5 ms·

I wonder how the WGA will change its tune when language models will write episodes of indistinguishable quality from human writers.

luckydata 4y ago
wow it took only one comment to make the article right, and it's not only the elite, it's even the "little people" doing a lot of the hating.
- bt4u 4y ago
  [dead]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danuker 4y ago
  Taking feedback is a sign of maturity and adaptability. Genuinely, what will happen with writers when scripts will be a dime a dozen, because people are going to use these new technologies? Thinking about these scenarios is the POINT of a union, making sure writers stay relevant for the long-term future. Failing to address them makes for a lot of broken dreams and missed opportunities.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > what will happen with writers when scripts will be a dime a dozen Being nowhere close to this, it’s difficult to say. Maybe the creative field gets reduced to the guy who can put the right prompt into a script, voice-acting and moving-image combined model?
  - thebradbain 4y ago
    Scripts are already a dime a dozen! The stereotype you see in tv shows of unemployed writers writing screenplays in coffee shops is because writers of those tv shows are making fun of themselves. An experienced writer could (and does) make an entire first draft of a script for a tv show in less than a day. Before your first job out of college you likely have 10+ scripts for movies or shows written for a portfolio. 99% of scripts written already will never see the light of day— and that includes the ones that get bought! Hollywood does have genuine shortcomings, but I can guarantee you one is not the lack of scripts, nor even the lack of good scripts.
  - mrzimmerman 4y ago
    It is a fair point (I think your tone is what has set people off, and for the record I didn’t enjoy it either). The real question, in my opinion, is what does humanity do in general with our fellow humans whose labor is displaced by some form of automation? And that fully includes all of us here on Hacker News. Do we prevent the lose of income to people by forming a collective bargaining group (guild, union, co-op—whatever you’d like) to prevent the job loss and maintain income? Do we tax the owners of businesses who are using large amounts of automation so that the profits are shared with larger society? Do we let the market figure out it out? It’s an incredibly difficult and complicated question and I don’t have a good answer. But I do personally believe that the people who will be hit hardest will be average people: ourselves and our neighbors and we should consider how we want to react to that fact sooner rather than later.
    - danuker 4y ago
      I think one way to stay safe is to buy shares in competitors or disruptors. If, say, pension funds include automation companies, you get a much more resilient future.
camillomiller 4y ago
The Level of cringe of this comment is off the charts
vkou 4y ago
I wonder when SWEs will change their tune when the same thing will happen to them.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  The same way SWEs should have changed their tune when faced with outsourcing: Expand your skillset to ensure you're more than just an expensive commodity.
  - vkou 4y ago
    1. Why do you think the writers won't be able to do the same? They are writers, they aren't idiots. 2. That's great advice for buggy horses who want to win the game of musical chairs, but when the number of jobs for SWEs will drop to ~200,000 in the country, what are the other million going to be doing?
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      > Why do you think the writers won't be able to do the same? They are writers, they aren't idiots. Didn't say they were. Was only addressing the comment about SWEs. > when the number of jobs for SWEs will drop to ~200,000 in the country, what are the other million going to be doing What they did after the dotcom crash - become the upper 15-20%, shift to another job in tech (project management, devops, etc) or switch entirely to another job like car sales, accounting, or greeting customers at Walmart.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  We're in the business of making the same thing happen to ourselves.
gamblor956 4y ago
About the same as programmers will feel when language models churn out better software than human programmers are capable of. Based on some blog posts from this morning, it seems ChatpGPT already conquered coding WordPress plugins despite it's notoriously difficult and nonsensical codebase, and at this rate ChapGPT should be able to replace most programmers by Independence Day. It should gain sentience on or by August 29th. Sarcasm aside, the volume of scripts has never been the problem in Hollywood. Everybody and their mother has a screenplay. 99% of screenplays that are actually purchased aren't worth making. There are plenty of people who make a good living, outearning the average SV FAANG programmer, just churning out 1 or 2 C-movie scripts a year that they might spend a week or two writing. And even the screenplays that get made aren't very good. One of my former clients made his fortune making D-movie action films, some of which you may have seen on cable or streaming. The entire portion of the screenplay dedicated to the gunfight at the end of one of his recent films was: "They have an epic fucking gunfight. Explosions everywhere. It's FUCKING AWESOME." (If you look up the screenplay for the movie adaptation of SWAT, the minutes-long fight at the beginning of the film is similarly scripted. By the way, that movie made $200m+.)

