Actors Critical of New Video Ad Using AI-Generated Humans

The SAG-AFTRA logo is displayed outside of the national headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard during the actors strike, in Los Angeles on Oct. 24, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Actors are criticizing the first major video ad produced using artificial intelligence (AI) to depict human characters.

The ad is for Toys “R” Us and heralds the resurrection of the toy retail chain, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and closed its last store in the United States in 2021.

Actress Justine Bateman, who starred in the hit 1980s sitcom “Family Ties” with Michael J. Fox, shared her reaction online.

Ms. Bateman, who has a degree in computer science and digital media management, pointed her criticism specifically at the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, more commonly known as SAG-AFTRA.

Ms. Bateman served as SAG-AFTRA’s AI adviser during contract negotiations last year.

“@sagaftra and #SAG actors, here’s your present & future,” she posted on social media platform X. “No actors were hired for this ad. I vehemently advised SAG against allowing ’#AI Objects’ playing human characters. Unfortunately, my advice was not taken & your contract now permits this.”

In a 2023 post about the SAG-AFTRA contract, Ms. Bateman said condoning the use of AI-generated human characters is “like the @Teamsters putting in their contract that it’s A-OK for the employer to utilize self-driving trucks instead of them.”

Neither SAG-AFTRA nor Toys “R” Us responded to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment before publication.

Others who were critical of the ad specifically blamed the toy company.

“Shame on @ToysRUs for using this garbage,” Damon Gonzalez, a Los Angeles-based actor and writer and member of SAG-AFTRA, said.

Ads using real people are also posted on the toy company’s social media websites.

The AI-generated ad features a digital depiction of Toys “R” Us founder Charles Lazarus as a young boy in his father’s bike shop, an idyllic Norman Rockwell-like setting. He falls asleep and has a dream in which he meets the company’s mascot, a giraffe named Geoffrey, and finds himself in a large room filled with all kinds of toys.

The ad includes an original score composed by Aaron Marsh.

More Criticism of Union

Chuck Slavin is a Boston-based actor and production crew member who worked on the set of the TNT show “Boston’s Finest.”

Mr. Slavin, a member advocate for SAG-AFTRA actors, told The Epoch Times that under recent contract negotiations, SAG-AFTRA is the only union in the entertainment industry that allowed the use of “synthetic performers” and other digitally created assets. He said it’s tantamount to SAG-AFTRA agreeing to the use of nonunion actors.

Both the Directors Guild of America and Writers Guild of America included language in their contract agreements ensuring that “AI can never replace a job of a member,” Mr. Slavin told The Epoch Times.

“SAG-AFTRA basically threw its members under the bus,” he said.

Under the AI section of the new SAG-AFTRA contract agreements, which ended a 118-day strike, the contract states that all parties “acknowledge the importance of human performance in motion pictures and the potential impact on employment” of AI, but only secures “an opportunity to bargain in good faith” and the option to use a “natural performer” over a “synthetic performer,” rather than prohibiting the use of synthetic performers.

Federal lawmakers recently introduced a bill to address some concerns about AI in the entertainment industry.

The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act, or the COPIED Act, would set new federal guidelines for detecting AI-generated deepfakes, which are digitally created videos and images using the likenesses and attributes of real people. They can be difficult to distinguish from real videos and photographs.

The bill has been endorsed by more than a dozen entertainment organizations, including the National Music Publishers’ Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, and Artist Rights Alliance.

SAG-AFTRA also endorsed the legislation.

However, the bill does not protect actors from losing their jobs to AI-generated human characters that are not based on real people, according to Mr. Slavin.

The Toys “R” Us ad was generated with Sora, an application that creates AI images based on written instructions. Sora is owned by OpenAI, the same company behind ChatGPT, which generates live chats using AI.

Emmy-nominated television writer Mike Drucker also commented on the ad with a sarcastic post on X.

“Love [how] this commercial is like, ‘Toys ’R' Us started with the dream of a little boy who wanted to share his imagination with the world. And to show how, we fired our artists and dried Lake Superior using a server farm to generate what that would look like in Stephen King’s nightmares,” he said.