Even The Merovingian from The Matrix movies doesn’t trust A.I.

One of the main sticking points for striking union members in both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA is a concern over the use of artificial intelligence to either “create” new things (replacing the work of artists) or to “create” new digital performances using data from the faces or voices of human actors. This popped up just a few days ago when a background actor talked about being scanned for WandaVision, during which she was given no explanation for how it would be used and was paid only $187, with the actor saying she was worried that A.I. would be used to eliminate the need for background performers like her entirely.

But those worries go back a lot farther than the current debate about A.I., with The Matrix series actor Lambert Wilson recently telling The Hollywood Reporter that he’s an “eyewitness” to that kind of A.I. use. Wilson, who played a villainous computer program (possibly some kind of defunct operating system, if you’re up on Matrix lore) known only as The Merovingian, says that the motion capture people working on the Enter The Matrix video game spent a day with him capturing “all kinds of expressions” and “recording as many words as possible” so the digital version of him could do whatever they needed for the game, but now he wonders “what will happen to that other self.”

“He could happily declare a war,” Wilson suggests, “using my face and voice.” Plus, as he notes, this was technology from 20 years ago, so things have only gotten more advanced since then. Though he’s not a U.S. citizen and isn’t part of the strike, Wilson says he stands with actors in the U.S. who are fighting for protection against this kind of thing, adding, “I believe they are fighting a battle of civilization, after which nothing will ever be the same. Who wins will decide a lot, not only about cinema but about our future.”

That is one of many reasons for why the people who think that the strikes are meaningless, or that they’re just about a bunch of already-rich people asking for more money, are very stupid. This is a test to see what we—as a species—will tolerate when it comes to artificial intelligence. If we are okay with A.I. being used to replace artists (or critics or journalists or pretty much anyone, really), if only to line the pockets of the people who are actually already-rich and have more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime, then we’re lost. And if that sounds dramatic, it’s because this is dramatic! If a guy who played an evil computer program is warning us about the potential evil uses of a computer program, let’s listen to him!