War on AI, Victory or Compromise

By Xinyi (Catherine) Wu

Abstract

During the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, a clash of interests between human creativity and technological advancement took center stage, stirring debate on AI’s role in creative industries. The strike concluded with a victory, marking a pivotal moment for writers. The settlement emphasizes the necessity of addressing economic stability, safeguarding originality, and empowering artists against AI misuse. In all, maintaining the balance between utilizing AI's advantages and maintaining humanity's creativity remains crucial as it develops. The strike's impact ripples across industries, indicating the continuous need to harmonize technological progress with ethics and control.

Introduction 

The dispute between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) began on May 2 and finally settled on September 27, marking the conclusion of a 148-day strike that resulted in job losses, living insecurity, and serious concerns about the changes brought about by technology (Lee & James, 2023). There has been wide discussion about AI replacing writers, painters, and interpreters in the creative industries. Concerns about ethics have grown along with technology, particularly with regard to auto-generated material. With the end of the 2023 Writers Guild of America Strike and a resulting victory for the writers in Hollywood, this essay does not plan to criticize AI as our adversary. Instead, it aims to explain that it is time to reflect upon and fully understand the reasons for this kind of protest, assess the significance of the strike, and have a conversation on the future for the artists and the industry. While AI offers many advantages, it is essential to find a balance between utilizing these tools and preserving the authenticity of human writers. 

Why We Strike and What We Got

Writers can certainly benefit from AI tools, which offer helpful prompts and assist with grammar, spelling, and plagiarism checks.  These technologies also provide tailored suggestions to enhance formality, vocabulary, and intent, ultimately aiding the creative process. However, the relationship between writers and AI can be complex.

The 2023 writers’ strike was a response to the dissatisfaction with the current status of Hollywood screenwriters in terms of their roles, income, and other benefits after the invasion of AI in this industry. While the motivation behind the strike’s inception is complicated, three major worries may serve as the spark that ignites this explosion. 

The first and most major concern is the possibility of job replacement and resulting economic insecurity. We have already seen high-quality textual material, such as songs, poems, and academic essays that AI (e.g., ChatGPT) can generate with appropriate directives. Writing can be as simple as when a spark of inspiration comes to mind, or it might include months of work to provide story ideas for a television program, and much of the paperwork involved in publishing a book can take years or even decades. However, auto-generated tools can complete the writing process in one or two minutes. This creates a sense of financial instability for the entire profession, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic when many full and part-time authors are finding it difficult to make ends meet. Attributed to the WGA’s efforts in this protest, AMPTP’s initial offer to yield writers $86 million annual income tripled in value (Nolan, 2023). From this perspective, the strike has significance in addressing the precariousness issue and enhancing benefits for writers.

Secondly, authors struggle to preserve their original works and express their resentment that AI-generated creations are illegal and plagiarized. The fact that such AI-generative content has never claimed copyrights or citations raises the possibility of misuse and exploitation of the original works of other artists. For instance, Getty Images has made allegations of copyright infringement, claiming that Stabilizing AI used 12 million of its proprietary photographs to train their Stable Diffusion image generation tool without its permission (Marr, 2023). Authors are also concerned that their works may have been used to train AI without acknowledgment, as AI requires a large enough text corpus or data to teach it with new knowledge, models, and ways to communicate and develop new ideas. Reisner (2023) discovered that Meta, Bloomberg, and other companies had trained generative AI systems using more than 191,000 books without authorization. In response, the new agreement claimed that “the WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by MBA or other law” to protect the rights of the authors (Wilkinson & Stewart, 2023). 

Furthermore, the contract stated that authors are free to use any assisting tools and technologies that comply with their companies’ policies, and the studios are not allowed to compel writers to use any particular program while they are working. According to the contract, AI cannot be a credited writer and cannot write or rewrite “literary material” (Coyle, 2023). Once again, the contract recognizes the value of the writers’ work and protects their originality. Thirdly, authors are going on strike to assert their authority over technology. AI is incredibly adept at learning, and without control over this technology, writers may become incapable of managing their creative processes, which would lead to a loss of distinctive expression for unique pieces. The new agreement points out that companies cannot prevent writers from making use of generative AI but prohibits the use of software to reduce or eliminate the presence of writers. 

What’s Next and Action Recommendation

Given the 2023 WGA strike as the second-longest strike in the Hollywood industry (Wilkinson & Stewart, 2023), some people are arguing against the strike. For instance, it disrupted the entire entertainment and broadcasting industry, leading to event cancellations and severe delays in the filming process. It is also possible that viewers and fans who are looking forward to the upcoming season or Saturday night programming are disappointed with the reruns of the old episodes.

We are still on the way to discovering how to live and work peacefully with AI. We cannot hinder the development of technology, but we also cannot forgo the art and media industry and the people working there. Although this may not be the best solution to solve the problem up to this point, each strike and collective bargaining agreement contributes slightly to maintaining the balance between “humanity” and “profit-oriented machines” (Nolan, 2023). When it comes to dealing with AI, workers in other industries can take a cue from the 2023 WGA strike and the new contracts. Creative professionals are not the first, nor will they be the last employees to struggle for protection from artificial intelligence (Anguiano & Beckett, 2023). Comparably, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has also recently authorized a strike for its members working in the interactive media industry, which includes major game studios like Activision, Epic Games, and Electronic Arts (Sharwood, 2023). The guild’s president attributes part of the issue to the use of AI, which can replace human performances in video games, particularly in the form of voice and motion capture. The guild seeks AI protections for its members and parallels the significance of WGA strikes.

Conclusion

Writers are going on strike to publicly express their concerns about a variety of topics, including fair compensation, originality and innovation, and other ethical dilemmas raised by the “scary” advancement of AI. WGA is the model, and Hollywood is the first industry with restrictions on AI use to safeguard artists and their creations. This strike is significant not just for defending the position of "writer," but also for preserving future talent tanks, creativity, and originality to produce works to educate, inform, resonate, and entertain the human species. All writing-assistance technology should be seen as a valuable tool that aids writers, helping them rather than replacing them while granting authors autonomy and ownership over their creations.

References

Anguiano, D., & Beckett, L. (2023, October 1). How Hollywood writers triumphed over AI – and why it matters. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/01/hollywood-writers-strike-artificial-intelligence

Coyle, J. (2023, September 27). In Hollywood Writers’ battle against AI, humans win (for now). AP News. https://apnews.com/article/hollywood-ai-strike-wga-artificial-intelligence-39ab72582c3a15f77510c9c30a45ffc8 

Lee, W., & James, M. (2023, September 25). WGA and the studios reach tentative deal to end writers’ strike. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-09-24/writers-strike-over-wga-studios-reach-deal-actors

Marr, B. (2023, October 5). Is Generative AI stealing from artists?. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/08/08/is-generative-ai-stealing-from-artists/?sh=f4d7b325d1ee 

Nolan, H. (2023, October 7). Screenwriters won a historic victory against AI. the rest of us should follow. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/07/screenwriters-won-a-historic-victory-against-ai-the-rest-of-us-should-follow

Reisner, A. (2023, September 25). What I found in a database meta uses to train generative AI. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/books3-ai-training-meta-copyright-infringement-lawsuit/675411/

Sharwood, S. (2023, September 5). SAG-AFTRA fears AI threatens video game workers. The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/sag_aftra_videogame_strike_authorization/ 

Wilkinson, A., & Stewart, E. (2023, September 25). The Hollywood Writers’ strike is over - and they won big. Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/9/24/23888673/wga-strike-end-sag-aftra-contract