Hollywood Writers Go on Strike Against AI Tools, Calling Them "Plagiarism Machines"

The entertainment industry has long been at the forefront of adopting new technologies to transform the way movies and TV shows are made. But the latest technological frontier – the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the scriptwriting process – has sparked a major battle between Hollywood studios and screenwriters.

On May 2, 2023, over 11,500 film and TV writers represented by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a strike – the union‘s first in 15 years. While the strike was driven by a range of issues, including compensation in the streaming era, one of the most contentious sticking points was the use of AI in scriptwriting.

The WGA is demanding guardrails around the use of AI tools, arguing that they could be used to devalue or replace human writers. But the studios have so far rejected those demands, saying they will only agree to annual meetings to discuss the evolving role of AI. With both sides dug in, the dispute has the potential to shape the future of the entertainment industry for years to come.

The Rise of AI in Hollywood

The use of AI in the entertainment industry has been growing rapidly in recent years. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global AI in media and entertainment market size is expected to grow from $10.3 billion in 2023 to $99.48 billion by 2030, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 38.9% during the forecast period.

Some key use cases for AI in the entertainment industry include:

• Script analysis and story generation
• Personalized content recommendations
• Automated trailer creation
• AI-assisted film editing and post-production
• Virtual production and CGI imagery
• Predictive analytics for box office forecasting

A number of startups are already developing AI tools specifically for screenwriting and story development. For example, Deepstory uses machine learning to analyze scripts and provide insights on pacing, character arcs, and emotional tone. Another tool called Dramatron can generate character descriptions, plot points, and even entire movie treatments based on a simple prompt.

Major studios are also investing heavily in AI capabilities. In 2022, Warner Bros. signed a deal with AI-driven project management system Cinelytic to help with box office and financial forecasting for greenlighting decisions. Sony partnered with AI video creation platform Wibbitz back in 2018 to automate the creation of trailers and short-form promotional content.

What the Writers Want

So what exactly are the writers asking for? A look at the WGA‘s Pattern of Demands provides some insight:

1. Regulating use of AI-generated content: The WGA wants a clause specifying that "no AI-generated content can be used as source material or as a basis for compensation or credit for a writer."

2. Protecting writers‘ intellectual property: The union is demanding that "No writer shall be asked to provide any materials (whether copyrighted IP or personal/professional information) to train an AI system to write Scripts or any other literary material."

3. Ensuring fair compensation: The WGA wants to ensure that "AI can‘t be used as a production tool to generate new literary material without the writer‘s informed consent and fair compensation."

4. Requiring human authorship credit: Finally, the WGA is asking that "Literary material generated by AI (if any) must be separately identified as such, and may not be deemed authored by the writer assigned to write the Script."

In essence, the writers are trying to prevent a scenario where studios use AI to churn out rough drafts that human writers are then expected to polish for a fraction of their usual pay. They also want to protect their existing intellectual property from being used to train these AI models without consent or compensation.

The Studios‘ Perspective

For their part, the studios have resisted codifying any specific rules around AI in the writers‘ main contract. In a statement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said it "proposed that we work together to engage a third-party expert to develop and implement AI guidelines for use in our industry. The WGA rejected that proposal."

The studios‘ reluctance to agree to blanket bans or restrictions on AI usage likely stems from a desire to maintain flexibility in how they leverage these rapidly evolving tools. From a business perspective, AI offers tantalizing opportunities to streamline production, generate new ideas, and better target content to audiences.

"AI is going to play a huge role in the future of our business on all levels," an anonymous studio executive told The Hollywood Reporter. "We‘re just getting started in understanding it, but to put [permanent guardrails] around it right now makes no sense because it changes every day."

Some advocates for AI in entertainment also argue that fears of machines replacing human writers are overblown. They see AI more as a collaborator that can handle mundane tasks and spark new ideas, freeing up writers to focus on the more creative aspects of the process.

"The idea isn‘t to take the human out of the loop," explained Amir Konigsberg, CEO of AI scriptwriting tool Deepstory, in an interview with Marketplace. "It‘s to make the writer more productive and efficient by providing them with a rich palette of possibilities to play with. Ultimately, the writer is still very much in control."

