Voice performer union SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Epic Games subsidiary Llama Productions for deploying a controversial AI-powered Darth Vader chatbot in Fortnite.
The AI-powered version of the iconic villain arrived in Fortnite last week. It imitated the performance of deceased Darth Vader voice actor James Earl Jones (with permission from his estate) by leaning on two conversational AI models in the form of Google Gemini 2.0 Flash and ElevenLabs Flash v2.5.
Epic described the feature as “experimental” in a blog post but still implored players to speak with the character. Naturally, they obliged, and soon had Darth Vader dishing out all manner of statements ranging from bizarre to downright offensive (including slurs). Epic recognized the issue and quickly deployed a hotfix (thanks Kotaku), but not before clips of the AI character’s vocal misdemeanours had flooded social media.
Now, the company has also caught the attention of SAG-AFTRA, which is currently striking against major game studios to secure better AI protections for its union members.
In a statement, SAG-AFTRA acknowledged the rights of its members and estates to control the use of their digital replicas, but said it must also “protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members.”
Related:Kim Swift, former Portal lead developer, joins NEARstudios as COO
That, it noted, includes those performers who previously helped bring Darth Vader to life in video games.
SAG-AFTRA accuses Fortnite maker Epic of replacing human performers with AI technology
SAG-AFTRA claimed that opportunity has now been taken away by Llama Productions, which it said chose to “replace the work of human performers with AI technology.”
“Unfortunately, [Llama] did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms. As such, we have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against Llama Productions,” continued SAG-AFTRA.
The full unfair labor practice charge can be read here and states that Llama “failed and refused to bargain in good faith with the union by making unilateral changes to terms and conditions of employment, without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain, by utilizing AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work on the Interactive Program Fortnite.”
In short: SAG-AFTRA feels Llama and parent company Epic refused to open a constructive dialogue before deploying an AI-generated character that might have instead been voiced by a human actor.
Related:Megabonk dev withdraws from The Game Awards over ‘unqualified’ nomination
SAG-AFTRA recently detailed the AI protections it is seeking in order to ratify a new Interactive Media Agreement with a bargaining group containing studios like Take 2 Productions, EA, Activision, and WB Games. Prior the that, the union suggested there were “alarming loopholes” in the AI proposals being tabled by those studios.