This year’s Hollywood writer’s strike has come second in history’s record, having been the longest strike there has been in the United States since 1988 that lasted about 154 days.The 2023 strike has lasted about 148 days from 2 May to 27 September where 11,500 writers walked out of their places of work. This chaotic situation erupted five months after ChatGPT was released to the world for use where the AI can craft stories and write essays by just receiving prompts.
Questions and fear among writers in America have risen as AI would be a competitor in the workplace leaving them with no credit for work nor good compensation. Most writers, if not all, have campaigned against the use of AI in the workplace. A concern in the literary world has emerged where authors such as John Grisham and George R.R Martin filed a lawsuit against OpenAI claiming the systematic theft of their copyrighted books.
However, a tentative agreement between the Writer’s Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers does not forbid all uses of artificial intelligence. The agreement requires studios and production companies to communicate to writers if material has been generated by AI either partially or in full.
Both parties know and accept that Artificial Intelligence in the industry can be worthwhile in various aspects such as script writing. The agreement stated that writers can use AI upon the consent of the company though a ‘company cannot require a writer to use AI software’.
For now, a temporary solution in the form of this agreement has made co existing between human touch and AI in the industry possible. It is our hope that it shall remain that way and not escalate for the worse.