Hollywood writers go on strike

They still have never killed Stefano. NEVER.

 

Stefano will live through the nuclear cloud along with cockroaches and Alabama fans.

 

I actually met her and hung out for a few hours in 1987. Better looking in person than on DOOL.

 

Pics, yo.

 

They picked a hella time to do a Jericho reboot.

 

During the last WGA strike, Jerry O'Connell recorded this awesome bit in solidarity.

 

Machine learning becomes a bargaining issue. (BTW, you’re next.)

The WGA proposed to regulate the use of artificial intelligence on union projects, saying that AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and can’t be used as source material or to train AI. The AMPTP rejected this proposal, telling the guild instead that there would be annual meetings to discuss “advancements in technology.” …

“Writers have always been valued for their ability to articulate uniquely the human experience. So if now you're saying that you got a machine that can do that better, not only is it ridiculous, but it's massively insulting,” Quinton Peeples, a screenwriter and producer, told Motherboard. To Peeples, the desire to use AI to do the job of screenwriters is a symptom of the larger problem that the guild is fighting for—which is that companies do not value writers and their work.

“Initially, the WGA's AI proposals looked like outliers. Everything else on the list was talking about writer compensation, making sure writers were paid fairly to justify the immense value they were bringing to the studios. Over the negotiation, it became clear that the AI proposals are really part of a larger pattern. The studios would love to treat writers as gig workers. They want to be able to hire us for a day at a time, one draft at a time, and get rid of us as quickly as possible. I think they see AI as another way to do that,” John August, a screenwriter known for writing the films Charlie’s Angles and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, told Motherboard.

“The idea that our concerns could be addressed by an annual meeting is absurd and honestly offensive. Everyone watching AI can tell you that these large language models are progressing at an incredible rate. AI-generated material isn't something that's going to become a factor in a few years. It's here now. It's lucky that we're negotiating our contract this year and not next year, before these systems become widely entrenched,” August said.

August expanded on the guild’s two AI stipulations for Vox, saying, “First, the guild wants to make sure that ‘literary material—the MBA term for screenplays, teleplays, outlines, treatments, and other things that people write—can’t be generated by an AI. If a movie made by a studio that has an agreement with the WGA has a writing credit—and that’s over 350 of America’s major studios and production companies—then the writer needs to be a person.”

“Second, the WGA says it’s imperative that ‘source material’ can’t be something generated by an AI, either. This is especially important because studios frequently hire writers to adapt source material (like a novel, an article, or other IP) into new work to be produced as TV or films,” August added. “It’s very easy to imagine a situation in which a studio uses AI to generate ideas or drafts, claims those ideas are ‘source material,’ and hires a writer to polish it up for a lower rate.”​

GPT-4 Can’t Replace Striking TV Writers, But Studios Are Going to Try

 

The actors will have to get on board against AI for it to really stop.

 

Nothing’s stopping AI.
In fact, AI is coming for the actor’s jobs before the decade is over.

 

“Looker” predicted all this in 1981.

 

Simpsons too.