Changing Roles and Opportunities

If AI tools do become more prevalent in scriptwriting, it could potentially change the nature of some writing jobs in Hollywood. For example, there might be less demand for writers to churn out formulaic, low-budget content if an AI can generate a passable first draft.

However, new roles and opportunities could also emerge. "AI whisperer" jobs may become more common, with writers who specialize in prompt engineering and curating training data for AI models tailored to a particular genre or studio‘s house style. Script doctors who excel at refining AI-generated drafts into polished, production-ready content could also be in high demand.

Some writers may even proactively embrace AI tools as a way to stand out in a competitive marketplace. Imagine an up-and-coming screenwriter using an AI to generate a dozen different permutations of their screenplay, then mixing and matching the best parts into a unique final draft that catches a studio‘s eye. AI could also be used to quickly generate proof-of-concept storyboards or even entire short films to accompany a script pitch.

Looking to Other Creative Fields

Of course, Hollywood writers aren‘t the only creative professionals grappling with the implications of AI. Visual artists have raised concerns about tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion being trained on their work without consent. Musicians are wary of AI models like Riffusion that can generate new songs in the style of famous artists. Even novelists are experimenting with AI writing assistants like Sudowrite and Jasper.

In each case, the central tension is the same: how to harness the creative potential of AI while still protecting the livelihoods and intellectual property rights of human artists. Some lessons may be learned from the music industry, where AI music generators are already in widespread use for creating soundtrack music, video game scores, and even personalized "mood music" apps.

Many of these AI music companies have developed licensing frameworks where human composers are paid for their contributions to the training dataset and receive royalties when their "style" is used to generate new tracks. Adapting a similar model for screenwriters could be one path forward.

The Future of Human-AI Creative Collaboration

Looking further ahead, some experts believe that AI will fundamentally change the nature of creativity and storytelling in ways we can hardly imagine today. In a 2021 essay on "AR and AI: Who Will Be the Authors of the Future?", AI researcher Joanna Penn outlines a vision where generative AI models are not just writing assistants, but active collaborators in imagining and constructing entire storyworlds:

"As AI storytelling assistants become more sophisticated, they will be able to take on increasingly complex creative tasks, from generating character backstories and world-building details to simulating entire scenes and story branches…Human authors may find themselves acting more as "story architects," providing high-level direction and then working with AI to bring their vision to life."

Computational creativity expert Dr. James McCann of Carnegie Mellon believes AI will lead to the democratization of storytelling, enabling more people to express themselves creatively without needing the technical skills of a professional writer or filmmaker. He envisions a future where "AI can take an idea that you have in your head and make it real enough to see if other people are interested in it before you put in the hard work to final draft it."

Finding the Right Balance

As with any powerful new technology, the key will be finding the right balance between leveraging AI‘s capabilities and respecting the role of human creativity and craftsmanship. AI should be seen as a tool to augment and inspire human writers, not replace them wholesale.

Studios would be wise to work proactively with the WGA to establish guidelines and best practices around the use of AI in scriptwriting, rather than trying to steamroll writers‘ concerns in pursuit of efficiency and cost-cutting. By involving writers in the process and ensuring they are fairly compensated for their contributions, studios can foster a collaborative rather than adversarial dynamic around AI adoption.

Ultimately, I believe the human touch will always be essential in bringing great stories to life. Even the most impressive AI-generated script is still just a starting point, in need of ideas, intuition and lived experiences of human writers to imbue it with meaning and emotional resonance. The best-case scenario is that AI tools can streamline the more mechanical aspects of the writing process, freeing up writers to focus on the creative core of their craft.

As the strike unfolds and the legal and practical questions around AI‘s role in Hollywood get worked out in the months and years to come, we would do well to keep a key question at the center of the conversation: What conditions do writers need in order to do their best, most inspired work? Any use of AI should support that goal, not undermine it in the name of efficiency or novelty.

If we can navigate this transition thoughtfully, perhaps AI can open up new frontiers of storytelling and enable a wider range of voices and perspectives to reach audiences. But it will require good faith efforts from all parties to ensure that writers‘ contributions are recognized and valued even as their roles evolve. The onus is on studios to prove that they see AI as a way to empower writers, not replace them – and the WGA is right to hold their feet to the fire on that point.