8 ms·

Specifically 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

• xnx 3y ago
  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.
  • slg 3y ago
    >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.
    • junofan 3y ago
      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.
      • anonymousab 3y ago
        > 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).
        • User23 3y ago
          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.
      • slg 3y ago
        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.
        • chii 3y ago
          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?
          • slg 3y ago
            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.
            • willcipriano 3y ago
              No way AI could write another remake of a movie from the 80's.
      • DarkNova6 3y ago
        Disney has already announced to invest a billion into AI.
        • bugglebeetle 3y ago
          …in their continued pursuit of driving their stock price down as far as it will go. If there was ever a company that needs to take that money invest it back into the kind of artists and work that made them such a powerhouse in the first place, it’s Disney. But, instead, they’ll pay out this money to some execs friend with a BS AI startup to procedurally generate another shitty Marvel or Star Wars thing.
      • drumhead 3y ago
        The plan eventually is to have AI churn out scripts, with a human script editor making whatever re-writes or changes are necessary to improve them.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • cf141q5325 3y ago
      > Is AI a tool to make the writers more efficient or is it a tool the studios will use to replace writers. Increases in efficiencies will still make people redundant. Automation means less people are needed. I dont think even the most optimistic executive thought you could get rid of writers entirely.
  • DarkNova6 3y ago
    They already do. But not in terms of actual writing, but as a research method on unfamiliar topics.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • corobo 3y ago
    Does anyone have any input on a thought I've been kicking around? The Artist's Oath: AO0: I have used no AI AO1: I have used AI in a research or teacher role AO2: AI has been used for structural components, but not the art itself AO3: AI has directly assisted in the creation process AO4: AI generated this entirely from a prompt specifically engineered by a human AO5: AI generated this entirely from a basic prompt Slightly expanded thoughts and a few examples: https://cohan.dev/the-artist-oath/ https://cohan.dev/the-artist-oath/ The thinking is that once established creativity unions could specify at what level of AI they will accept, and for what compensation. You could also stamp an [AO2] on the box/website as you would the content rating. At the individual level as an artist you can specify the level you use for a work, and someone commissioning you could specify at what level of AI they'd accept. The rating would be per-project, however the draft includes the addition of an asterisk [AO2*] indicates "and I've never used AI beyond this point in my art", and a + would indicate "however as soon as we reach sapience I welcome our new AI friends into the universe of creativity" :) Would love to see what smarter people than I can come up with!
    • satvikpendem 3y ago
      But why, though? It's like stamping on the product whether Photoshop or Blender were used, they're all just tools, and customers, for the most part, don't care how something is made as long as the product itself is good.
      • corobo 3y ago
        Because people don't have strong opinions on photoshop and blender, basically. I got nothing better for you there. For the record I agree with you that current gen AI is just another tool to be used. I even use photoshop and digital art as my example when this comes up too :) A lot of folks don't see it that way though, hence they are striking. Just want to bring about clarity as to what people want in a way everyone can have an easier reference point :) E: also in fairness they do stamp the products they use in the realm of TV and movies. It's in the credits usually towards the end where you see all the Dolby, Arri, THX, etc logos. I'm almost certain I've seen the Blender logo in a a non-buck-bunny film somewhere at least.
  • SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
    You might want to talk to writers first before making this assumption. Of the writers I know, there are two varieties: 1) AI is used essentially to generate grift/chaff, like marketing material for your actual work, or self publish dumb get rich quick books 2) AI is utterly repulsive to the creative process as it cuts out the actual passion-building part, which is brainstorming and drafting— editing is usually the shittiest part of the job actually
    • slg 3y ago
      There is a difference between someone finding something distasteful and someone wanting something banned. The majority of writers may never want to use AI themselves, but the WGA's stance has not been for an outright ban on its usage. My comment was in the context of the union's negotiations so my use of "writers" was mostly a synonym for "WGA" and not "individual writers".
• colordrops 3y ago
  I don't understand how AI work is not copywritable. It's like saying that paintings that use a brush are not copywritable. I know it sounds like a stretch - hear me out. AI is a tool, just like a brush is a tool. As long as there is a human required to guide it, it's still the product of a particular human. Tools can get more complex. E.g. prints. Then you've got non-AI computer generated art, which is uncontroversially copywritable. Why is generative AI fundamentally different? Let's take one style of painting, say Jackson Pollack. You wave your brush around over the canvas. It's copywritable. Now you create a frame that holds the brush that randomly shakes it using a shop motor over the canvas. Still copywritable. Next, you plug it into a computer and have the computer use a RNG to determine how to shake it. Still copywritable. Lastly, you have an LLM generate a sequence of angles and velocities with which to shake the brush. No longer copywritable? Why?
  • RockRobotRock 3y ago
    You might be too ahead of your time in this thinking, but I see the logic there.
  • bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Copyright is a special protection under law to incentivize people to produce creative works. Machines don’t need this incentive and thus don’t need the protection. It’s fairly straightforward.
    • cf141q5325 3y ago
      You still prompt AI.
      • jplusequalt 3y ago
        But your prompt is merely a suggestion to the AI model. You aren't the one making the image.
        • cf141q5325 3y ago
• lloyddobbler 3y ago
  Agreed. I was a professional actor 20 years ago when digital and streaming were first coming into play, and the seeds sown in the agreements from that time were painfully lacking for working actors. The precedents set have continued to this day. I'm torn on the AI/copyright issue. On the one hand, for actors, having your image and likeness digitally reproduced in perpetuity without compensation goes against the very profession of acting. On the other hand, the act of writing is a more interesting gray area to me. There's a different between physical property and intellectual property. If a machine can learn better than a human and put out compelling content, I'm conflicted as to how restricting that helps us progress as a society (just like I'm conflicted as to how allowing it helps us progress as a society). So many gray areas. I'm just glad a tentative agreement has been struck, and hopefully it's equitable and forward-looking for all sides.
  • TheHappyOddish 3y ago
    "The profession of acting" may go the way of the professions of milling, sewing, smithing etc - technology makes them redundant outside of the third world and edge cases. I find it very strange writers and actors think they're somehow unique in this. They'll be looked back upon as a group of luddites hampering progress for personal gain.