Hollywood strikes inflamed by claim that AI could do writers’ jobs

The Hollywood screenwriters’ strike broke out this week over pay, but the refusal of studios such as Netflix and Disney to rule out artificial intelligence replacing human scribes in the future has only fueled anger and frustration. fear on the picket lines.

With their rapidly advancing ability to eerily mimic human conversation, AI programs such as ChatGPT have recently spooked many industries. The White House convened Big Tech this week to discuss the potential risks.

As part of week-long talks with studios and streamers that collapsed on Monday, the Writers Guild of America demanded binding agreements to regulate the use of AI.

As part of the proposal, nothing written by AI can be considered “literary” or “source” material industry terms that decide who gets royalties, and scripts written by WGA members cannot. not “be used to train the AI”.

But according to the WGA, the studios “rejected our proposal” and retaliated by simply offering to meet once a year to “discuss technological advancements”.

“It’s good that they’re offering to have a meeting about how they’re exploiting it against us!” joked Eric Heisserer, a member of the WGA negotiating committee, who wrote the hit Netflix film bird box.

“Art can’t be created by a machine. You lose the heart and soul of the story…I mean, the first word is ‘artificial,'” he said on the picket line on Friday. strike outside the streaming giant’s Hollywood headquarters.

Although the writers already know this, the danger is that “we have to watch the tech companies destroy the business to try and figure it out for themselves,” he said.

While few TV and film writers on the picket lines believe their work could be done by computers, the apparent belief among studios and streamers that it is possible has been an additional slap in the face.

They fear that executives in Hollywood, where Silicon Valley companies have upended many traditional practices such as long-term contracts for writers, will seek to further cut costs by forcing computers to write their next shows at hit.

Comments from top Hollywood executives at this week’s Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills will have done nothing to allay writers’ concerns.

“Over the next three years, you’re going to see an AI-written movie made…a good movie,” said film producer Todd Lieberman.

“Not just scripts. Editing, all of that… scripting a movie, anything,” added Rob Wade, chief executive of Fox Entertainment.

“AI in the future, maybe not next year or the year after, but if we’re talking 10 years? AI will be able to do absolutely all of these things.”

The studios’ own account of failed talks with the WGA offered a more nuanced approach.

In a briefing note shared with AFP, they said the writers don’t actually want to ban AI and seem happy to use it “as part of their creative process” as long as it doesn’t affect their remuneration.

This storyline “requires much more discussion, which we are committed to,” the studios said.

For Leila Cohan, a screenwriter of the Netflix hit BridgertonAI’s only usefulness to writers is limited to “heavy work” like coming up with names for characters.

But she predicted that studios “could start doing incredibly bad first drafts with AI and then hire writers to do a rewrite.”

“I think that’s certainly a very scary possibility…it’s very smart that we’re tackling this now,” she said.

Indeed, the last Hollywood strike in 2007-08 earned screenwriters the right to be paid for viewing their highly prescient shows or movies online, at a time when streaming was still in its infancy.

At the time, Netflix had barely started watching online, and Disney+ and Apple TV+ were over a decade away.

Even for science fiction writer Ben Ripley, who thinks AI has no role in writing, introducing legislation now “to put guardrails in place” is “much needed”.

Writers “have to be original,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is the antithesis of originality.”

Updated: May 07, 2023, 10:02 a.m.