'Conference -  We are now into “a brave new world of technology”, where generative AI has turned a yet more dangerous corner.  There is dread and condemnation within the creative community, both here and in America, at the replacement of human performers with “synthetics”. 

 

BUT - for women across all Intersections it is not just about the alarming potential of taking away our work, this latest, rapid technological advancement  is also about misogyny.   Like a parasite AI is feeding on our humanity. Taking away the tools actors, writers, musicians, designers and artists use, to show what it really is like to BE a woman, to tell YOUR stories. Not stereotypes.  

 

This workforce AND  equality matter needs Government intervention.  Transparency is mandatary and we must have a synthetic register, so we and the public know where we all stand.  This is particularly essential in the creative industries where copyright underpins our creative economy.  As are statutory protections in line with employment law.

 

Indeed, in the earlier Combatting the Far Right debate, Unite’s motion, quite rightly, talked of advocating strong equality and workplace protections to combat the on-line spaces tied to extremism, spaces that use generative AI - like Grok - to fuel their hatred. Our very role in the world as women, whether as portrayers or the portrayed,  IS UNDER ATTACK, and Conference notes  with alarm where technology is taking us.  In the words from the 1986 science fiction horror film The Fly “ Be afraid, be very afraid.”

 

In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote a gothic horror story, Frankenstein, about a scientist who created a monster out of various human and animal body parts.  A monster that tormented him for the rest of his life.

 

In 1975 the film The Stepford Wives featured a small town outside New York where the women became zombie-like creatures.  The Men’s Union had collected information on the wives’ picture, voice and other personal data and turned once strong, assertive, independent women into clean, domesticated, conformist robot replicas.

 

In 1985 Margaret Atwood’s book “The Handmaid’s Tale” was published.  Streaming now on Channel Four.  Set in the near future, it’s  the story of powerless women in a patriarchal society, the loss of female agency and individuality, and the suppression of reproductive and human rights.   

 

In September 2025 - only 5 months ago – compliant, little Tilly Norwood  - young and nubile -  was unveiled at the Zurich Film Festival, heralded as representing the dazzling future of the film industry.  A synthetic woman that threatens to subsume our very humanity.  This, sisters, is not just us losing our jobs to a synthetic replacement -  it is about ALL of us losing our rights to our own,  unique, true, human  identity as women, losing control of what is acceptable about what we do with our bodies.  A synthetic woman can perform whatever THEY determine and our very safety as women is on the line.   

 

This motion is not anti-technology,  BUT -  if synthetic women are being created to replace, imitate, or sexualise real women – then Government must recognise synthetic performers as a labour issue, not just an innovation and intervene before these practices become the new normal.  Otherwise sisters - In the words of Geena Davis in The Fly – 

Be afraid Be very afraid

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Thank you conference - I move.'