Hollywood writers went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Their remarkable victory matters for all workers.
Hollywood writers went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Their remarkable victory matters for all workers. | Brookings
I fucking love seeing this stuff happen. We’ve got a really powerful new material to work with here but we need to temper it and get it right or we will only make things worse.
The cat is out of the bag. Either we get it right and have a way to change tides against corps with new found power, or we let it slip and give another jewel away to be locked up in private treasure hoardes
It's a great example that things don't have to happen for the sole benefit of the new technology owner. We've been conditioned for at least half a century that we lose our jobs if that makes more money for the corporation and that this is "the market." Except labor is also a market participant and labor organizing plays a similar role in it as forming a corporation instead of doing business as an individual. People need to see these examples and hopefully that's gonna crack the brainwashing that they don't have a say about their jobs in the businesses they work for.
Watch for the news of writers caught using AI.
That's allowed, no?
Unless I'm mistaken, this was more about writers not wanting the studio to be able to say "we had an ai generated a script. We'll pay you a day to do a brief editing pass."
Quoting the linked article:
The contract the Guild secured in September set a historic precedent: It is up to the writers whether and how they use generative AI as a tool to assist and complement—not replace—them. Ultimately, if generative AI is used, the contract stipulates that writers get full credit and compensation.
So, yeah. It's more about ensuring that a human person in the writers' guild gets credited as a writer, even if they or someone else uses an ai as a tool in the process.
My first thought when I watched the Halo TV show was that these writers need to get paid more.
That was your first thought watching the Halo show? 😅 I mean… yeah that’s important but uhhhh… I’m not ashamed to admit that wasn’t probably my first thought.
Writers are people, not AI that improves its output quality the more money (hardware) you throw at it. The writers of the Halo TV show should have just been replaced with an entirely new team that actually understood the source.
A century ago, workers in the wool industry rioted against the spinning jenny. In the end, they were defeated. So it will be for the writers et al. The wheel turns. Ride it or get run over.
Translation: "The musicians on the Titanic used their collective bargaining to ensure that they would have fair pay and terms for the foreseeable future. Oh look, a pretty iceberg."
The idea that the current status quo is going to last even five years is laughable.
Anyone consuming AI-generated media deserves whatever brain rot it gives them, lmao.
...except for voice actors, who conveniently got a carve-out.
This is the sort of thing that industrial unionism was meant to combat. Craft unionism divides the workers.