“Succession” star Brian Cox on Friday urged fellow actors to fight for protections around the use of artificial intelligence, warning of a “scary” future where there’s an “artificial intelligence Brian Cox.”
The veteran Scottish actor was among the speakers at a London rally held in solidarity with striking TV and film actors and writers. Cox said he recently appeared on a show and alarmingly was given a list of items that an AI version of himself would perform.
“The artificial intelligence Brian Cox was gonna do animal impersonations! I’ve never done a fucking animal impersonation in my life, and I wouldn’t know where to fucking begin!” he said at the rally, as captured by Variety. “This is gonna happen to everybody. Nobody’s exempt in this.”
Cox also said he recently heard from a fellow actor who “was told in no uncertain terms that they would keep his image and do what the fuck they liked with it.”
“Now, that is a completely unacceptable position, and that is a position that we should really be fighting against, because that is the worst aspect,” he continued. “The wages are one thing, but the worst aspect is the whole idea of AI, and what AI can do to us.”
The rally was organized by Equity, the union representing U.K.-based actors, to support their U.S. counterparts in Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists as well as striking TV and film writers with the Writers Guild of America. (HuffPost’s unionized employees are part of the Writers Guild of America, East.)
The lack of regulation around the use of AI has become a key point of contention in both strikes. Actors have sounded the alarm about a potential future where AI reproduces their likenesses in perpetuity, thus jeopardizing their livelihoods.
Since May 2, more than 11,500 film and TV writers in the Writers Guild of America East and West have been on strike. Last Friday, some 160,000 actors represented by SAG-AFTRA also began striking — effectively shutting down the entertainment industry until studio executives agree to a fair deal.
Throughout both strikes, writers and actors have called out the enormous income gap between entertainment industry workers and the studio executives who’ve made massive profits off of their work. For example, TV writers and actors historically have received payments of what are known as residuals each time an episode of a show on which they worked re-airs. These can help keep people afloat between jobs.
But despite the massive growth of streaming platforms where their shows are featured ― and in some cases, viewed hundreds of millions of times — writers and actors have shared stories of receiving literal pennies in residuals.
On Friday, actor and writer Rob Delaney, who served as the rally’s emcee, assailed Hollywood executives for denying writers and actors “our tiny little slice of the pie,” and compared CEOs to “silly little toddlers.”
“They have these earnings calls and they talk about the subscriber numbers and the blockbuster numbers. Then we ask for a nickel and they’re like, ‘No, no, we don’t have any.’ Well, which one is true?” the co-creator and star of “Catastrophe” said at the rally, according to the Guardian. “We know which one is true. We’re gonna win. That’s what’s gonna happen, you silly little toddlers.”