How do you feel about the AWU writer's strike?

[Deleted member 54065]

As a person from a country that rewards mass-simping, shoddy writers and shitty work ethics (like forcing writers to cough up an episode a day, or paying effects artists meager wages), I'm kinda glad our writing/entertainment industry here is already a shithole so the quality won't change in the long run...

(I'm talking of the shows and pop lits produced here, not the entire Filipino writing community.)

 

[TotallyHuman]

It doesn't concern me and I do not feel like shoveling through what information is available, so I'll stay out of it. Last HW produced movie I've seen came out years ago, so I dot really care much for it anyway.

 

[Succubiome]

Lacking information or the real drive to study it deeply, I side with the union over the corporations. I don't know much about WGU specifically, and some unions have big issues, but unions tend to at least side with the interests of a bigger percentage of humanity than corporations do.

Also, IMO, the drive towards as much profit as fast as possible by them is probably responsible for more shitty writing than the writers they hire are.

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

@KrakenRiderEmma
I looked at some of your partial AI novels, small bits. The sentence structure is terrible and well…it will take a lot of work for a human writer to edit.

perhaps they should become an editors guild instead… although it’s probably more re-writing. Don’t know about future AI but right now I don’t think fiction writing will work well for AI.

The sad thing is it's probably my own rushed writing, since it's only partly written by AI and my own sentence structure is more convoluted than the AI! The early chapters of the first story below are particularly unedited, since I started doing a further pass on grammar and editing when I got to around chapter 20. But I can't really blame AI for either the sentence structure or the lack of human editing, at least at the beginning. I'm curious if you see the same problems in the most recent chapters (like many authors here, I got a little smoother after practicing on dozens of chapters) but only if you have time.

 

[Poleg]

So to explain, the American Writer's Union has gone on strike against Hollywood TV producers. Their reasoning being that the union contract recently expired and neither the Union nor Hollywood could agree to terms. I don't know every detail but from what I gathered, Hollywood doesn't want to pay the writers enough while also increasing their production funding.

Now, my personal opinion is that Hollywood should pay them more because they deserve to be paid properly for their work. However, I don't like the idea of bad writers being given the equivalent of tenure since that just means we're gonna get more shows/movies with shit writing. I can justify the last sentence since a good chunk of the union writer's are daytime/reality television show writer's who we already know are awful. That said, I may be wrong and possibly have a misunderstanding of the situation, so do your own research and let me know what you think about it. Are you with Hollywood, the Union, neither, or both?

Hollywood doesn't deserve to exist.

 

[Tempokai]

The saddest thing in this situation is that I don't care. Rich people feuding with almost rich people, for the production of a content I don't consume most of the time.

 

[Poleg]

The saddest thing in this situation is that I don't care. Rich people feuding with almost rich people, for the production of a content I don't consume most of the time.

Is there even a good film that came out in the last 5 years?

 

[TotallyHuman]

Is there even a good film that came out in the last 5 years?

I heard joker was good. Never watched it though. Surely there were a bunch of amazing indies that went under everyone's radar.

 

[BB_Tensei]

In my opinion, nobody into webnovels should be supporting big studios nor their writers. This is an opportunity to get more exposure for media alternatives, and AI is a useful technology in getting there. In fact the technology to recreate any novel on this website as a TV series using AI, or a combination of AI and easily available software like Unreal Engine with Metahuman (for actors), is definitely a possibility to explore. If big investments aren't panning out for Disney, smaller ones for creative adaptations done cheaper would definitely be more attractive, and it's not a moral choice to pick your own community over established gatekept ones, such as the AWU.

As for writers being forced to play editor and ghost writer for the AI, it's not a question of whether the writers are creative or capable enough to do it, it's a problem of copyright laws being circumvented by big companies, due to how that is handled by latest law:

https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf

For example, if a user instructs a text-generating technology to “write a poem about copyright law in the style of William Shakespeare,” she can expect the system to generate text that is recognizable as a poem, mentions copyright, and resembles Shakespeare’s style. But the technology will decide the rhyming pattern, the words in each line, and the structure of the text. When an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship. As a result, that material is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application.
In other cases, however, a work containing AI-generated material will also contain sufficient human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, a human may select or arrange AI-generated material in a sufficiently creative way that “the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” Or an artist may modify material originally generated by AI technology to such a degree that the modifications meet the standard for copyright protection. In these cases, copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work, which are “independent of ” and do “not affect” the copyright status of the AI-generated material itself.