luckydata 4y ago

wow it took only one comment to make the article right, and it's not only the elite, it's even the "little people" doing a lot of the hating.

bt4u 4y ago
[dead]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danuker 4y ago
Taking feedback is a sign of maturity and adaptability. Genuinely, what will happen with writers when scripts will be a dime a dozen, because people are going to use these new technologies? Thinking about these scenarios is the POINT of a union, making sure writers stay relevant for the long-term future. Failing to address them makes for a lot of broken dreams and missed opportunities.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > what will happen with writers when scripts will be a dime a dozen Being nowhere close to this, it’s difficult to say. Maybe the creative field gets reduced to the guy who can put the right prompt into a script, voice-acting and moving-image combined model?
- thebradbain 4y ago
  Scripts are already a dime a dozen! The stereotype you see in tv shows of unemployed writers writing screenplays in coffee shops is because writers of those tv shows are making fun of themselves. An experienced writer could (and does) make an entire first draft of a script for a tv show in less than a day. Before your first job out of college you likely have 10+ scripts for movies or shows written for a portfolio. 99% of scripts written already will never see the light of day— and that includes the ones that get bought! Hollywood does have genuine shortcomings, but I can guarantee you one is not the lack of scripts, nor even the lack of good scripts.
- mrzimmerman 4y ago
  It is a fair point (I think your tone is what has set people off, and for the record I didn’t enjoy it either). The real question, in my opinion, is what does humanity do in general with our fellow humans whose labor is displaced by some form of automation? And that fully includes all of us here on Hacker News. Do we prevent the lose of income to people by forming a collective bargaining group (guild, union, co-op—whatever you’d like) to prevent the job loss and maintain income? Do we tax the owners of businesses who are using large amounts of automation so that the profits are shared with larger society? Do we let the market figure out it out? It’s an incredibly difficult and complicated question and I don’t have a good answer. But I do personally believe that the people who will be hit hardest will be average people: ourselves and our neighbors and we should consider how we want to react to that fact sooner rather than later.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I think one way to stay safe is to buy shares in competitors or disruptors. If, say, pension funds include automation companies, you get a much more resilient future.

camillomiller 4y ago

The Level of cringe of this comment is off the charts

vkou 4y ago

I wonder when SWEs will change their tune when the same thing will happen to them.

bdcravens 4y ago
The same way SWEs should have changed their tune when faced with outsourcing: Expand your skillset to ensure you're more than just an expensive commodity.
- vkou 4y ago
  1. Why do you think the writers won't be able to do the same? They are writers, they aren't idiots. 2. That's great advice for buggy horses who want to win the game of musical chairs, but when the number of jobs for SWEs will drop to ~200,000 in the country, what are the other million going to be doing?
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    > Why do you think the writers won't be able to do the same? They are writers, they aren't idiots. Didn't say they were. Was only addressing the comment about SWEs. > when the number of jobs for SWEs will drop to ~200,000 in the country, what are the other million going to be doing What they did after the dotcom crash - become the upper 15-20%, shift to another job in tech (project management, devops, etc) or switch entirely to another job like car sales, accounting, or greeting customers at Walmart.
marssaxman 4y ago
We're in the business of making the same thing happen to ourselves.

gamblor956 4y ago

About the same as programmers will feel when language models churn out better software than human programmers are capable of. Based on some blog posts from this morning, it seems ChatpGPT already conquered coding WordPress plugins despite it's notoriously difficult and nonsensical codebase, and at this rate ChapGPT should be able to replace most programmers by Independence Day. It should gain sentience on or by August 29th. Sarcasm aside, the volume of scripts has never been the problem in Hollywood. Everybody and their mother has a screenplay. 99% of screenplays that are actually purchased aren't worth making. There are plenty of people who make a good living, outearning the average SV FAANG programmer, just churning out 1 or 2 C-movie scripts a year that they might spend a week or two writing. And even the screenplays that get made aren't very good. One of my former clients made his fortune making D-movie action films, some of which you may have seen on cable or streaming. The entire portion of the screenplay dedicated to the gunfight at the end of one of his recent films was: "They have an epic fucking gunfight. Explosions everywhere. It's FUCKING AWESOME." (If you look up the screenplay for the movie adaptation of SWAT, the minutes-long fight at the beginning of the film is similarly scripted. By the way, that movie made $200m+.)