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By AI guardrails they mean: AI cannot be used to write or rewrite scripts, and cannot be source material; but writers are free to use it if they wish. Reminds

By AI guardrails they mean: AI cannot be used to write or rewrite scripts, and cannot be source material; but writers are free to use it if they wish. Reminds me of how elevators originally had operators, until everyone realized how wasteful and silly it is to have someone whose sole job is to press elevator buttons. As AI improves, we will come to feel the same about writers.

marcinzm 3y ago
In theory can't they basically have a single writer use an AI to write every script for every movie and TV show? At least with elevators they needed a person in each elevator.
morelisp 3y ago
> how wasteful and silly it is to have someone whose sole job is to press elevator buttons. That doesn't seem like the right cause, since it's the people who seem most concerned with seriousness and economic efficiency who still have elevator operators today.
- MiguelX413 3y ago
  Who still has elevator operators today?
  - morelisp 3y ago
    Wealthy people and stores trying to make their customers feel like a wealthy person.
    - comex 3y ago
      For wealthy people, that would be an example of extreme luxury, or in other words spending vast amounts of money for marginal improvements in quality of life. Doing so is perfectly rational for them (what else are they going to do with their money?), but hardly an example of economic efficiency. “Stores trying to make their customers feel like a wealthy person” are a special case. It might be economically efficient (i.e. profitable) for them to spend money on things associated with extravagance and wealth, in order to more effectively create an image in their customers’ minds and thus attract more customers. But those circumstances don’t apply to the vast majority of elevator owners. So what exactly is your point?
      - xinruili 3y ago
        This means the capitalist class is funding stores with large enough margins to hire elevator operators, clearly inefficient allocation of capital. They can afford to do that by squeezing dime and nickel from the workers, extracting the most "efficiency" from them. That's the point.
mjr00 3y ago
If that comes to fruition they'll just have one writer who is responsible for putting their name on a ton of AI-generated scripts. But at this very moment, AI generating anything suitable for something other than SEO blogspam isn't possible anyway. It might be right around the corner, or it might be "right around the corner" like self-driving cars were in 2015.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  I'm not convinced LLM's are capable of any truly original thought, which is necessary for good compelling writing. LLM's spit out derivative nonsense. Highly convincing nonsense, but derivative nonetheless. Any true originality in the output still comes from the human engineering the prompt. Basically, LLM's know how to follow the rules, color within the lines. A real artist understands those rules well enough to break them and create something novel.
  - gojomo 3y ago
    The latest models generate original combinations that can surprise the prompter with their inventiveness, so your confident assertions about what LLMs can't do seems calibrated to the models of a year or more ago – and not at all an enduring human advantage that one could bank a career (or society) on. Attempts to rigorously study the relative creativity of LLMs have already found them more creative than average humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40858-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40858-3 They're only getting better, fast. If you're not convinced, what GPT4-level (text or multimodal) or Midjourney-level (imagery) models have you tried, and how much?
  - randomcarbloke 3y ago
    So what you're really saying is there are no true artists left in Hollywood.
    - babypuncher 3y ago
      Oh they exist, they just have a much harder time finding work, and when they do get to make something it rarely gets the same marketing push as comic book shared universe project #87. Some great movies still come out, but you probably never hear about them if you aren't actively plugged in to the scene. I think filmmakers like Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once) are where Hollywood should be focusing their attention, and their sweep at the Oscars this year has me cautiously hopeful that at least a few people in power are paying attention.
megaman821 3y ago
The source material ban seems like it is just closing a loophole. I have a vague idea about a time-traveling cowboy and robot, tell ChatGPT to write a script, script is terrible, so tell a writer to fix it up. Now that writer has different rights than if it were an original script, even though it is basically an original script.
Guvante 3y ago
Elevator operators were not replaced by buttons. Elevator operators were replaced by very complex computers with many redundant censors. You had elevator operators for safety not convenience... Similarly you seem to have the common misconception that the purpose of a writer is to churn out random text which can be replaced with LLM vs building a coherent story and guiding it through the creative process in support of the other people involved. The writers strike was primarily about streaming having terrible residuals and while they were striking they took back the inputs into AI from studios which makes sense given writing has always been for a particular project.
- dleslie 3y ago
  That's the metaphor to a T: at one time it was necessary to have an operator, until technology reached a point where buttons would suffice. In the future, script production and revision will still occur via committee, but the actual writing will not be done by humans.
  - Guvante 3y ago
    I think keeping the committee was partially to avoid accidentally cutting off the stream of new writers. If you can't get started doing grunt work writing you have to get started somewhere.
AlexandrB 3y ago
> As AI improves, we will come to feel the same about writers. There's no purpose to many forms of media if it doesn't have a human author (besides making money, of course). You're describing content "grey goo" here. I'm not sure why anyone should feel positively about such a development.
ler_ 3y ago
I seriously don't get this argument, which I see far too often. Meaning, writing being simply a means to an "end" of a product. I like a good piece of fiction especially because it was written by a human being. It is that human's way of communicating something to me / the audience. Do people out there really want to read something written by a machine? Of course, if you have some bottom of the barrel corporate-approved fiction, it may as well be written by AI. But that isn't what I seek to consume and I would wager there are many others who feel the same way. What is the appeal of AI-generated fiction?

marcinzm 3y ago

In theory can't they basically have a single writer use an AI to write every script for every movie and TV show? At least with elevators they needed a person in each elevator.

morelisp 3y ago

> how wasteful and silly it is to have someone whose sole job is to press elevator buttons. That doesn't seem like the right cause, since it's the people who seem most concerned with seriousness and economic efficiency who still have elevator operators today.

