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The world of Black Mirror<\/em> might feel like a dystopian alternate reality. But Hollywood, it turns out, is a lot closer to becoming an episode of the Netflix anthology series than anyone\u2014except maybe creator Charlie Brooker<\/strong>\u2014could have realized.<\/p>\n In a press conference announcing SAG-AFTRA\u2019s plans to send its actor members out on strike<\/a>, the union\u2019s chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland,<\/strong> suggested that if they had accepted the Hollywood studio\u2019s proposal around the use of artificial intelligence, actors could have ended up suffering the same fate as Salma Hayek<\/strong> in the Black Mirror<\/em> episode \u201cJoan is Awful.\u201d<\/p>\n The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents producers, studios, and streamers, said in a statement that it had offered SAG-AFTRA a \u201cgroundbreaking AI proposal which protects performers\u2019 digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer\u2019s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.\u201d But Crabtree-Ireland countered, \u201cin that groundbreaking AI proposal, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day\u2019s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. If you think that\u2019s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.\u201d<\/p>\n Major spoiler alert for Black Mirror<\/em> season six: in the twisty episode \u201cJoan is Awful,\u201d viewers learn that the actress on a new show on a service called Streamberry is, in fact, an AI-generated digital likeness of Hayek. (There\u2019s a lot more going on too; just watch it.) Brooker recently told Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> that the prospect of having your likeness used for storytelling \u201cmust be terrifying for the next generation of actors coming up. Are you suddenly going to be competing against all the Golden Age actors that have ever been popular?\u201d<\/p>\n AI has become a hot-button issue for both actors and writers in their contract negotiations with the AMPTP. \u201cAI\u2019s not going anywhere, not with Silicon Valley desperate for the Next Big Thing,\u201d John Lopez<\/strong>, a member of the Writers Guild of America\u2019s AI working group (an internal committee), wrote for VF<\/em><\/a>. \u201cYou can\u2019t put handcuffs on the digital monster after it\u2019s left Dr. Frankenstein\u2019s AI lab.\u201d During its negotiations with the studios, the WGA released a statement<\/a> explaining that it wanted to prevent AI-generated material from being used as source material, or from writing or rewriting scripts. After writers put down their pens and took to the picket lines, WGA said that the AMPTP rejected its proposal<\/a>, instead offering \u201cannual meetings to discuss advancements in technology.\u201d<\/p>\n