The Hollywood writers strike ended Wednesday after the Writers Guild of America reached a pact with the studios. The union’s leadership has unanimously recommended that members support the deal, which takes steps toward protecting workers against the threat of artificial intelligence.
Under the agreement, which members will vote on next week, AI can’t write or rewrite literary material. AI-generated material also can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or certain relevant copyrights.
“The basic controls on the use of AI are more than the studios wanted to agree to, I’m sure,” Patricia Phalen, the assistant director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told Barron’s.
The deal leaves the door open for writers to use AI, but they need the relevant studio’s consent. A studio can’t force them to use AI software for writing and studios must also disclose to a writer if materials given to them have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated content.
The explosion of interest in generative AI follows last year’s public rollout of ChatGPT, which has left labor organizers scrambling to set guidelines for how employers use the tech.
The WGA strike is, by all accounts, the first labor action that had AI as a core issue.
“AI guardrails will be the cement wall more workers and industries try to put up given this generational tech shift,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Barron’s. “The writers strike is just the tip of the iceberg and what’s coming to the industrial and consumer ecosystem in 2024 and beyond.”
The U.S. Copyright Office notes copyright can only protect material that’s the product of human creativity, which could dissuade studios from cutting out human writers entirely.
With the writers strike over, attention will turn to the Screen Actors Guild’s own strike. George Washington’s Phalen notes that AI is hitting hard for actors because the technology can imitate likenesses and speech. Among SAG-AFTRA’s demands is protection of actors’ images and performances to prevent replacement of humans by AI technology.
“AI is so much of an unknown, and everybody is threatened by it in some way,” Phalen says. “I’m not sure it can all be tied up in a nice, neat little bow before we really understand what AI is capable of.”
It’s not just Hollywood unions trying to assess the issue. AI is showing up in contract talks for writers in news media, says NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. The NewsGuild represents roughly 18,000 journalists at 220 different outlets. Schleuss says journalists are “extremely concerned” about how their employers might implement generative AI.
IAPE, the union that represents part of Barron’s newsroom, is affiliated with NewsGuild.
“We want to make sure that journalists are actually doing journalism, and have the ability to use technology as they see fit,” Schleuss says. “We want workers to have a control over it, but we don’t want companies, particularly like hedge funds and private equity groups, to use it as an opportunity to replace journalists. That would be extremely devastating.”
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