1) AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the MBA, meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights.
2) A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services.
3) The Company must disclose to the writer if any materials given to the writer have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.
4) The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law.
The fear was, studio's would use AI to generate a garbage script then pay a writer far less to effectively completely rewrite it to make it usable.
Empowerment of worker (or in this case, creative) = good thing
Replacement of worker = bad thing
This has been the fight over automation since :checks notes: at least 1811 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
If the writer is completely opposed to AI, they can omit its use, or if they want, they can use the way they see fit, incl. turning it up to 11.
If the writer's quality decreases because of excessive AI use, it's the writer's problem. They need to regulate their use. If the writer can use it to hone their skills, they can profit from it.
From my personal perspective, as a person who doesn't use xGPT or other models because of unethical training from my perspective, this makes sense.
Which is fair, in a society where people need money for food and shelter.
The VFX industry has been an exception. But frankly the deteriorating working conditions, rampant outsourcing to semi-shady companies, and just the overall downwards spiral of the quality of VFX in Hollywood movies suggests that maybe it’s not a model to emulate.
What exact scenario have they prevented?
At the extreme end, which won't happen but which would be possible under these rules, there could be a single writer who is basically just prompt engineering and reviewing what the AI spits out, for hundreds of shows.
That a studio would use AI to generate a script without the involvement of a single writer? That wasn't going to happen anyways.
So what was the point of this? Is there something I am missing?
I find it interesting tho that they are not worried about competition between writers within the association, they will have members that decide for using assisted writing and being a lot more productive than others.
Some AI services (especially those run as services by megacorps with lively legal departments) are gimped this way (usually as a sort of "thought police" model running on top of the core model, as I understand), but once you get to self-hostable models not all have such limitations.
Its like the Chinese real estate market where more houses have been built than people available. Same story with content and eyeballs available.
Its an extremely unstable demand-supply equation. And it will break down until new ideas about the supply side emerge.
I disagree. Despite the first taste of the technology cannot completely replace humans, it will get there in an imho relatively short time from now.
When AI became plausible and produced full body deepfakes, I concluded that it was only a matter of time to use AI to extend and emulate real actors.
The sensible agreement should have been that an actor, via an agency, or a software stack, will control their full body AI avatar. And they will license them to studios for a movie or a commercial ad. They will charge maybe 20%-90% of the fees that they receive.
BUT, it blew my mind that studios were audacious enough to float the idea or propose that actors will be paid a small hourly wage or minimum wage for small actors for scanning their bodies, and after that the studios get to keep and use the digital avatar for perpetuity for free.
Whoa!
I was shocked to learned that. There was, as expected, dispute.
What happened to that part?
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6 or fewer, 3
7-12, 5
13+, 6
Minimum number of writers? Ok, go ahead and tell me that union labor isn't about padding payrolls.
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I mean, one person could probably come up with six scripts given enough time, but having input from other writers is likely to be very helpful. Even if you thought collaboration had no value whatsoever, having 3 people each working on a script at once means your entire 6 episode season gets done that much faster. Plus you figure life happens and people get sick, need days off, etc. Having more than one body in the writer's room still seems like a good idea.
Writing a script is more involved than it seems, and when push comes to shove I think enforcement of hours/day per script writers is not so great. And you can't come with all ideas by yourself
