Using his WriteOnSight TM software (the license for which he has paid for himself) he will this morning occupy himself with filling in dialogue and making copy edits on the studio’s AI-generated outline for next week’s episode of the hit series Sand Point Dad, the new action-dramedy starring Kevin Sorbo as himself, part of the expanding Real Moms of Liberty cinematic TV universe. ![]() He will wait for five minutes before his day rate will begin to apply, though feel free to dismiss him at any time without cause. Your writer, James (4.92 stars) is arriving now at the virtual TV writers’ room. To understand the future – and by that I mean the present, immediate future – that the conglomerates are preparing for the people who imagine and create the shows and movies you watch, let me sketch out for you the kind of push notifications our bosses will, if they get their way, soon be receiving every morning. Because while we don’t know how AI will function as a writer, we already know how our bosses intend to use it as managers part of their jobs, after all, is to make sure the power of capital can use every tool at its disposal to disempower workers as they transform what used to be jobs into endless, frantic scrambles for gigs. I, like many of my fellow writers, am both nervous and excited about the prospect of how AI as a tool will be used in our storytelling, and I don’t think of it as a kind of binary on/off switch that will simply shut off our jobs and replace us.īut that just makes the conglomerates’ position even more insidious. The fact is that AI is here and it’s going to transform our lives and work in unimaginable ways. I don’t think even an AI chatbot could have come up with a more absurd response. One of the most startling moments in our negotiations came when the conglomerates flat-out refused to even counter our proposals about AI, instead offering an “annual meeting to discuss advancements in technology”. Of course, our bosses are also dreaming of replacing us another way: with generative AI software. If the conglomerates thought they could replace us with cheaper, non-union writers from distant shores, they’ve got another think coming. And they are sending a powerful message to their members – or, rather, their members are sending a powerful message through them: don’t write on Guild-covered projects, don’t be a scab.Īlong with the unprecedented solidarity writers are getting from sister unions here in the US and Canada – already many Teamsters are parking their trucks, taking the keys, and refusing to cross picket lines – that message is resonating loudly. The International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, which started in 1986 as a loose grouping of unions from English-speaking countries, now represents guilds whose 50,000 members span the globe, from India to Spain to South Africa. The globalization of our industry, which in many positive ways has de-centered Hollywood’s parochial dominance (think of the success of shows such as Squid Game) is now being used as a cudgel against workers, a tactic familiar to industrial and service workers who have seen their jobs “offshored”.īut an unintended – at least for the conglomerates – side-effect of this globalization has been a remarkable increase in international solidarity. We’ve heard industry leaders (some of whom just this past month announced annual salaries of $50m and more) tell us that they can weather a strike because they have plenty of international programming produced far outside the Guild’s jurisdiction. They haven’t been subtle about their intentions. Our collective action is the only thing that can stop them.Īs a member of the Guild negotiating committee, I’ve had a front-row seat the past couple of months to the conglomerates’ tactics and strategies. But that suffering is nothing compared with the pain and degradation that the conglomerates have openly proclaimed they plan to inflict on us. It’s already causing genuine suffering to many of our union members, and to many support staff and other workers whose livelihoods are being immediately affected.
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