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Shareholders of Disney and Apple will be given the chance to vote on proposals regarding the use of artificial intelligence, the Securities and Exchange Commission has determined.
As first reported by Reuters, the SEC issued notices on Wednesday saying the companies could not exclude proposals calling for an assessment of their use of AI. Neither company has yet disclosed the date of their annual shareholder meetings, but they are generally held in March or April. Disney’s meeting will have plenty of additional intrigue thanks to efforts by activist investors to gain representation on the board.
AI technology has become a central issue for Hollywood, factoring prominently in dual strikes last year by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Publishers and other owners of intellectual property have also raised alarms over the rise of AI. The New York Times last week filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement.
Shareholder proposals urging closer scrutiny of AI were filed by a pension trust of the AFL-CIO, the labor union federation. The WGA is among the 60 U.S. and international guilds that are part of the AFL-CIO federation, which represents a total of 12.5 million union members.
The companies had argued that the proposals could be excluded from the shareholder meeting agenda because they concerned “ordinary business operations” rather than a matter requiring a special vote.
The SEC disagreed with that perspective. In letters laying out the agency’s determination on the issue, the commission said the AI proposal “transcends ordinary business matters and does not seek to micromanage the company,” per the Reuters report.
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