The strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) isn’t simply about securing better fees for screenwriters. It touches on something much bigger: making sure that screenwriting will continue to exist as a profession. Recently, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, a number of executives sang the praises of AI programs such as ChatGPT. “In the next three years, you’re going to see a movie that was written by AI made … a good one,” said film producer Todd Lieberman. Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade added: “Not just scripts. Editing, all of it … storyboarding a movie, anything … AI in the future, maybe not next year or the year after, but if we’re talking 10 years? AI is going to be able to do absolutely all of these things.”
Television written by AI is a terrifying prospect. Civilisation was built by humans telling stories. We’ve been doing it for tens of thousands of years, so the prospect of giving all of that up and relying on the equivalent of a random number generator to save executives a few pennies is horrifying. Still, there is at least some good news: for now, AI absolutely sucks when it comes to screenwriting.
