Hollywood: Why Hollywood seems to have a ChatGPT and AI ‘problem’

Generative AI has caught the imagination of almost every tech company. ChatGPT was the flag bearer but now there seems to be a race to integrate AI and make use of it in the most efficient manner. There has been the underlying fear that generative AI will ultimately kill a lot of jobs and has got people worried. One group who is worried about not jobs being killed but AI impacting how much they earn is Hollywood writers. The Writers’ Guild of America is currently at ‘war’ against Hollywood studios, and production houses demanding better working conditions. One of the many issues is the use of generative AI, according to a report by Engadget.

It’s only words and words are…

WGA member and writer C Robert Cargill in a tweet said, “The immediate fear of AI isn’t that us writers will have our work replaced by artificially generated content.” He added that “It’s that we will be underpaid to rewrite that trash into something we could have done better from the start. This is what the WGA is opposing and the studios want.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, according to Engadget, issued a statement where it said that “the best stories are original, insightful and often come from people’s own experiences. AI raises hard, important creative and legal questions for everyone.”
In the statement, AMPTP said that it does want writers to use technology as part of their creative process but “without changing how credits are determined, which is complicated given AI material can’t becopyrighted.”
It is a worrying sign for writers as generative AI can whip up some or the other form of content in a jiffy. Arguments can be made on the quality of content but it can get the job done, so to speak. The AMPTP in the statement did say that any sort of AI-generated material “would not be eligible for writing credit.”