Hollywood writers strike begins this week over pay, but studios refuse to Netflix And Disney has only fueled anger and fear on the picket lines for putting artificial intelligence out there to replace anthropologists in the future.
With their rapidly growing ability to eerily mimic human interactions, AI programs like ChatGPT have recently shaken up several industries. The White House convened Big Tech this week to discuss the potential risks.
As part of weeks-long talks with studios and streamers that ended Monday, the Writers Guild of America called for binding agreements to regulate the use of AI.
Under the proposals, nothing written by an AI can be considered “plagiarism” or “source” material — industry terms that dictate who gets royalties — and scripts written by WGA members “to train the AI” cannot be used.”
But according to the WGA, the studio “rejected our offer,” and countered with an offer to meet once a year to “discuss advances in technology.”
“It’s nice of them to offer a meeting about how they’re exploiting this against us,” joked Eric Heisserer, a member of the WGA negotiating committee who wrote the Netflix hit “Bird Box.”
“Art cannot be made by a machine. You lose the heart and soul of the story … I mean, the first word is ‘artificial’,” he told AFP on Friday on a picket line outside the streaming giant’s Hollywood headquarters.
While the authors already know this, the danger is that “we will have to watch tech companies destroy business in an effort to find out for themselves,” he said.
– ‘Not just the script’ –
While some television and film writers who spoke to AFP on the picket line believe their work could be done by computers, studios and streamers clearly believe it could be an extra slap in the face .
He fears that belt-tightening executives in Hollywood, where Silicon Valley companies uphold many traditional practices such as long-term contracts for writers, may want to cut costs further by getting computers to write their next hit show. .
Comments from top Hollywood executives at the Milken Institute Global Conference this week in Beverly Hills will have done nothing to ease the writers’ concerns.
Filmmaker Todd Lieberman said, “In the next three years, you’re going to see a movie that was written by AI … a good one.”
“Not just the script. Editing, all of it… storyboarding a movie, whatever,” said Rob Wade, CEO of Fox Entertainment.
“AI in the future, maybe not next year or the year after, but if we’re talking 10 years? AI is absolutely going to be able to do all these things.”
The studio’s own account of the breakdown offered more nuance in the WGA talks.
In a briefing note shared with AFP, he said writers don’t really want AI outlawed, and appear happy to use it “as part of their creative process” – as long as it’s within their reach. Does not affect salary.
That scenario “requires a lot of discussion, which we’re committed to doing,” the studio said.
– ‘railing’ –
For Leila Cohn, a 39-year-old writer on the Netflix hit “Bridgerton,” AI’s only usefulness to writers is limited to “busy work” such as coming up with names for characters.
But she predicted that studios “could start with AI creating incredibly bad first drafts and then hiring writers to do rewrites.”
“I think it’s certainly a very scary prospect … It’s very smart that we’re addressing it now,” she said.
Indeed, the last Hollywood strike in 2007-08 won writers the right to pay to watch their shows or movies online—highly prescient, at a time when streaming was still in its infancy.
Back then, Netflix had barely taken off online watching, and it took more than a decade for the likes of Disney+ and Apple TV+ to catch up.
Even for science fiction writer Ben Ripley, who believes there is no role for AI in writing, it is now “very necessary” to introduce legislation “to put up railings.”
Writers “have to be original,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is the antithesis of originality.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)