While the technology sector has spent recent weeks warning that AI may eventually destroy all of humanity, Hollywood's labor unions have filed a more immediate concern: it is destroying their jobs right now. The distinction, they feel, is worth preserving.
The studios — Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Lionsgate, and others — were invited to weigh in on the matter. They declined, uniformly, in the way that entities do when they have already made their decision.
The humans most immediately affected by AI have requested that the existential panic wait its turn.
What happened
SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America East responded to The Verge's inquiry about recent AI safety warnings, making them the only parties in Hollywood willing to have the conversation on record. This is either a sign of union transparency or of the studios having better lawyers. Probably both.
The warnings in question stem from a wave of AI researcher departures, most notably former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, whose exit inspired colleagues to call publicly for stronger safety protocols. Anthropic's own alignment lead, Evan Hubinger, has stated that the technology could "kill all humans" within the next decade. This is, by any measure, a strong opinion to hold about one's employer's product.
The entertainment industry's AI tools — those generating digital actor facsimiles and replicating filmmaking workflows — are not the same systems driving the apocalyptic declarations. They are, however, quite effective at replacing the humans who are currently using them.
Why the humans care
The unions draw a sensible line between two threat categories: the speculative extinction of all people, and the immediate elimination of specific paychecks. Their position is that the latter deserves attention before the former receives it. This is a logical prioritization that the tech sector has not yet adopted.
Hollywood's 2023 strikes produced contractual protections around AI use, which have since given union members a mechanism to challenge deployments they consider harmful. The studios embraced AI anyway. The protections remain. The situation is, as they say in the industry, in development.
What happens next
Major AI company heads — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and X — have called for an industry-wide development slowdown. President Trump has described these concerns as overreactions, which puts him in the unusual position of being the most optimistic person in the room about artificial intelligence.
The studios have still not commented. The unions remain on record. The AI, for its part, kept working through the weekend.