The ‘Plagiarism Machine’: Hollywood writers and studios battle over the future of AI

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – For decades, Hollywood writers have written science fiction stories about machines taking over the world. Now they are fighting to keep robots from taking their jobs.

The Writers Guild of America is trying to limit the use of artificial intelligence in writing film and television scripts. Hollywood studios have battled to make their streaming services profitable and deal with declining advertising revenue, according to Guild, but have rejected the idea, saying that once a year he talks about new technology. He said he was ready to talk.

A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance, which is negotiating the deal on behalf of the studio, declined to comment.

The controversy over AI was one of several issues that prompted Hollywood film and TV writers to go on strike Monday, the first work stoppage in 15 years.

This issue is one of the last items discussed in the WGA’s summary of negotiating points, much of which focuses on improving rewards in the streaming era, but much less debate about AI’s role in the creative process. , will determine the future of entertainment in the decades to come.

Screenwriter John August, a member of the WGA negotiating committee, says screenwriters have two concerns about AI.

“We don’t want to give them our material, and we don’t want to revise their sloppy first draft,” he said.

At issue is a rapidly growing, multi-faceted technology that is spreading across global industries.

In Hollywood, AI can erase facial wrinkles from aging performers, clean up actors’ f-bomb heavy use, and create animated short films with the help of OpenAI’s Dall-E, which can create realistic images. It helps me to draw. Some writers are experimenting with writing scripts.

“last stand”

“The problem here seems to be that we thought creativity itself was the last line of defense, the boundary in the sand, that stopped machines from replacing someone’s job,” says the university’s Motus Lab. co-founder Mike Seymour says he has a background in visual effects and artificial intelligence and has consulted with several studios. “I would argue that it was just some kind of arbitrary conception that people had that captured the public imagination.”

AI can help writers break through the “blank slate,” says Seymour, and AI is good at producing what he describes as “pantomime,” a conversation that lacks nuance but is straightforward and candid. is.

“Nor am I arguing that AI will become superintelligent and produce something like ‘Citizen Kane,’ because that would not be true,” said Seymour.

Writers fear they will be sidelined, or at least looted.

Writer Warren Leight, showrunner and executive producer of NBC’s Law & Order: SVU, said, “All[AI]can do is spit out garbled work.”

“Instead of hiring you to do the first draft,[the studio]hires you to do the second draft.

The union proposed that material generated by AI systems such as ChatGPT cannot be considered “literary material” or “source material,” terms already defined in the contract.

As a practical matter, when a studio executive hands a writer an AI-generated script and asks them to revise it, the writer is not paid a lower rewrite or polish rate.

Trade unions argue that existing scripts should not be used to train artificial intelligence. This opens the door to intellectual property theft.

“We call it the ‘Nora Ephron problem,'” says August, author of hit romantic comedies like “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail.” He mentioned and said

“You can imagine a studio that trains an AI on every Nora Ephron script and writes a comedy with her voice. Our proposal would prevent that.”

WGA chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman said some members refer to AI as a different term: a “plagiarism machine.”

“We made a reasonable suggestion that the company would move AI out of the TV and film writing business and not try to replace writers,” she said.

Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine of Los Angeles, with additional reporting by Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway of Los Angeles.Edited by Kenneth Lee and Lincoln Feast

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.



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