WGA & SAG Strike of 2023

[AlexanderMBush]

 

[Jerroddragon]

lol

This is just....too much

 

[Nick]

Disney is really putting themselves front and center as the bad guy in all of this all of a sudden for no reason.

 

[Nick]

 

[quinnmac000]

Looks like no more tiktok promotion etc for Barbie this weekend if social media influencers want to join SAG one day.

SAG-AFTRA Can Bar Non-Member Social Media Influencers From Guild Admission If They Promote For Studios During Strike

SAG-AFTRA Can Bar Non-Member Social Media Influencers From Guild Admission If They Promote For Studios During Strike

deadline.com

And even if a social media influencer isn’t getting paid to push on social media for a studio/streamer, it’s best not to do so, even as a fan. “Influencers should refrain from posting on social media about any struck work regardless of whether they are posting organically or in a paid capacity,” reads Sagaftrastrike.org.

That also goes for Comic-Con, which attracts several social media influencers. They can’t promote for companies that SAG-AFTRA is striking against including “appearances, panels, fan meet and greets, etc. involving struck work.”

 

[Nick]

Looks like no more tiktok promotion etc for Barbie this weekend if social media influencers want to join SAG one day.

SAG-AFTRA Can Bar Non-Member Social Media Influencers From Guild Admission If They Promote For Studios During Strike

SAG-AFTRA Can Bar Non-Member Social Media Influencers From Guild Admission If They Promote For Studios During Strike

deadline.com

And even if a social media influencer isn’t getting paid to push on social media for a studio/streamer, it’s best not to do so, even as a fan. “Influencers should refrain from posting on social media about any struck work regardless of whether they are posting organically or in a paid capacity,” reads Sagaftrastrike.org.

That also goes for Comic-Con, which attracts several social media influencers. They can’t promote for companies that SAG-AFTRA is striking against including “appearances, panels, fan meet and greets, etc. involving struck work.”

I love that they’re playing hard ball like this and not messing around.

With that said, RIP to any Chris Stuckmann or Dan Murrell reviews for the foreseeable future. Two of my favorites.

 

[rageofthegods]

I love that they’re playing hard ball like this and not messing around.

With that said, RIP to any Chris Stuckmann or Dan Murrell reviews for the foreseeable future. Two of my favorites.

Heads up, Per Variety, reviews are still allowed. It moreso refers to pure promotion/puff pieces (the lines between the two have admittedly been blurred).

 

[Andysol]

All of it has been because big corporations suck. Would you like it if there was a job taken from you because the company decided it be better if they used AI?

Late to this, but it’s not like we’re all up in arms that our cars are built by robots instead of people turning wrenches.
Technological revolutions happen all the time. Some with great results and some with bitter sweet ones.
The cotton gin extending slavery in the south, for example, as cotton was more viable again.

AI is certainly in the latter. It also comes down to global competition. If other countries use AI, and they will. And we don’t due to morals, then the US is bypassed and (name your country) is now the primary influencer for global policy change.

It will never be able to replace writers because LLMs and other generative algorithms cannot truly create, only rehash content.

So Disney already. But without writers.

AI Bots also don't have human experiences to draw from, so that would just make everything even more generic than it already is.

This is where the focus needs to be on. Not “corporations are bad”. But the fact the quality of new storytelling will be greatly diminished. And it comes down to us, the consumer, supporting those stories.

Some industries are done- like non trial attorneys. It’s over for them. 100%. Writing is on the wall and nothing you can do.

But writers should exist because they and only they can create new experiences. I feel like this should be single focused on creativity and quality and not “corporations are bad”. This isn’t the first nor will it be the last revolution that relegates occupations irrelevant.
Just wait until 3.5 million truckers (almost all men) are obsolete.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

Some industries are done- like non trial attorneys. It’s over for them. 100%. Writing is on the wall and nothing you can do.

Not really…this is still in its infancy. The problem with AI is that its current iteration is basically a nextgen search engine, without the intuition to know what’s real and what’s not. Non-trial attorneys using ChatGPT for example have already been disbarred because the engine provided them dummy cases to use as evidence toward common law. If we can get to a future where all the crap from the internet/intelligence databases gets scrubbed, then sure…but we’re not close.

Which is another argument FOR writers. There aren’t currently measures against plagiarism, even within the same medium (I’ve read a few AI articles that repeat their own points over again within the same body of work). I’m not old enough to remember the introduction of Google, but I have to imagine there was similar paranoia (maybe to a lesser extent) that ended up being unfounded in the long run.

TL;DR: AI is a helping tool, not a substitute yet.

And to add further discussion to the topic at hand…



Ouch

 

[Andysol]

Not really…this is still in its infancy. The problem with AI is that its current iteration is basically a nextgen search engine, without the intuition to know what’s real and what’s not. Non-trial attorneys using ChatGPT for example have already been disbarred because the engine provided them dummy cases to use as evidence toward common law. If we can get to a future where all the crap from the internet/intelligence databases gets scrubbed, then sure…but we’re not close.

I appreciate the dialog on this.

Obviously I don’t know all the ins and outs of the tech which is way above my pay grade. But I’m sure finding proper case law from a set number of confirmed websites can be learned.

And from what I’ve read it more about the layman needing an attorney than an actual attorney. Me using an AI “attorney” vs an actual one isn’t going to get me disbarred, for example.

So yes, we still needed engineers to maintain the robots that built cars- but that didn’t mean there weren’t casualties.

 

[Jake S]

I’ve already brought this up but there’s a fundamental difference between automation of hazardous jobs and what studios want to use AI for, which is very fast plagiarism. automation of factory jobs can be a net positive if a proper safety net is provided to affected workers — what’s happening with AI and writing is more existential.

