Bryan Cranston Tells Bob Iger ‘Our Jobs Will Not Be Taken Away’ by AI in Rousing Speech: You Will Not ‘Take Away Our Dignity’
By Joe Otterson
Bryan Cranston delivered a fiery speech at a SAG-AFTRA strike rally in Times Square on Tuesday, which included a message directed at Disney head Bob Iger. “We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger,” Cranston said from the stage of the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally. “I know, sir, that you look [at] things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity! We are union through and through, all the way to the end!”
Watch an excerpt from the speech below Cranston began his remarks by saying that there is one thing that all the guilds and the AMPTP fundamentally agree on: “Our industry has changed exponentially.” “We are not in the same business model we were even 10 years ago,” he said. “And yet, even though they admit that is the truth in today’s economy, they are fighting us tooth and nail to stick to the same economic system that is outmoded, outdated! They want us to step back in time. We cannot and we will not do that.” Cranston was one of a number of stars who took the stage to address a crowd of hundreds of SAG-AFTRA members and union supporters at the rally, with others including Steve Buscemi, Wendell Pierce, Christian Slater, Christine Baranski, Stephen Lang, and Titus Burgess. They were joined onstage by fellow actors Michael Shannon, BD Wong, Brendan Fraser, Jessica Chastain, Matt Bomer, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Corey Stoll, and more. Burgess decided to forego a speech, instead singing a section of the song “Take Me to the World” from “Sondheim On Sondheim.” Baranski told the crowd “We will not live under corporate feudalism” while also praising the background actors on shows like “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” saying that she attended the rally to speak for them and demand they get fair treatment under any new contract. Slater then spoke about how his father, a fellow SAG member, received support from the union after mental illness and later cancer left him unable to work. Later on in the rally, “The Bear” star Liza Colón-Zayas told the audience that she has been a union member since 1994 and “struggled for 30 years to finally get here, only to find that my residuals have dwindled exponentially.” She then paraphrased Snoop Dogg by saying “We the artists, our gripe is that we deliver in high numbers, in major numbers. And yet, where the f— is my money?”
The first part is kind of what I’m hoping for. AI and machines in general seem like they’re somewhat poised to take over most human activity. Historically, this has been more of a blue collar problem with machines taking over factory positions and such, making a very dystopian future quite probable. However, recent advances have shown that we’re all likely on the chopping block, from street sweepers to high powered lawyers and corporate executives. An even playing field seems like it would be more likely to lead to things like universal basic income, as human toil on all levels is rendered obsolete.
Yeah I hear you, the future is bright if we can escape the grip of capitalist grindset - aka, WASP work ethic. Why should we have to toil the majority of our waking lives just to survive? Can the AI set us free, and if it does, will advancement grind to a halt beyond this point? These are some big questions that will need answered in our lifetimes.
I personally think the machines can be our emancipation to usher in a new era of enlightenment, but they could just as easily be our destruction. One thing that gives me hope is that it really seems the boomer generation are the ones most hell-bent on amassing wealth and power just for the sake of it. Most of the rest of us would be content just to have a decent life. Hopefully as the older generations give way to time, we can realize a more equitable future for all.