It’s official: the Screen Actors Guild is joining the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines by the end of Thursday, the first time that’s happened since 1960. That means much of Hollywood is effectively on strike, grinding the most influential film industry in the world to a halt. Ever since the WGA went on strike two months ago, the conversation has often revolved around the use of AI and how it could undermine the livelihoods of both writers and actors. And it sounds like the extent to which studio executives, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), wanted to leverage the tech is shocking. During a press conference immediately following SAG-AFTRA’s call for a strike earlier today, executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland painted a dire picture of the situation. “In that groundbreaking AI proposal,” Crabtree-Ireland said, referring to the AMPTP and as quoted by CNBC, “they propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation.” “So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again,” he added. Such a proposal would effectively force human background actors to give up their physical likeness to be recreated in the form of digital projections at the discretion of the studios, a dystopian…Studios Want to Replace Background Actors With AI After Paying Them for Only One Day