{"id":442025,"date":"2025-12-12T08:54:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T08:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/442025\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T08:54:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T08:54:29","slug":"new-york-gov-kathy-hochul-signs-ai-protection-bills-at-sag-aftra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/442025\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Signs AI Protection Bills At SAG-AFTRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNew York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed two bills Thursday to boost AI<\/a> transparency in the film industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first requires entities who produce or create an advertisement to disclose whether the ad includes AI-generated synthetic performers, while the second requires consent from heirs or executors if a company wishes to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death. Gov. Kathy Hochul described these as \u201cfirst in the nation\u201d policies and committed to continuing protecting performers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe will have responsible AI policies in the state of New York,\u201d Hochul said at a press conference at the SAG-AFTRA<\/a> offices in New York City Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a time where we do want to embrace innovation,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut not to the detriment of people. That has to be the dividing line right there.\u201d She went on to call the use of AI actors in advertisements \u201cfake entertainment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Governor hosted a signing at the SAG-AFTRA offices in New York, surrounded by union executives as well as former president Fran Drescher, national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, <\/strong>Linda Powell, executive vice president of SAG-AFTRA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe bill signing came the same day Disney<\/a> announced a partnership<\/a> with OpenAI in which users of its AI video creation platform Sora will be able to create clips using iconic characters from Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars franchises. Disney CEO Bob Iger said Thursday that the Sora deal will not include voices, potentially delaying a fight over using actor\u2019s voices. The news loomed large in the room, with Chief Labor<\/a> Policy Officer Rebecca Damon pointing to the announcement and saying the union is thinking about AI every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCrabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator in the most recent SAG-AFTRA negotiations, where AI was a major sticking point, did not speak directly to the Disney deal, but pointed to the union\u2019s wider policy in relation to the New York bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf we want the public to trust what they see, we must have guardrails on digital replicas and synthetic creations,\u201d Crabtree-Ireland said, adding that the union refers to them as \u201csynthethic figures\u201d rather than \u201csynthetic performers.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe union later issued a statement saying it will \u201cclosely monitor the deal\u201d to \u201censure compliance with our contracts and with applicable laws protecting image, voice and likeness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe acknowledge Disney\u2019s and OpenAI\u2019s independent outreaches to us on this matter and their assurances that they will meet their contractual and legal obligations to performers and continue to implement systems to ensure ethical and responsible use of this technology,\u201d the union said in statement. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis comes after months of frank discussions between SAG-AFTRA and OpenAI about the protection of performers. The ongoing dialogue reflects a significant commitment to taking SAG-AFTRA members\u2019 concerns into account in the protective measures applied to image, likeness, voice, performance, and intellectual property rights generally,\u201d the statement continues. <\/p>\n

\n\tSAG-AFTRA had previously established guardrails against the use of OpenAI\u2019s Sora 2 in October, after the invite-only release used actor Bryan Cranston\u2019s voice and likeness in some of the outputs, without his consent or any compensation. OpenAI then said it was strengthening its guardrails around the replication of voice and likeness, and already requires an opt-in policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m glad that OpenAI has committed to using an opt-in protocol, where all artists have the ability to choose whether they wish to participate in the exploitation of their voice and likeness using A.I. This policy must be durable and I thank all of the stakeholders, including OpenAI for working together to have the appropriate protections enshrined in law. Simply put, opt-in protocols are the only way to do business and the NO FAKES Act will make us safer,\u201d SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDec. 11, 7:30 p.m.<\/strong> Updated to include SAG-AFTRA\u2019s statement on Disney. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed two bills Thursday to boost AI transparency in the film industry.\u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":442026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[691,5229,7299,606,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,42859,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-442025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-disney","11":"tag-labor","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sag-aftra","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115705758705531048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}