Why AI Is the Most Important Issue in the Writers’ Strike

A must read article by WGA member Cole Haddon.

“Artificial intelligence isn’t just central to the WGA strike either — it’s the first battle in a much larger war that will affect all Americans.”

In a recent 5AM Storytalk article, Hollywood screenwriter and novelist Cole Haddon zeroes in on the battle between the WGA and the AMPTP over generative artificial intelligence. A few choice excerpts from the article.“It was a reality check of, like, oh my God, this is fifty times worse than 2007,” Writers Guild of America West Board of Directors member Deric A. Hughes told me over the phone this week about the moment he realized how serious the threat of artificial intelligence was to our union. “Because it could destroy the Guild. Not even destroy it — just eliminate the Guild as we know it in three years’ time.”

At present, the WGA is more than one week into a strike — its first since 2007 — following a breakdown in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Guild leadership has described this as an existential fight, which one might assume is only about pay cuts, dwindling residuals, and the proliferation of mini-rooms that have reduced much of the scriptwriting business to gig work despite healthy corporate profits and record CEO paydays. After all, these things determine a writer’s ability to live, build a career, and, therefore, life for themselves. But as it turns out, the existential threat is much more terrifying than many might realize judging by how the AMPTP greeted the Guild’s demands to limit the use of AI in our industry — and it has implications for industries across America and the globe.

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Let me be utterly clear: the threat of AI to WGA writers is not approaching. It’s here. It’s now. If we pass up this opportunity to preserve ourselves, it’s game over. There’s no second chance. All that will remain is a hellscape reigned over by tech companies peddling personal holodecks that feed upon human culture rather than producing any of its own. The damage will spread across other industries, too, and while we can’t prevent it, we can still control it if we act now.

“There is no point in speculating what will happen if we give in on this issue because we’re not going to give in on this issue,” according to Billy Ray. “This is not a strike about corporate greed. It’s a strike about extinction.”

Hughes was more poetic when I asked him how this strike might end. “Isaac Asimov once said, ‘I write for the same reason I breathe — because if I didn’t, I would die.’ Well, if the studios get their way, they’re going to smother us all with AI, and as we gasp our last breath as professional writers, we’ll watch the Guild as we know it come to an end…not with a bang, but with a simple prompt. And that’s why we fight, and that’s why we we’ll fucking win.”

It’s a must read article. The current WGA strike is not just about writing in Hollywood. It’s about workers everywhere. Generative A.I. is a threat to tens of millions of people whose jobs may disappear due to this technology.

For the rest of the article, go here.