On May 2, 2018, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike after almost 98% of its members voted to do so if they did not reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) by May 1. WGA is asking for higher minimum pay, shorter exclusive contracts, and more writers per show, among other things.
One of the negotiation points is the use of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, in the creative process. The WGA is concerned that LLMs could replace their jobs and that their work would feed the AI, potentially leading to the loss of originality in the content produced.
AI has already been used in Hollywood in post-production and de-aging technology, and the WGA does not seem to have an issue with that.
However, they believe that AI-generated content lacks the human touch that makes stories great and that machines cannot understand human emotions, which are critical in storytelling. Moreover, LLMs lack the diversity of thought that humans have, making it difficult for them to produce original content. While LLMs can generate a large amount of text, they lack nuance and flavor, and the language they use is bland.
It is unlikely that machines will entirely replace human writers in the creative process. Instead, a balance could be struck between human creativity and AI-generated content, with machines generating ideas or assisting in the writing process while leaving the final product in the hands of human writers.
The debate over AI and creative writing raises broader questions about the role of technology in society, including ownership and creativity, and what it means to be human as machines become more advanced.
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