MiguelX413 3y ago
Who still has elevator operators today?
- morelisp 3y ago
  Wealthy people and stores trying to make their customers feel like a wealthy person.
  - comex 3y ago
    For wealthy people, that would be an example of extreme luxury, or in other words spending vast amounts of money for marginal improvements in quality of life. Doing so is perfectly rational for them (what else are they going to do with their money?), but hardly an example of economic efficiency. “Stores trying to make their customers feel like a wealthy person” are a special case. It might be economically efficient (i.e. profitable) for them to spend money on things associated with extravagance and wealth, in order to more effectively create an image in their customers’ minds and thus attract more customers. But those circumstances don’t apply to the vast majority of elevator owners. So what exactly is your point?
    - xinruili 3y ago
      This means the capitalist class is funding stores with large enough margins to hire elevator operators, clearly inefficient allocation of capital. They can afford to do that by squeezing dime and nickel from the workers, extracting the most "efficiency" from them. That's the point.

mjr00 3y ago

If that comes to fruition they'll just have one writer who is responsible for putting their name on a ton of AI-generated scripts. But at this very moment, AI generating anything suitable for something other than SEO blogspam isn't possible anyway. It might be right around the corner, or it might be "right around the corner" like self-driving cars were in 2015.

babypuncher 3y ago
I'm not convinced LLM's are capable of any truly original thought, which is necessary for good compelling writing. LLM's spit out derivative nonsense. Highly convincing nonsense, but derivative nonetheless. Any true originality in the output still comes from the human engineering the prompt. Basically, LLM's know how to follow the rules, color within the lines. A real artist understands those rules well enough to break them and create something novel.
- gojomo 3y ago
  The latest models generate original combinations that can surprise the prompter with their inventiveness, so your confident assertions about what LLMs can't do seems calibrated to the models of a year or more ago – and not at all an enduring human advantage that one could bank a career (or society) on. Attempts to rigorously study the relative creativity of LLMs have already found them more creative than average humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40858-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40858-3 They're only getting better, fast. If you're not convinced, what GPT4-level (text or multimodal) or Midjourney-level (imagery) models have you tried, and how much?
- randomcarbloke 3y ago
  So what you're really saying is there are no true artists left in Hollywood.
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    Oh they exist, they just have a much harder time finding work, and when they do get to make something it rarely gets the same marketing push as comic book shared universe project #87. Some great movies still come out, but you probably never hear about them if you aren't actively plugged in to the scene. I think filmmakers like Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man, Everything Everywhere All at Once) are where Hollywood should be focusing their attention, and their sweep at the Oscars this year has me cautiously hopeful that at least a few people in power are paying attention.

megaman821 3y ago

The source material ban seems like it is just closing a loophole. I have a vague idea about a time-traveling cowboy and robot, tell ChatGPT to write a script, script is terrible, so tell a writer to fix it up. Now that writer has different rights than if it were an original script, even though it is basically an original script.

Guvante 3y ago

Elevator operators were not replaced by buttons. Elevator operators were replaced by very complex computers with many redundant censors. You had elevator operators for safety not convenience... Similarly you seem to have the common misconception that the purpose of a writer is to churn out random text which can be replaced with LLM vs building a coherent story and guiding it through the creative process in support of the other people involved. The writers strike was primarily about streaming having terrible residuals and while they were striking they took back the inputs into AI from studios which makes sense given writing has always been for a particular project.

dleslie 3y ago
That's the metaphor to a T: at one time it was necessary to have an operator, until technology reached a point where buttons would suffice. In the future, script production and revision will still occur via committee, but the actual writing will not be done by humans.
- Guvante 3y ago
  I think keeping the committee was partially to avoid accidentally cutting off the stream of new writers. If you can't get started doing grunt work writing you have to get started somewhere.

AlexandrB 3y ago

> As AI improves, we will come to feel the same about writers. There's no purpose to many forms of media if it doesn't have a human author (besides making money, of course). You're describing content "grey goo" here. I'm not sure why anyone should feel positively about such a development.

ler_ 3y ago

I seriously don't get this argument, which I see far too often. Meaning, writing being simply a means to an "end" of a product. I like a good piece of fiction especially because it was written by a human being. It is that human's way of communicating something to me / the audience. Do people out there really want to read something written by a machine? Of course, if you have some bottom of the barrel corporate-approved fiction, it may as well be written by AI. But that isn't what I seek to consume and I would wager there are many others who feel the same way. What is the appeal of AI-generated fiction?