WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
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Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#2Specifically for this community, it will be interesting to see what the agreements were regarding AI. That was a major issue in negotiations for both sides. I think the decisions here could go a long way in setting a precedent for how that technology will continue to be developed and how it will be used in the future.
For example, if the writers get what they wanted, it means Hollywood has little motivation to put its political might behind getting AI work recognized as copyrightable. The agreement may also include guidelines regarding when and how a writer's work can be used in training new AI models that would certainly have ramifications outside of Hollywood.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#3Specifically for this community, it will be interesting to see what the agreements were regarding AI. That was a major issue in negotiations for both sides. I think the decisions here could go a long way in setting a precedent for how that technology will continue to be developed and how it will be used in the future. For example, if the writers get what they wanted, it means Hollywood has little motivation to put it…
I haven't followed this close enough to know, but I assume that writers will use AI heavily. It's a great tool for brainstorming and creating drafts.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#4Specifically for this community, it will be interesting to see what the agreements were regarding AI. That was a major issue in negotiations for both sides. I think the decisions here could go a long way in setting a precedent for how that technology will continue to be developed and how it will be used in the future. For example, if the writers get what they wanted, it means Hollywood has little motivation to put it…
I haven't followed this close enough to know, but I assume that writers will use AI heavily. It's a great tool for brainstorming and creating drafts.
>I assume that writers will use AI heavily
Yeah, from a high level that is the question. Will the writers use AI or will the studios? Is AI a tool to make the writers more efficient or is it a tool the studios will use to replace writers. The writers generally have no problem with the former, but they wanted protection from the latter.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't followed this close enough to know, but I assume that writers will use AI heavily. It's a great tool for brainstorming and creating drafts.
>I assume that writers will use AI heavily Yeah, from a high level that is the question. Will the writers use AI or will the studios? Is AI a tool to make the writers more efficient or is it a tool the studios will use to replace writers. The writers generally have no problem with the former, but they wanted protection from the latter.
Studios don’t want to replace writers. They just want to pay writers less by crediting AI if used. The writers want full credit so they receive full revenue.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I assume that writers will use AI heavily Yeah, from a high level that is the question. Will the writers use AI or will the studios? Is AI a tool to make the writers more efficient or is it a tool the studios will use to replace writers. The writers generally have no problem with the former, but they wanted protection from the latter.
Studios don’t want to replace writers. They just want to pay writers less by crediting AI if used. The writers want full credit so they receive full revenue.
> Studios don’t want to replace writers
They will do it the very first second they think that they can get away with it without major consequences (such as profit loss from bad AI writing).
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Studios don’t want to replace writers. They just want to pay writers less by crediting AI if used. The writers want full credit so they receive full revenue.
> Studios don’t want to replace writers They will do it the very first second they think that they can get away with it without major consequences (such as profit loss from bad AI writing).
Disney evidently doesn’t care about profit loss from bad human writing so it’s not clear that they'll care about same from bad AI writing.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I assume that writers will use AI heavily Yeah, from a high level that is the question. Will the writers use AI or will the studios? Is AI a tool to make the writers more efficient or is it a tool the studios will use to replace writers. The writers generally have no problem with the former, but they wanted protection from the latter.
Studios don’t want to replace writers. They just want to pay writers less by crediting AI if used. The writers want full credit so they receive full revenue.
I'm not sure if this is a comment written out of naivety of the profit focused nature of studios or ignorance of the writing process. Replacing writers and paying writers less is effectively the same thing. That "full credit" that you mention isn't just about what those writers got paid, it tells you what work they did.
For example, a writer will often write a treatment of a movie which is effectively a short summary of a movie that is done before writing a script. Sometimes different writers will do the treatment and screenplay. This is generally the distinction you might see in "Story By" and "Written By" credits in movies (although these distinctions can and often are a lot more complicated). One likely goal of the studios is for an AI to write the treatment and then hand that off to a writer to turn it into a screenplay. That is one of the most practical ways AI can be used since treatments aren't an end product themselves and the AI's flaws can be corrected by humans when translating the treatment into a script. However, that is still effectively replacing writers by taking away one of their clearly defined jobs and in turn one of their paychecks.
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Studios don’t want to replace writers. They just want to pay writers less by crediting AI if used. The writers want full credit so they receive full revenue.
I'm not sure if this is a comment written out of naivety of the profit focused nature of studios or ignorance of the writing process. Replacing writers and paying writers less is effectively the same thing. That "full credit" that you mention isn't just about what those writers got paid, it tells you what work they did. For example, a writer will often write a treatment of a movie which is effectively a short summary…
If the AI does a better job writing said treatments (aka, does the same or more for less cost), why shouldn't it take away the job?
Re: WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers' strike
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is a comment written out of naivety of the profit focused nature of studios or ignorance of the writing process. Replacing writers and paying writers less is effectively the same thing. That "full credit" that you mention isn't just about what those writers got paid, it tells you what work they did. For example, a writer will often write a treatment of a movie which is effectively a short summary…
If the AI does a better job writing said treatments (aka, does the same or more for less cost), why shouldn't it take away the job?
This question is irrelevant in the context of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. The WGA's motivations are obvious. They are protecting the livelihoods of their members.
If a studio thinks AI can genuinely do a better job than human writers, that studio has the right to replace those human writers with AI. The human writers likewise have the right to refuse to work with any studio that does so. The fact that no studio has even hinted at taking this route during a 5-month-long strike suggests that no one believes AI would actually do a better job than WGA members.