Black Mirrors: Why should Studios not Replace Writers with AI
The creative industry is one of the most affected sectors by the burgeoning nature of artificial intelligence, as the rising popularity of generative AI such as ChatGPT has led to pervasive widespread concerns about whether AI would eliminate the need for writers and editors, given that AI can generate stories in a much lesser time. Whether those stories are creative and compelling is another question altogether.
These concerns manifested recently as the massive strikes recently by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which took place because of the profit-maximization impulse that drives production studios and companies, which prompted studios to begin testing the use of AI for potential use not only in writing screenplays and dialogues, but also to replace minor actors. Studios have begun teasing the prospects of using AI-created simulations based on headshots of extra-actors.
These happenings are deeply concerning for the future of creative artists in the entertainment industries, and thus elicited a widespread and long-lasting strike which prompted studios to back off, that is for the time being at least. But this makes it necessary for us to truly explore the creative horizons of AI to be able to judge whether its potential replacement of writers is viable.
The purpose of the WGA strike was broadly this: it aimed to make sure that there was an immediate intervention against the use of large language models before they became fully entrenched. This took the form of forbidding studios from using AI to create literary material, including screenplays, outlines, treatments, and dialogues, among other things, along with also preventing studios from using AI to generate any kind of source material, and then forcing human writers to polish it up at terribly low rates.
At the outset, AI is ripe to oust writers and take on the work of creative production for itself. Not only is it more efficient and quicker, and does not suffer from writer’s block, but it also does not cost anything, thereby resulting in anybody being able to produce content at an unimaginable pace. In fact, AI is currently being fed the works of some of the best works of literature to allow it to create narratives, weave plots, and craft dialogues of great quality.
And yet, even with all these developments, AI poses no serious creative threat to the ability of writers and artists. This is because AI works through patterns, and the very hallmark of great art that truly touches us is that it breaks established conventions and generates new forms to truly be able to say anything new. Thus, if studios aim to be able to touch the heartstrings of their audiences, there is a great need to treat writers fairly. Even as AI is a great tool to change the world owing to its many different advantages, perhaps replacing writers and artists is not one of them, and rightly so.
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