 

[Mad Dog]

AI Future: All movies and TV shows are like the Hallmark Channel films and series'.

 

[Grabnar]

I appreciate the dialog on this.

Obviously I don’t know all the ins and outs of the tech which is way above my pay grade. But I’m sure finding proper case law from a set number of confirmed websites can be learned.

And from what I’ve read it more about the layman needing an attorney than an actual attorney. Me using an AI “attorney” vs an actual one isn’t going to get me disbarred, for example.

It might give you bad advice or improperly fill out something, though, at which point you have little recourse as there is no real "attorney" to file malpractice against, just an algorithm that has the illusion of intellect.

I'll agree that LLMs are in their infancy, and that some jobs will be replaced by them. It'll likely be used to screen first line customer service before handing off to a human for final decision making. Anything more complicated than that becomes too full of liability for any company to use properly; look at the OpenAI lawsuits for copyright infringement right now lol

 

[Lucky Planet]

Late to this, but it’s not like we’re all up in arms that our cars are built by robots instead of people turning wrenches.
Technological revolutions happen all the time. Some with great results and some with bitter sweet ones.
The cotton gin extending slavery in the south, for example, as cotton was more viable again.

AI is certainly in the latter. It also comes down to global competition. If other countries use AI, and they will. And we don’t due to morals, then the US is bypassed and (name your country) is now the primary influencer for global policy change.


So Disney already. But without writers.


This is where the focus needs to be on. Not “corporations are bad”. But the fact the quality of new storytelling will be greatly diminished. And it comes down to us, the consumer, supporting those stories.

Some industries are done- like non trial attorneys. It’s over for them. 100%. Writing is on the wall and nothing you can do.

But writers should exist because they and only they can create new experiences. I feel like this should be single focused on creativity and quality and not “corporations are bad”. This isn’t the first nor will it be the last revolution that relegates occupations irrelevant.
Just wait until 3.5 million truckers (almost all men) are obsolete.

It kind of reminds me a little bit on how bands and studios were really mad about Napster and mp3 files in 2000. They tried really hard to stop mp3s.
But, then YouTube showed up and itunes. And music was never the same ever again. It never went back.

They can try to stop AI. But I don't see how it would be fully stopped. And United States might stop it, but what happens when other countries use AI to do movies with American actors. Take their likeness.

 

[Jerroddragon]

It kind of reminds me a little bit on how bands and studios were really mad about Napster and mp3 files in 2000. They tried really hard to stop mp3s.
But, then YouTube showed up and itunes. And music was never the same ever again. It never went back.

They can try to stop AI. But I don't see how it would be fully stopped. And United States might stop it, but what happens when other countries use AI to do movies with American actors. Take their likeness.

Yeah
No idea how this will shake up Hollywood but your right, the genie is out of the bottle and somethings will change

 

[Andysol]

It kind of reminds me a little bit on how bands and studios were really mad about Napster and mp3 files in 2000. They tried really hard to stop mp3s.
But, then YouTube showed up and itunes. And music was never the same ever again. It never went back.

They can try to stop AI. But I don't see how it would be fully stopped. And United States might stop it, but what happens when other countries use AI to do movies with American actors. Take their likeness.

I think we get Tom cruise to get the key and shut it down.

Something like that.

 

[Clive]

As someone who dabbles in legal copy and has been asked to use high-end, industry-grade AI to assist with that work, I can tell you it is terrible for legal language or anything that requires nuance. It spits out very confident statements that are in some manner wrong about 60% of the time, no matter how specific your prompts.

 

[Grabnar]

As someone who dabbles in legal copy and has been asked to use high-end, industry-grade AI to assist with that work, I can tell you it is terrible for legal language or anything that requires nuance. It spits out very confident statements that are in some manner wrong about 60% of the time, no matter how specific your prompts.

This has been my experience with STEM LLMs too. You can correct them and they'll spit out something slightly more correct but still wrong.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

This has been my experience with STEM LLMs too. You can correct them and they'll spit out something slightly more correct but still wrong.

My experience has been that this is the case for anything that would fall within the knowledge domain of the people working on it, like coding. Asking it anything else just makes it spit out generic garbage.

Personally, I think AI can be useful for automating repetitive, but non-generalized tasks. Things like deepfakes, data discovery (like Everlaw), or other forms of data analysis, scenarios where you are deliberately specifying the corpus of data that is being worked on, such that the scope of that data is well-understood enough by the human that you can rely on its output. In essence, since the data being operated on has already been curated by a human, the range of outputs is more easily parsable/testable.

However, like many people have noted, "AI" as it has come to be known in the current zeitgeist is mainly highly sophisticated LLMs that can be counted on as of yet to 'generate' their own knowledge.

EDIT: Not sure why we've gotten so off track into talking about AI here. Whether an AI uses it or not, actors should be paid for the use of their likeness, authors should be paid for the use of their copyrighted material as the source for whatever derivative crap Hollywood wants the AIs to write.

 

[Nick]

AI as a tool is fine imo. But it should only be that, really. A tool that is there for writers or whoever to use to assist them. But even then, I feel like creativity will be lost, especially once studios find the writers who are really willing to lean hard on AI.

I lost something recently in a Lyft ride. I bring this up because Lyft is a company (like many) that has completely replaced human customer service with an app where you need to jump through hoops to try to talk to an actual human. I never did get back my lost item due to the terrible customer service that Lyft offers. Not even their social media team responds.

AMC has a similar thing where it’s impossible to talk to a human when I had an issue, but at least their social media team was great about it and not only resolved my issue, but just essentially gave me $20 for my troubles. It’s great AMC helped me, but it honestly is terrible to cut corners and for there to not be a human customer service agent to talk to. Just makes it feel like the customers are not valued in any way.