Animation Workers Ireland

"All these workers have ever tried to do is discuss their pay and conditions to improve them, so they can make a game loved by millions." youtube.com/watch?v=8TvWNF…

Across the world, game dev unions are standing with us. @RockstarGames - reinstate our members, now!

This is the most ruthless act of union busting in the history of the UK games industry. Yesterday, @RockstarGames fired over 30 employees for union activity. We won't back down, and we're not scared - we will fight for every member to be reinstated.

Workers at Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM Studio have established the first recognized workplace union in the UK game industry! Work in game dev? Join our union today: iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-w…

The model trainer’s dilemma is a specific instance of the prisoner’s dilemma, and it’s everywhere in AI right now. AI companies are offering people bad deals to help train their own replacements. These people would collectively be better off if they resisted - but, without knowing how others will act, each is incentivized to be the one to take the deal. Seeing it in at least 3 groups: 1. Publishers / media companies. They are offered a nice-looking sum to license their work - but it’s a perpetual license, so they’ll only see the revenue once. The deal is bad, but they figure it may as well be them who makes this money, as otherwise it will be their competitors. 2. Individual creatives. They get a bad offer from the media company that represents them, giving them little money and less control, in exchange for the right to license their work to AI companies. But they think they may as well take the deal, as others no doubt will. 3. Domain experts training models at the reinforcement stage. They are training a model to do their job, and get a tiny hourly wage to do so - but if they don’t, someone else will. In each case, the logic is: I won’t stop this by resisting, since presumably others will take the deal. So why turn it down? The only way to escape the model trainer’s dilemma is rapid, large-scale organisation. It remains to be seen whether that’s possible in the timeframe required. (One instance of this phenomenon here: theguardian.com/technology/202…)

If you want to understand who the EU’s Code of Practice on AI benefits, consider: - It is supported by OpenAI - It is rejected by pretty much every European organization that represents artists, writers, musicians etc. It legalizes IP theft to train AI models; it will allow AI companies to use people’s work, for free, to build highly scalable competitors to those people. As such, it likely contravenes international law. It should not be allowed to stand.

🚨 The EU continues to double down on its rushed, unfair AI copyright law. The finalized Code of Practice, designed to help AI companies comply with the new law, makes it clear that AI companies can train on whatever they want as long as they respect opt-outs. But opt-outs are ineffective, and most people eligible miss the chance to opt out. This law all but ensures AI companies can use most creators’ work, for free, to train models that compete with them. And the people this will affect the most are independent creators, who are that much less likely to know they can opt out, and to be able to enforce their rights. This isn’t just my opinion: the US Copyright Office agrees opt-outs are totally unfair to creators, as does an EU Parliament report that came out this week. But the European Commission continues to solidify this terrible legislation. I hope European copyright holders will continue to fight this, and other countries will see it for what it is: poorly thought through law, the result of sustained work from lobbyists behind closed doors before most people realized what was happening.

Irish-English animator Phil Mulloy, best known for his original, dark satirical shorts featuring distinctive black skeletal figures and minimalistic backgrounds, died on Thursday, (July 10), at age 76. animationmagazine.net/2025/07/phil-m…

Over 100 staff laid off as Galway-based Romero Games shuts down after funding cut - @thejournal_ie thejournal.ie/100-staff-laid… ________________ In the Game Industry, No One Should Play Alone Join us: fsunion.org/gwu/join

If you have been affected by the layoffs at Romero Games and need support, please reach out to us at GWUI. Freephone: 1800 81 91 91 or email:advice@fsunion.org You can leave a callback request fsunion.org/membership/adv… #RomeroGames

Powerful open letter today from a group of authors to their publishers, asking those publishers to reject the replacement technology of AI. "Every time a prompt is entered into AI, the language that bot uses to respond was created in part through the synthesis of art that we, the undersigned, have spent our careers crafting. Taken without our consent, without payment, without even the courtesy of acknowledgment." lithub.com/against-ai-an-…

We warmly welcome the news of an extension to the #BasicIncomeArts Pilot scheme and proposals for a successor scheme. Research to date has highlighted the many positive impacts of the scheme and its potential to include a greater diversity of voices in the arts in Ireland.

Obviously using chatbots makes you more dumb, everyone is skipping over the funniest part: the study authors are such dedicated LLM haters they set up traps to expose AI users lol

Pay transparency (the right to know how much a job advertised pays and what your colleagues doing the same job as you earn on average) is coming to Ireland in the next 12 months, June 2026 @NTBreakfast

Animation workers' unions call on lawmakers "to fight for culture and art and the value it provides" and to pass legislation to protect workers whose livihoods are at risk from widespread, irresponsible gen AI use cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/…

Join us in Annecy!

The UK government has been defeated for a *4th* time in the House of Lords on AI training data transparency. The government refuses to make AI companies disclose their training data; the House of Lords is insisting they do. This is another huge defeat for the government, 242 vs. 116. And, once again, it is essentially only @UKLabour refusing to support transparency requirements. Incredibly strong message sent by the Lords today. The government cannot keep refusing to hold AI companies accountable for the large-scale theft of copyrighted work.

The Government has thrown proper sick pay, a real living wage and ending discriminatory pay rates on the bonfire. They MUST honour commitments on workers’ rights and collective bargaining or face a major mobilisation by workers. More here: siptu.ie/government-mus…

AI conversation needs to include the capacity to regulate the companies developing and commercialising AI. As a creator organisation we are seeing very concerning behaviour regarding creator rights and copyright protection from these companies. @TodaywithClaire