It seems that the tension in Hollywood between the guild of screenwriters, the union of actors and the Alliance of Producers of Film and Television may escalate yet more. And it is that in the last hours the incredible salary that the giant Netflix offers to what will be its next product manager specialized in artificial intelligence has been leaked.
As explained by The Intercept portal, Netflix guarantees a salary of $900,000 per year to the person who leads its operations in the field of artificial intelligence, something that has not gone down well with the unions of actors and screenwriters with whom they have a relationship. open labor dispute.
In fact, in statements to the same medium, the actor Rob Delaney has given this offer as an example of the situation of vulnerability suffered by creative workers in the audiovisual industry: “With that amount of money, 35 interpreters and their families could qualify for Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists health insurance. Having been rich and poor in this business, I can assure you that there is enough money for everyone”, he pointed out.
For its part, Netflix has made clear with the creation of this new position the importance that AI will adopt on the platform in the coming months. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence are driving innovation in all areas of the business. From helping us shop and create great content, guiding members to choose the title that’s right for them through personalization, to optimizing our payment processing and other revenue-focused initiatives,” the job posting states.
It remains to be seen if robots or even computer programs will replace a good part of the human employees in the sector, but without a doubt some large companies are investing large amounts of money in this sector right now on the rise in the technological world.
In this sense, the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, has recognized the company’s interest in entering the world of artificial intelligence. “AI developments represent some pretty exciting opportunities for us. In fact, we are already starting to use it to create some efficiencies and, ultimately, to better serve consumers,” Iger said in May.
Related to the strike, Iger has stated that the writers and actors are not being “realistic” in their demands. A comment that has earned him a reprimand from the president of the SAG-AFTRA actors union, Fran Dresher: “He has screwed up so much that you realize that none of the other executive directors open their mouths. There he is, sitting in his designer clothes and fresh off his private jet at the billionaire camp, telling us we’re unrealistic when he’s making $78,000 a day. How do you treat someone like that, when he is so deaf? Are you ignorant? I don’t understand. We need someone with character,” he stated.
These dialectical duels leave a good example of the pulse that the unions of actors and screenwriters maintain with the Alliance of Film and Television Producers. For this reason, the Hollywood industry is currently on hold.
On May 2, 2023, the scriptwriters’ union announced that it was starting a strike, while the actors’ union joined the demands on July 13, 2023. Both had not carried out a joint strike since 1960.
The main demands of both unions are a general increase in salaries, a better redistribution of income from image rights and, above all, its exploitation through streaming platforms and finally the adoption of measures to regulate the use of the artificial intelligence in the sector.