Screen Actors Guild – The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has filed an unfair labor practice claim to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Epic Games after conducting the AI Voice Darth Vader NPC at Fortnite last week.
The complaints that can be seen here claim that Llama Productions (owned by Epic Games) has failed to negotiate in good faith with Sag-Aftra video game actors for the past six months, and “cannot provide a bargain opportunity by using Ai-Generated Work, “without unilateral changes to employment terms and conditions, without providing union or bargain opportunities.”
Fortnite added the Ai Darth Vader last week. This has been added as an NPC character that allows you to join or leave the Fortnite team and talk to players through voice chat in Darth Vader Persona. AI Darth Vader is programmed to provide support to individuals who may be struggling with their mental health, but Epic Games had to patch them up to prevent them from dropping the F-bomb immediately after launch.
Darth Vader’s character was originally voiced by James Earl Jones, He passed away last September at the age of 93. This AI recreation was held at the blessing of James Earl Jones’ property, and his family said:
However, Epic Games’ use of AI Voice presents a major issue with SAG-AFTRA given its efforts to sign a contract with last year’s video game performer contract. The video game, which plays a member of the union, has been on strike for about 10 months. The strike was especially launched due to the lack of agreement on AI clauses, even if 24 of the 25 other contract proposals were affirmed by both parties. Earlier this year, SAG-AFTRA publicly shared a breakdown of some of the contracts.
In light of this, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement describing the allegations of unfair labor practices against the epic. Epic’s use of AI claims to undermine the work of human Sag AFTRA members who can do the job of matching Darth Vader’s voice with their own performance. This is the statement.
We celebrate the rights of members and their estates to control the use of digital replicas and to control the use of digital replicas to allow new generations to share the enjoyment of their heritage and famous roles. However, you need to protect your right to negotiate terms and conditions regarding the use of audio to replace members’ works, including previously performed tasks of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games.
Fortnite signing company Llama Productions has chosen to replace the work of human performers with AI technology. Unfortunately, they did so without informing us of their intention to do this, and without negotiating with us on appropriate terms. Therefore, he filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Llama Productions.
If a request is filed, the next step is a review by the NLRB, where potentially investigations and hearings will be conducted and fired if they believe there is a merit in the charges, or if the NLRB believes they are not. If an epic game is determined to have committed unfair labor practices, the NLRB can force them to improve the situation in a variety of ways, such as recording the voice of Darth Vader, who may hire an actor, removing him completely from the game, or removing other penalties. However, these cases can often take months or years to progress. Additionally, the claims were reduced as they could be settled outside by two parties.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at Passthecontroller. You can find her posts at Bluesky @Duckvalentine.bsky.social. Do you have any tips for the story? Send to [email protected].
