Hollywood’s Burning
How AI is fueling Hollywood’s most recent string of protests
In 2019, American rapper Post Malone (Austin Richard Post) released his third studio album, Hollywood’s Bleeding. The release dealt with the pitfalls of Hollywood on a social level; fake friends, sleazy dealings, drugs, the works. While completely unintentional on Post’s part, that particular title still has a place in the current context of Hollywood. Hollywood *is* bleeding. But instead of blood trickling out of extravagant lifestyles, it’s gushing from every crevice of Hollywood’s working body.
The WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) is a union which represents multitudes of creative professionals across Hollywood such as show writers and screenwriters. The union went on strike in early May following a labor dispute with AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) who represents hundreds of film and production companies. The argument stemmed from AMPTP’s low proposals or direct refusal to increase compensation and residuals for WGA members, increase contributions to health and pension funds, and to uphold workplace protections for writers.
In the two months since the WGA strike began, another union was bolstering itself for weeks of picketing if negotiations for a new contract fell through between union representatives and AMPTP. The sister union, SAG — AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) is a joint union that represents roughly 160,00 screen actors, broadcasters, and other professionals in the performance media industry. Following a unanimous vote last Thursday by union leaders, SAG — AFTRA members joined WGA in striking against AMPTP.
Similarly to the WGA, SAG — AFTRA’s demands included increased compensation and workplace protection of members rights. The exact same joint walkout happened over 60 years ago for similar reasons regarding pensions and compensation. (The president of the SAG at the time was Ronald Reagan who ironically went on to implement some of the most conservative financial policies in the United States histories through trickle down economics.)
In the wake of these strikes and massive shutdowns, responses from studio leaders have been cold. One studio executive told a Deadline reporter “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”. In an interview on Friday with Disney CEO, Bob Iger, claimed that striking actors have a level of expectation “that is just not realistic” and that they’re “adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing”.
The president of SAG — AFTRA, Fran Drescher, delivered a fiery response addressed to corporate executives inside and outside of Hollywood later that day at a press conference. During this speech Drescher lambasted AMPTP’s treatment of workers in the industry labelling the alliance as a “very greedy entity” and bluntly telling the audience of reporters “shame on them” (referring to the executives).
Throughout the history of entertainment strikes, the center of the problem usually boiled down to unfair compensation. In the 1960 strike for example, a bargaining partner refused give WGA, SAG, and AFTRA members residuals from television reruns of films they worked on. In the more recent 2007–2008 strikes, WGA members demanded fair compensation for their work which was being distributed online by major studios. This time around, a darker more pervasive threat lurks at the crux of the issue; artificial intelligence. More specifically, generative artificial intelligence.
The past two years has seen an exponential expansion in the use of generative AI, a special type of Artificial Intelligence which is trained to generate text, images, and most recently sounds in response to a prompt. Popular examples include Dall — E which generates an image based on a prompt, or Chat GPT which generates text based on user input. However, many legal concerns have been raised over the use of this technology. For example, comedian Sarah Silverman recently entered a lawsuit which accused Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and Chat GPT’s parent, OpenAI, of copyright infringement on her books. Another legal concern rose during a civil court case, in which a lawyer used false data from research conducted by ChatGPT in an attempt defend his client’s case.
It’s no surprise that given these situations, writers are worried film studios could jump at the opportunity to use generative AI and lay them off. Prior to the WGA strike starting, the union claims that when asked for regulation on AI, their request was rejected and AMPTP responded with a proposal on “annual meetings to discuss changes in technology”.
The threat of AI doesn’t just stop at writers only. In a press conference with SAG — AFTRA, director Duncan — Crabtree Ireland revealed AMPTP’s proposal regarding AI : “They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and to be able to use it for the rest of eternity.”
What separates these particular strikes from all of the previous Hollywood walkouts is the AI problem. Never before in the history of cinema have writers and actors faced the threat of being replaced by computers. Dreschner brings light to this during the press conference where she laments that Hollywoods workers “are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business”. The AI problem has come to a head, and even Dreschner says that there’s no way to predict how long the strike will last.
The entertainment industry can no longer escape the looming threat of AI. The music industry seems a susceptible candidate for the next major crisis given the release of AI tools that have the uncanny ability imitate one’s vocal patterns. On Hollywood’s Bleeding Post sings “Everyone’s gone, but no one’s leaving”. Given the state of the packed picket lines on L.A.’s streets that eerie line takes on a new hopeful meaning. Everyone is gone from the sets and the studios into the streets; and nobody’s leaving until executives concede.
