Luddites were ahead of their time in the 1800s when they protested against exploitative practices in textile factories in England. They smashed machines used by factory owners who underpaid and overworked their employees in unsafe and dehumanizing conditions. Today, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) faces a comparable threat from the rise of generative AI technology, prompting their current strike for better working conditions.
On March 7, 2023, WGA members overwhelmingly voted to support the 2023 Pattern of Demands, with 5,553 in favor and just 90 against. On Tuesday morning, over 11,000 WGA members took to the streets, marking the first strike in Hollywood since 2007. The guild's leadership expressed frustration, stating, “Though we negotiated in good faith, the studios’ responses have been wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers face. They have closed the door on their labor force and opened it to a freelance-only writing model. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.”
The guild is demanding substantial increases in minimum compensation to combat the devaluation of writing across television, new media, and film. They also seek standardized pay structures for work done on streaming and theatrical releases, among other long-overdue needs. Amid negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the WGA is pushing to prevent studios from using AI technologies to replace their writers.
WGA member C. Robert Cargill, known for his work on “Sinister,” "Doctor Strange," and "The Black Phone," articulated the guild's position on generative AI: “We do not object to the tool itself, but we ask the studios not to use AI-generated material unless it has been provided by writers.” The concern is rooted in the specificity of Hollywood writing contracts, which determine credit attribution based on collaborative work and performance metrics for residual payments.
Cargill summed up the immediate fear: writers might be underpaid to rewrite AI-generated content that fails to meet quality standards. “The studios could generate an idea and run it through a generative AI, which would produce something resembling a script. Then they hand it over to a writer at a lower pay rate to craft it into a more human-like script,” he explained. This practice could diminish unionized writers’ ability to earn higher rates while compelling them to perform high-quality work for less pay.
The guild is also concerned about the potential use of their original content to train future AI models. Cargill recounted a troubling incident when a fan, using ChatGPT, received a plot remarkably similar to “Sinister” in response to a prompt for horror movie ideas. “What surfaced was a nearly identical plot, differing only in format—ours was filmed, while his was on video,” he noted.
Cargill warns that if studios use past scripts to feed AI and generate content, they risk recycling original dialogue and ideas without proper credit or compensation for the original writers. While the WGA does not seek a complete ban on AI, they advocate for its ethical use alongside proper payment structures. “If writers want to use this technology, they should be able to do so without it replacing their craft or devaluing their work.”
The WGA did not respond to several requests for comment. However, the AMPTP acknowledged the situation, emphasizing their commitment to engaging in discussions regarding the complex creative and legal implications of AI in writing. They noted that current agreements define a “writer” as a person, not a corporate entity, meaning only human authors can receive writing credit, thus making AI-generated material ineligible for such attribution.
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