As the use of AI in Hollywood ramps up, the entertainment industry’s top crew union has hired a dedicated staffer to help them navigate this brave and uncertain new world.
Enter Jillian Arnold, the more than 170,000-person labor group’s first labor and technology intelligence officer, tasked with keeping the union abreast of technological developments and protecting its workers. With a jurisdiction spanning the U.S. and Canada, she’s set to get involved in contract negotiations, reskilling and upskilling initiatives and federal and state policy efforts.
And though her hire was publicly announced by IATSE on Friday, Arnold has been quietly working in the role since late July, she told The Hollywood Reporter. “We want to make sure that we are a part of the deployment and integration of any AI within our craft so that we make tools that are for workers, not displacing workers,” she said.
Arnold isn’t a Silicon Valley type, but rather a former crew member herself. The former president of IATSE Local 695, and the first woman to ever hold that position, she’s a video engineer and former cinematographer with credits spanning NASA missions (the Mars Curiosity Rover landing, the Juno mission) and live television (the Oscars, the Emmys, the MTV Video Music Awards). In 2024, she chaired the union’s AI subcommittee during its negotiations with studios and streamers. According to a statement from IATSE international president Matthew Loeb, Arnold has proven to be “a leader on artificial intelligence and its impact on the labor movement.”
In an interview with THR about the inaugural position, Arnold expanded on her approach to generative AI in Hollywood and her top priorities while responding to questions about exposed crafts and AI workflows.
Can you shed light on what specifically prompted IATSE to hire a labor and technology officer now?
Yeah, absolutely. So I am the former president of Local 695, the sound, video and projection local. In 2023, leadership of IATSE was forming committees for negotiations preparation and for the first time we had an AI and emerging technologies subcommittee. Because of my background, leadership [including] President Loeb, Vice President Miller, now-Vice President Holtgrewe chose me to be the chair of that committee. So I led all the committee preparation and was heavily involved as an expert and one of the negotiators in the 2024 negotiations as the chair. From there, I continued work part-time with the International while I was also still in the field, and earlier this year I had a discussion with President Loeb, who wanted to start a tech department and felt that it was the best time, especially getting in preparation for next year’s negotiations. So I officially retired from being a video engineer in the field in July and within a week my new position was announced to IATSE, to all of leadership.
So it sounds like in some ways it’s a response to the negotiations coming up next year and in some ways a response to all the technological changes that have been happening in the business?
Yes, I would say it is a response to being in preparation for the next round of negotiations, but also intuitively we just felt this was the right time. We believe that we’ve always been part of technical evolutions. I mean, I was the former president of a sound Local, which was founded because of a technical evolution, the addition of sound to the moving picture. And we just want to make sure that our members are prepared to upskill and re-skill and also to help them engage in the creation of artificial intelligence tools that are very worker-centric. So we want to make sure that we are a part of the deployment and integration of any AI within our craft so that we make tools that are for workers, not displacing workers.
What was high up on your to-do list as you began the position?
Well, obviously negotiations are next spring, so that’s the number one priority, working with the business agents in the Basic and the ASA agreements to make sure that we have good proposals to bring to the table. Another priority is we just rolled out, today, a class for Local leadership on how to talk to members about AI. So we’re already working with the [IATSE] education department. We’re talking to potential education partners. We want to make sure that our members are upskilled and re-skilled. I’m also working with the political department. I work with some state legislation and then I work with our political department on federal legislation when it comes up as well. I would say those are the top three things, and then I’ve got some other projects as well.
Do you have a broad-strokes mentality about how AI should be used in a responsible way?
Well, like I said, we’re really trying to encourage our members to be part of that development process. IATSE members by nature are entrepreneurs, and a lot of the technology that we have integrated over the last 130 years, our members have had a hand in developing and integrating it. The approach is to create tools, and we do believe it is tools that help our members, but we don’t want it to hurt our members. And so we want to make sure that they understand the employer policies that are given to them. We want them to understand the contract provisions that they have in place now. And honestly, we want them to engage in it ethically, think critically about its use and how it’s going to be deployed in the workplace.
Are there specific sectors in the union that you’re focused on initially given their particular exposure to generative AI tools?
Myself and leadership, we have taken a look at the crafts that we feel are what I would call on the first wave. And we are engaging with those crafts to make sure that they’re part of the process as much as possible.
Would you mind stating what some of those crafts are that may be in the first wave, as you called it?
I would prefer not to at this time. Honestly, I’m trying to be very mindful about our members and making sure that, like I said, they’re part of the process. So I really don’t want to create anything that I don’t have a data set to substantiate at this time.
Sure. How do you personally feel about jobs that may be opening up to workers that would have them working with AI models to do some things that they would otherwise be doing in the physical world?
Well, we have to understand that copyright is important to not only our employers who own the intellectual property, but it’s important to us, too. And so one of the provisions that we got in 2024 was the idea of a consultation. Our members can approach their employer before employment begins to have a conversation about the use of artificial intelligence. And in that consultation, we want our members to be able to [communicate] if they feel the correct workflow is what we could call an analog workflow, for example, some of those more analog workflows are still considered more economical and produce a unique, copyrightable solution. So AI models may not always be the best tool for the job, but what we are mindful of is that our members get to have that dialogue with employers so they can discuss what is the best tool for the job.
When it comes to AI, a lot of people understandably get stuck on how models have been trained and what work they ingested while they were being trained. Are there any ethical AI models in your view that creatives can work with at this point?
At this time, we’re not endorsing any model per se. That essentially what you’re asking, right?
Yes. And I realize we are many months away, but are there any issues that have come across your desk that you think will show up in negotiations next year?
At this time, we’re still fielding proposals for members. Committee work will be starting soon and we’ll have a more honed-in approach, I think, through that process. I think it’s still a little too early.
Anything else you want to add?
I’m very excited to take this job. IATSE has been my home for 15 years, and I’m excited to be part of the labor movement that’s leading the way. And you know what, I think that’s what I’ve got to say. I’m just really excited about the job.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.