AI And Socialism: The Role of Labour Unions, Guilds and Unionisation in the Age of AI and Automation.

“AI Will Take Our Jobs!” has been one of those phrases that seems to be present in the echo chamber of every field and discipline. What had emerged as blissful skepticisms in the early days of modern artificial intelligence had seemed to warp into an odious reality. The jobless society that litters the pages of dystopian novels is mere decades away from characterising our own. Then where will all the ordinary workers go? The two arguments that persist are that occupations will simply adapt to emerging technologies and trends in AI, where work will be centred around developing AI rather than lamenting the professions where mass human labour has been replaced. The other argument claims that under no circumstances can human labour be eradicated and policymakers will attempt to protect workers’ rights- but where is the progress? In most cases, workers unionise to protect their own rights independent of governmental or administrative policies. Sounds familiar? Welcome back to the (4th) Industrial Revolution. 

Labour Unions and Guilds

A Trade Union or a Labour Union, is a collective of workers belonging to a similar trade, regime, industry or company, created for the purpose of securing proper working conditions, pays, benefits, etc. Labour unions primarily functioned on the basis of collective bargaining, where the union collectively and directly negotiates with the employers on matters concerning employment. Trade unions may be craft unionistic wherein workers are divided on the basis of their craft, or general unionism where this craft-based division does not operate. Depending on the scope of the union, it may be divided into national or regional unions. In certain socialist circles, labour unions have been used to safeguard or acquire political and social power, rather than mere economic determinants. This is known as social unionism and several notable political parties in history have emerged from such guilds. 

Prior to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the Americas, guilds, mainly merchant guilds, were a common occurrence in ancient civilisations such as Mesopotamia and Rome. Artisan guilds in Assyria and Sumer documented negotiations between shipbuilders and ship-owners, while similarly, the Collegium in Ancient Rome constituted any organisation that was bestowed a legal status by the Senate, such as the plethora of burial societies. The modern labour union, though mistakenly associated with Marxism, did not outright emerge from the Communist Manifesto, but rather, originated in the United States’ Philadelphia Printer’s strike in 1786. Unions had become increasingly widespread during the Industrial Revolution but were typically prosecuted by the company owners or the government/monarchy. Wage worker politics at that time could not be satiated through non-violent means and several movements involved violent activities besides strikes and lockouts.

The Necessity of Unionisation

Contemporary apprehensions are indistinguishable from olden apprehensions- the dread associated with a seemingly “jobless society” permeates through every imaginable epoch. The industrial revolution has undoubtedly favoured the bourgeoisie with their emphasis on a laissez-faire society. Its aftermath continues to seep into the formation of modern society. With urbanization and industrialisation marking the beginning of the metropolis, population is at an all-time high with demand and supply following suit. Naturally, one would expect that high demands would call for more labour and thus, more employment. However, the fourth industrial revolution, the democratisation of Artificial Intelligence had nullified the need for human labour in certain sectors. For instance,  let’s consider the publishing industry. With self-publishing modules such as Amazon’s KDP, authors need not approach a proper publishing house in search of an editor or proofreader as these endeavours may be executed effectively with AI tools such as Grammarly. While these tools do not necessarily demean the value of human intellect and expertise, they undoubtedly offer a shiny alternative that several corporations choose to opt for to reduce costs of production. It is precisely these alternatives that have sparked off elaborate tensions between workers and manufacturers, employees and employers. 

Unfortunately, the digital revolution has arrived faster than we had expected it to- not with the promise of flying automobiles or robots, but rather self-driving automobiles and pesky chatbots inside our phones and yet, these innovations go miles in redefining the process of production in our modern society. This, coupled with the strenuous atmosphere during the COVID-19 pandemic had made employability seem like a distant memory. During such conditions, workers unions had become imperative in protecting the rights and interests of ordinary workers. For instance, in India, the Central Government had introduced certain “farm laws” in 2020 to liberalise the agricultural market in the nation. However, this was immediately met with retaliation as it would jeopardise the position of Indian farmers in a laissez-faire market. It was during this period that worker’s guilds and organizations had stood their ground in protesting for their interests. Such endeavours have been prevalent in the creative sector with the rise in AI as seen in the case of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA.

SAG-AFTRA, Genshin Impact Strikes and the Creative Sector

SAG-AFTRA is the Screen Actors Guild of America, an organisation prioritising itself on safeguarding the interests of actors- screen actors and voice-artists- directors, writers, etc, involved in the entertainment sector. The AI revolution had witnessed a shift in the manner in which art is produced- or rather, art is generated. Besides concerns involving AI-generated scripts, storylines and dialogues that were priorly enumerated by the Writers Guild of America, and issues pertaining to AI-driven animation and CGI, it seemed as though acting was the only field where AI would not penetrate- except that it did and the protests that had ensued were elaborate and long-lasting. Entertainment industries hoped to harness and reduplicate the voices of actors through AI-generated voice replicas to double-down on the existing high costs of production. However, in 2024, SAG-AFTRA had signed an interim agreement with corporations to arrive at a compromise- members of the union- fi-core and core union- would create certain “Digital Voice Replicas” on specific recordings, with prior consent from the individuals concerned, to offer to corporations reduce costs of production whilst sidelining the need for generative AI. 

The Digital Voice Replicas were mostly intended for voice-actors and video game corporations. During the protests, most live-service AAA video-games or newer updates to existing video-games had gone largely unvoiced. Voice actors under SAG were encouraged to protest until corporations had agreed to SAG’s offer of an increased revenue stream to its members in the form of these digital replicas. Taking the example of Genshin Impact, the game had celebrated its 5th largest update with version 5.0 introducing the new region- Natlan. Despite the hype surrounding the update, fans were soon disappointed to find out that only a month later, the game had gone unvoiced as a part of the protest since a majority of the voice actors were based in the United States. For fans who had primarily engaged with the game for its story and characters, to discover the entirety of the story would be voiceless had certainly not been an ideal conclusion for the game’s 5th anniversary. However, that was merely the precipice of the floodgates that had yet to erupt.

SAG-AFTRA on Strike

In March, 2025, the actor for one of the newest characters in Genshin Impact, Kinich (John Patneaude) had been replaced by a non-union voice actor, Jacob Takanashi. This was not a singular occurrence in a singular video game, multiple actors who were previously on strike were being replaced one-after-the-other. This revelation had prompted the strike to assume a more radical shift, at least within the Genshin Impact community, to focus on complete unionisation rather than AI-protection. Both SAG and video-game corporations seemed hesitant to give in to the other, while voice-actors and fans were stuck in the crossfire. With voice-actors, especially those in the financial core of the union, being forced into the protest without prior voting, they had largely gone unpaid during this period. However, the situation has gotten more complex with corporations switching to UK-based voice actor agencies rather than US-based ones. It seems as though SAG’s demands were largely limited to their US memberbase, rather than appealing to a larger international audience. With high membership fees, and a lack of a guarantee towards one’s financial rights, SAG-AFTRA has not garnered a positive reception in front of the international community.

Conclusion

The SAG-AFTRA protests posit a plethora of nuanced concerns that cannot be demarcated into a matter of black-and-white. SAG, the corporations, actors and fans of these creatives present valid concerns regarding the future of AI usage in the creative industries. However, we must admit that unions are more relevant than ever right now. What these unions tend to suffer from at this point is an increased amount of managerialism that has resulted in unnecessary red-tape in its policies. Transparency and universalism are essentially required if we hope to see these unions prosper rather than devolving into taboos with misconstrued endeavours.