![]() ![]() But what people fail to realize is that AI is using human-written content, with all of its human-backed suffering and empathy, to tell new stories. Humans, with their human foibles and human creativity, are the only people capable of telling stories. Now I know what you’re thinking: There’s no way AI could do that. (Cue even scarier music…this time, made by an AI.) An AI has written the script, created AI actors (that look completely real), created an AI score (which sounds like it was written by Max Richter or Hans Zimmer and performed by the Vienna Philharmonic), and generated AI sound effects (you don’t think an AI can fake a broken bone?), and it’s edited, directed, and produced by the same software. You can imagine a scenario a few years from now, you walk into your living room after a long day (not working because you’re out of a job), plop on the couch, and say to your TV, “Hey, Netflix, make me a 20-minute comedy set in New York in the 1980s starring Marilyn Monroe, The Rock, and Dave Chappelle. Oh, and throw in a few zombies and make one of them my ex-wife.” Your TV will go beepedy-beep-beep-beep and your customized show will begin. It isn’t that AI will simply write scripts in the future-it will do everything, and do it in real time. And yet, at the end of the day, while all of the other negotiation topics by the WGA are incredibly important to writers-including being paid residuals for popular shows and the elimination of “mini” rooms, where shows are created with a skeleton staff-the requisition to put AI-written scripts at bay could prove to be the most important battle not just for screenwriters, but hundreds of millions around the world-which (most ironically) includes the hundreds of thousands of people who work for the studios the AMPTP is representing. ![]() ChatGPT was not released until November of last year, and it didn’t really show its true prowess until March 14 of this year-around 50 days ago-when GPT-4, the most advanced version of the platform, was released. The irony of the AI debate is that six months ago, when the WGA and AMPTP were gearing up for these talks and negotiations, AI wasn’t even something they were discussing as part of the demands. The AMPTP, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios and networks, rejected this proposal, saying that the group representing the studios would be open to offering an annual meeting to discuss advancements in technology. That’s because, among the lists of demands the WGA is asking for, which include better pay and larger writers rooms, the most important topic (to me) is the demand that the studios agree not to use AI to write or rewrite stories (though the guild has said it’s okay for writers to use it as a tool). It could be the issue that signals what will happen to almost all creative jobs (and many other kinds of white-collar vocations) in the not-too-distant future. AI in Hollywood could be a harbinger of what’s to come to everyone-and I mean everyone. No, no…I know what you’re thinking, not another AI story, but wait! Stop! Keep reading, I promise you this will all make sense momentarily. I’m referring to artificial intelligence. But there are many people who will be affected by what happens with one of the issues at stake between the writers and the studios. “There aren’t that many writers in Hollywood!” No, there are not. It’s actually a much larger group an estimated 375 million people worldwide, to be precise. Then, as gangly palm trees sway nearby and rivers of cars flow along Los Angeles’s concrete canals, these writers have trudged back and forth on the pavements in front of Paramount Studios and CBS and Disney and Netflix- on strike as screenwriters for television shows and movies for the first time in 15 years.īut in reality, it isn’t just the 11,500 people wearing those blue T-shirts and chanting, “No contract! No content!”-or my personal favorite, “Here’s a pitch: Pay us, Bitch!”-who could be the lead of this story. But this past week, those same screenwriters have woken up, donned blue T-shirts that say “Writers Guild of America,” grabbed a red-and-black picket sign, and descended on the sidewalks of one of the big Hollywood studios. Writers who have spent their careers holed up in writers rooms or coffee shops, figuring out plots and characters and dialogue and stuffing them into 30- or 60-page scripts. Right now in Hollywood there are some 11,500 humans who could be the lead of this particular story. That character serves a purpose: to make a specific thesis feel less nebulous and more, dare I say, human. When you’re writing a story about an issue that affects a large group of people, whether it’s for a news outlet or a television show, you often pick one person as the anecdotal lead of the tale. ![]()
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