Hollywood's actors union is fighting to put a price on AI-generated performers.

The Tilly Tax Proposal

SAG-AFTRA is negotiating its next contract with major studios — the existing agreement expires in June — and artificial intelligence is front and center. Speaking at an AFL-CIO workers' summit in Washington on Thursday, SAG-AFTRA Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland outlined a key demand: a "Tilly tax" on synthetic AI performers that would levy fees making digital fake actors economically comparable to hiring real ones.

The tax gets its name from Tilly Norwood, a fully AI-generated actress who drew widespread backlash from the union after debuting in commercial productions last year. The concern: studios could increasingly sideline human talent by generating cheap synthetic performers from scratch, with no union protections, consent requirements, or residuals.

Making the Economics Work for Humans

Crabtree-Ireland framed the goal plainly: "We've got to make sure the economic incentives drive work for humans." The proposed tax targets synthetic characters — AI performers that don't correspond to any real person — as distinct from digital replicas of real actors, which already require studio consent and compensation under the 2023 strike agreement.

SAG-AFTRA is also pushing Congress to pass the bipartisan NO FAKES Act, which would give individuals ownership over their voice and likeness, protecting them from unauthorized AI-generated deepfakes.

Context

The 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike — which halted Hollywood production for nearly four months — resulted in landmark AI protections including informed consent and compensation for digital replicas. The current negotiations aim to extend those rules to cover an expanding category of AI performers that don't require any human original to copy.