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Rihanna, Zuckerberg in India for Party Thrown by Asia's Richest Man

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan upon arrival at Jamnagar Airport. Reliance/AFP
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan upon arrival at Jamnagar Airport. Reliance/AFP
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Rihanna, Zuckerberg in India for Party Thrown by Asia's Richest Man

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan upon arrival at Jamnagar Airport. Reliance/AFP
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg with his wife Priscilla Chan upon arrival at Jamnagar Airport. Reliance/AFP

Pop star Rihanna and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg were in India Friday for an extravagant party hosted by Asia's richest man, with celebrations expected to include other globally influential figures.
Global tech bosses, industry titans, Bollywood stars, pop icons and politicians are also due for the three-day gala celebrations hosted by billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani.
This weekend's party is an elaborate pre-wedding ceremony for younger son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, the daughter of wealthy pharmaceutical moguls.
Photos published by Indian media confirmed the arrival of Rihanna, Zuckerberg and the Facebook founder's wife Priscilla Chan in Ambani's hometown of Jamnagar.
"Umbrella" singer Rihanna, who gave birth to her second child in August, is slated to lead Friday's entertainment in her first public performance since last year's Superbowl, local media reported.
Broadcaster India Today reported that the Barbadian-born musician and women's beauty entrepreneur had been offered up to $9 million to appear at the event.
Ambani, 66, is chairman of oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance Industries and the world's 10th-richest person according to the Forbes billionaires list, worth more than $116 billion.
On Wednesday the family launched a three-day feast for villagers at the Reliance Township in Jamnagar, in India's western state of Gujarat.
The Ambanis are building a Hindu temple complex in the city, the Reliance Foundation said on social media.
Anant, 28, who also serves as a director on the boards of several Reliance-owned firms, is expected to marry Merchant, 29, later this year.
Ambani held the most expensive wedding to date in India for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost $100 million and saw US pop megastar Beyonce perform.
US illusionist David Blaine is also expected to be part of the entertainment for guests, who include Microsoft founder Bill Gates and several current and former political leaders.
Also among the invitees is Disney chief Bob Iger, following a deal agreed Wednesday between Reliance Industries and Walt Disney to merge their Indian media businesses.
The merger will create an $8.5 billion entertainment giant in the world's most populous nation and fifth-largest economy.
Other guests invited include Ivanka Trump, daughter of former US president Donald, as well as Sweden's ex-prime minister Carl Bildt, former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and the King of Bhutan.
Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, cricket icons Sachin Tendulkar and M.S. Dhoni, and industry titan Gautam Adani are also invited in a who's-who of India's super-rich elite.
The main celebrations, running until Sunday, will have different themes, events and dress codes -- including a "jungle fever" day with a visit to an animal rescue center run by Ambani, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.

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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.