SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have been battling AI for 20 years now.

The other day, a Facebook friend posted a question about whether anybody should really care about the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. I mean, as far as my friend was concerned, it was just millionaires arguing over millions, while our cable bills and streaming services increase their subscription fees.

Well, that’s kind of a straw man argument, but let’s get back to the real reason these unions are striking.

It’s involving AI. We are now at a time where technology can scan an actor’s face or an actor’s voice and somehow recreate that actor with new dialogue and new mannerisms and new actions. And this new AI entity can work at a fraction of the cost of a professional flesh-and-blood actor. The AI doesn’t get sick or have contract disputes. And this actor can work for the studios FOREVER.

And trust me – this technology has appeared in Hollywood films for the past 20 years.

I give you an example.

In 2004, the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was released. The film starred Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie as adventurers in a 1940’s-style science fiction tale. One of the scenes in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow actually starred Sir Lawrence Olivier. Which is amazing, considering that Olivier was DEAD at the time the movie was filmed and released.

Meet one of the first instances of computer-generated representations to appear in film.

Or better yet … there’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, where Peter Cushing reprises his role as Inquisitor Grand Moff Tarkin – you’d recognize that foul stench anywhere – in a film that takes place just before the actions in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Of course, Peter Cushing being dead didn’t stop the studios from recreating Peter Cushing with special effects and artificial intelligence.

Last year, the Star Trek: Prodigy TV show used the voices of several Star Trek cast members from old shows – including several who were either deceased, or who were too ill to provide voice work – for an episode entitled “Kobayashi,” where those characters were recreated by the ship’s hologram program.

In other words … this technology exists. And it’s been used, off and on, for decades now.

You know that technology that turned 80-year-old Harrison Ford into 35-year-old Indiana Jones for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?

Yep, just because Harrison Ford is a senior citizen now, doesn’t mean you can’t use technology to make him young again – and keep him making Indiana Jones films long after Harrison Ford has crossed over to the next great adventure.

Heck, 2010’s TRON: Legacy also features a de-aged actor in Jeff Bridges, playing 2010 Kevin Flynn and 1983 Clu almost simultaneously.

What I’m saying is … this technology has existed for a very long time, and it’s getting better and more accurate. As long as the technology can fool viewers into thinking they’re seeing Actor A in the role when either Actor A is unavailable or Actor A is dead or Actor A never existed … someone’s not getting paid for this, and it sure isn’t Actor A receiving the money.

Look. I get it. Somewhere down the road, there’s probably a technician trying to figure out how to wipe out the Joe Palma appearances from those four Three Stooges episodes and replace that “Fake Shemp” with an AI-generated real Shemp Howard. Or better yet – how about digitally erasing that chiropractor who appears in the schlock classic Plan Nine From Outer Space with an AI-generated Bela Lugosi creation? This stuff can be done. Maybe not to the point where it could fool you today, but it’s getting there for sure.

And as for writers – you could probably go to an AI-generated website and punch in something like, “Write an episode of Gilligan’s Island where the crew of the S.S. Minnow get found by the cast from Yellowjackets,” and some collection of digital monkeys with digital typewriters could craft a plausible episode of same. I could almost see it now. “Natalie and Mary Ann had to decide whether the Skipper would be tastier if he was roasted or par-boiled.”

So … yeah. The actors and writers are fighting to keep AI in its place and to not be replaced by AI. Which essentially means that the studio would own an actor’s image and a writer’s words in perpetuity, and would simply have a computer spit out a script with the ease as one uses an Alexa to put artisan face cream in their Amazon shopping cart.

So, yeah. It’s not simplified as “rich actors want more money.” It’s simplified as “working people don’t want to be replaced by an AI that can do their job for a fraction of the cost to multi-billion-dollar studios.”

Seems cool and normal to me.