AFGE Local 1812 representing employees at the Voice of America (VOA) successfully protected the employees’ rights to their voice, image, and likeness as the agency embarks on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the newsroom.
The VOA’s original guidance issued last year on the use of AI stirred up controversy within the agency as journalists and staff expressed deep concerns about journalistic integrity, the audience’s mistrust, employees’ right to their voice and image, and job elimination.
At issue was the way the VOA wanted to use AI to voice scripts. The original guidance was vague and could have led to infringement of the rights of employees and other issues.
It read: “AI also may be used for voicing scripts, so long as a human being retains full control over the journalistic content. Furthermore, synthetic voices should never be used to impersonate specific individuals, especially public figures.”
“VOA prides itself on being a source, a voice, for ‘trusted and objective news and information,’” the employees said in a letter to management. “We fear that allowing an artificial voice to deliver news and information will do severe harm to VOA’s reputation and to VOA’s relationship with its audiences.”
The agency subsequently withdrew the policy to bargain with the union. Management claimed their original language protected an employee and they had no intent of synthesizing employees’ voices. The local fought to have this explicitly stated in the policy. They bargained over this section of the guidance for six months.
The new version that was agreed upon by both sides is more specific about employees and their rights to their likeness: “AI also may be used for voicing scripts, so long as a human being retains full control over the journalistic content. Furthermore, synthetic voices should never be used to impersonate or duplicate any individuals, including agency employees or public figures. This includes AI-generated content using an individual’s or employee's likeness, image, and character.”
AFGE Local 1812 President Paula Hickey said the new version of the guidance is important because it protects employee’s rights by not allowing their voices and images to be generated without their permission.
“Imagine leaving your job and the employer continues to synthesize your voice to create content and not only are you not compensated, but you also have no control over how your voice is used,” she said. “AI certainly will be used to replace people, but as others have pointed out, use AI for the mundane tasks that people don’t want to do. Don’t use AI to replace our artists and writers. People need to spend more time creating and less time working.”
President Joe Biden Jan. 5 signed into law an AFGE-backed bill eliminating two controversial rules that have caused public servants to lose two-thirds or even the entire amount of their Social Security benefits.
Read More
Another group of federal employees just joined AFGE!
Read More
AFGE and allies have launched an online clearing house to share best practices and provide assistance to federal workers in understanding and exercising their rights.
Read More
