Last week, as a part of Fortnite's ongoing partnership with Star Wars, Darth Vader was added to the game, along with an AI voice that would respond to players when prompted in-game. The legendary voice of James Earl Jones was recreated, with permission from his estate, using AI to enable this feature. However, today, SAG-AFTRA released a statement saying they were filing a unfair labor practice charge against Llama Proudctions, the signatory company behind Fortnite.

They're claiming that the makers of Fortnite, "chose to replace the work of human performers with A.I. technology," and "did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms." So, regardless of the fact they received permission from the Jones Estate, the union believes their workers' rights were violated with the AI feature being added to the game. This is central to the on-going strike that video game workers who are a part of SAG-AFTRA are still waging since last summer. Similar to the Hollywood strike in 2023 that lasted several months, AI is the focus of this strike and how it affects workers' ability to protect their work in the future.

This lawsuit comes after players using the AI feature in Fortnite were finding ways to get the character to say explicit and discriminatory words and phrases, raising concerns about Fortnite's continued use of the AI character. Thankfully, an update was release to prevent Darth Vader from saying anything explicit, but once again the short-comings of AI were plain and obvious to see from the start.