We need professional writers
A friend who works in tech law said something to me over the summer that I can’t quite shake. He said, “AI won’t take your job, a person who knows how to use AI will take your job.”
I am a screenwriter, on strike since May 2. We are striking over a range of issues, primarily the erosion of pay and workplace conditions brought on by the streaming era. While we are mostly looking to fix what tech has “moved fast and broken”, one issue on the table faces forward: the use of AI.
The Writers Guild’s last published proposal amounted to an outright ban on AI-created scripts, outlines, and source material, as well as a prohibition on the use of member material to train large-language models. The studios, represented by their trade association, the AMPTP, countered by offering concessions on credit protection while retaining loopholes you could drive a truck through.
If their recalcitrance signals intent, the studios clearly aim to use AI to generate scripts going forward. This will not only dismantle the Writers Guild within a few years (fewer jobs mean fewer members, fewer contributions into health and pension, and ultimately the collapse of the union), but it will do away with writing as a profession altogether. Without wage protections, health coverage, and retirement plans, writing will cease being a viable career and become little more than a proofreading gig that only film school grads living off their parents’ largesse can afford to do.
I shouldn’t have to write this down, but here we are: we need professional writers. And professional actors. And professional educators, coders, drivers, auto workers, pilots, flight attendants, train conductors, and every other career currently threatened with extinction in the name of corporate profit.
Let’s look at sports — the one profession no one is casually suggesting we’d be fine without. Whether or not you’re a fan, you have to admit that professional athletes are incredible. Their feats of strength and agility can leave you breathless. When I watch Steph Curry arc one from half court my heart leaps out of my chest. Every time. I am so, so glad that Steph doesn’t have to drive for DoorDash to make ends meet. I want him to earn his living playing the game so he can continue to practice, hone his skills, and push the boundaries of what we comprehend a human being to be capable of. Not coincidentally, he and other pro athletes are able to dedicate their lives to their sport because their unions bargain collectively against small groups of wealthy owners who can afford to pay players what they’re worth.
Why do the owners put up with this? Why don’t they simply fill out their squads with amateurs willing to play for gas money? Because they know that professional athletes are compelling to watch. They do things we mortals cannot. So we buy tickets, we tune in, we marvel. We are entertained.
This holds true across all forms of entertainment. Professional actors are compelling because they can channel and communicate emotions we either can’t or don’t want to. I know it looks easy. They make it look easy. So does Curry. But take out your phone and film yourself doing a scene from The Bear and see what happens. If it looks anything like me trying to dunk a basketball, you’ll agree that professional actors possess skills we do not. While these skills may stem from some latent gift, they are sharpened through years of hard work and dedication — like any profession. No one assumes great attorneys are “born”. They study, they endure, they practice. And they deserve a living wage. Artists and entertainers are no different.
I am a writer. I have been writing scripts since I was a child. I first got paid for it when I was twenty ($250 to adapt A Christmas Carol for a children’s theater company — I was over the moon). I got my degree in playwriting from UCLA and I have been writing for film and television for over 20 years. I can dunk. People pay me to dunk. I love dunking.
The movie business has long been hostile to writers, who (on good days) are seen as pesky but necessary obstacles on the long path of making a movie. I have my own pet theory about why this is: people assume because they can type, they can write. It’s a tick that seems particular to my craft. No one watches a concert pianist and thinks, I could do that. No one watches a neurosurgeon slicing into a brain and scoffs, who’s that guy think he is? Yet these same people, recalling some faint praise written in the margin of a college essay, read a script and think, writing’s not so hard.
Well, writing is hard — at least at a professional level. Again, anyone can learn to dribble a ball, but not everyone can handle one. I’m sure that English Lit TA was being honest when they wrote great metaphor! on your term paper but I’m going to guess that TA would not have paid money to read that metaphor. That’s the difference at play here: we’re talking about writing as a livelihood, a discipline unto itself — not better (believe me, people get paid to write garbage), but different. And when it’s done well, it’s as beautiful as a 30-foot jumper.
So why not let an AI do it? Let’s turn back to sports: would we watch robots play basketball? While there is an annual soccer match that showcases the latest advancements in robotics, more people tune in to the Puppy Bowl (and why not?). Robots can be interesting to watch, for a minute or two, but they are not compelling, and certainly not beautiful or moving. And when they perform tasks that are even vaguely human, the results can be revolting. Yet the studios are betting that an AI script will be as compelling as anything written by a human — or at least will appear human enough not to trigger the gag reflex. That’s an interesting bet to make, given that a hundred years of cinema written by actual human beings has proven to be one of the most reliably profitable and exportable businesses in history.
Sadly, when this bet fails to pay off, we the audience will be forced to cover their losses in the form of higher ticket prices, subscription fees, and more frequent ad breaks — all while enduring “entertainment” that bears only a dim resemblance to the human experience. Why? Because writers weren’t worth it.
We must stop allowing profession after profession to be denigrated by this slavish capitulation to the whims of the tech industry. The world needs professionals: people who have dedicated their working lives to the study and practice of a craft or service. We wouldn’t want part-time neurosurgeons, teachers (too late there), or airline pilots, because we cannot afford to have amateurs in these roles. Nor should we impose a passion tax on their compensation. Call me naïve, but dedication to one’s work should be rewarded, not forced to go on strike.
Getting back to what my friend said about who’s actually coming after my job, the people who know how to use AI. I have written about how useful or useless AI can be to writers, and along those lines I have continued to experiment with it, ever hopeful (I will amend my earlier assessment of ChatGPT as a research assistant: it’s only helpful if you like wild inaccuracies delivered with white-guy confidence). When I brought up the fraught copyright landscape of AI-generated scripts to my friend, he assured me that in five years AI will be so integrated into software that each writer will have their own AI, trained in their own voice, thus sidestepping the attribution issue.
This feels like a win, right? I sit down on Monday morning, command the latest version of FinalDraft to generate a heist movie with my particular sensibilities (plotting, dialogue, pace). I read it, give it some thought, Tuesday morning I give it some feedback (can we set it in the Sahara?), it generates a new script, which I iterate upon, writing a few new scenes here and there just to, you know, get those old juices flowing again, and bingo, I’ve got a script by Friday lunch, latest.
Except it’s not a win, because I’m not a writer anymore. I’m not even an athlete on steroids. I’m a studio executive. What I’ve described is a condensed version of a typical development process, whereby I am now the capricious exec saying, “Love what you wrote, but it’d be great if we could get a couple more chases in there, and a dog.”
I like studio executives. I have great respect for them, and the job they do. But I don’t want to be one. And I don’t want a movie business made up only of people reacting to material a machine spits out. No matter how many iterations that script goes through, the final draft will be fruit of the poisoned tree. In other words: repulsive.
As I see it, if AI is fixing to turn us all into studio executives, mine is not the job in danger of being watered down. Yet those same executives appear ready — even eager — to let this technology run roughshod over our industry, instead of lawyering up to protect their back catalogues (worth billions) from copyright infringement. It’s like a heist movie, except the safe isn’t locked, the door is wide open, and the guards are asleep. It doesn’t take an AI to tell you how that will end.
