one of the most common ways AI companies generate buzz around their products. Still, the fact that Coxon left Anthropic to sound the alarm gave him pause as well. The message carries a different weight when it comes from "the CEOs of these companies or the billionaires who made their fortunes from them" than when it comes from outside critics.

The bottom line: a fight over work, not existence

Hollywood unions' battle for strict rules around generative AI has not stopped the industry from adopting the technology, but it has given workers tools to push back when they feel the tools are being used against them. While Silicon Valley debates doomsday scenarios, Hollywood is already fighting the practical battle over digital rights, compensation for synthetic doubles, and control over how and when a machine replaces a human on set.