The AWU is probably more concerned that anybody can sign off on an "arrangement" of AI made text, making their function as a filter and organisation unnecessary. However, they haven't been doing their job that well, so it'd be best if we see them go one way or another.

While I, personally, would rather see entirely human-made movies and shows, they haven't been that good lately, and clearly the consumer demand is higher than anybody's willing to cover for, at the budget to quality ratio Hollywood provides.

 

[georgelee5786]

Serves Hollywood right for making so many trash movies

 

[Paul_Tromba]

In my opinion, nobody into webnovels should be supporting big studios nor their writers. This is an opportunity to get more exposure for media alternatives, and AI is a useful technology in getting there. In fact the technology to recreate any novel on this website as a TV series using AI, or a combination of AI and easily available software like Unreal Engine with Metahuman (for actors), is definitely a possibility to explore. If big investments aren't panning out for Disney, smaller ones for creative adaptations done cheaper would definitely be more attractive, and it's not a moral choice to pick your own community over established gatekept ones, such as the AWU.

As for writers being forced to play editor and ghost writer for the AI, it's not a question of whether the writers are creative or capable enough to do it, it's a problem of copyright laws being circumvented by big companies, due to how that is handled by latest law:

https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf

The AWU is probably more concerned that anybody can sign off on an "arrangement" of AI made text, making their function as a filter and organisation unnecessary. However, they haven't been doing their job that well, so it'd be best if we see them go one way or another.

While I, personally, would rather see entirely human-made movies and shows, they haven't been that good lately, and clearly the consumer demand is higher than anybody's willing to cover for, at the budget to quality ratio Hollywood provides.

I agree with you for the most part. I personally despise AI and fear for what it can do if we progress it any further.

 

[BB_Tensei]

I agree with you for the most part. I personally despise AI and fear for what it can do if we progress it any further.

It does look kind of grim for creative people. On one hand it's scary to think about a world where human creativity is produced and sold on a mass scale by machines, but since that's actually less profitable long-term, I think what we'll eventually see is home entertainment AI replacing artistic media altogether. At that mass scale, I doubt there would be any popular AI-related profession either, creative or otherwise.

This doesn't mean narratives made by humans will stop existing, however. One way to outpace AI would be to monetize interactive real life games and creative activities. Escape rooms are a good example of something that can only further benefit from creative narratives. Storytelling was initially a human social phenomenon, and all the tools we have to make that process impersonal are clouding our judgement. Humans can't collectively solve moral and ethical problems at this quick pace and we're overly reliant on our technology. The only thing we're good at is adapting well as individuals, so that's what we should be doing.

 

[HelloHound]

I'm in support of the strike and I hope the writers get everything and more; it's not like them getting better treatment is going to make my life worse, just prevent some disney exec from being able to buy his third yacht of the month.
Much easier to emphasize with fellow writers than a faceless board of directors y'know and who doesn't like an underdog? I just hope that AI isn't attempted to fill in the gaps because boy howdy that will be unpleasant.
@Paul_Tromba really chose a powder keg to tap today eh

 

[nowme_cres]

So to explain, the American Writer's Union has gone on strike against Hollywood TV producers. Their reasoning being that the union contract recently expired and neither the Union nor Hollywood could agree to terms. I don't know every detail but from what I gathered, Hollywood doesn't want to pay the writers enough while also increasing their production funding.

Now, my personal opinion is that Hollywood should pay them more because they deserve to be paid properly for their work. However, I don't like the idea of bad writers being given the equivalent of tenure since that just means we're gonna get more shows/movies with shit writing. I can justify the last sentence since a good chunk of the union writer's are daytime/reality television show writer's who we already know are awful. That said, I may be wrong and possibly have a misunderstanding of the situation, so do your own research and let me know what you think about it. Are you with Hollywood, the Union, neither, or both?

I'd rather that the strike goes on forever so Hollywood doesn't make anything anymore.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

@Paul_Tromba really chose a powder keg to tap today eh

It wasn't supposed to be a sensitive topic.

 

[Eclectic_Asininity]

If you think about it, getting an AI to write the scripts is technically a diversity hire so nothing has really changed.

 

[NotOriginal]

I see nothing wrong with the Writers Union striking, they deserve the pay they are owed, these are the people who write for massive TV shows and movies. Also for those who don't get why they are striking:

Also if people think that AI is gonna replace the writers you have to know that things like ChatGPT are NOT AI they are a learning machine that draws from others sources to give you what you want. It's like Google but except for having to click on a link and going to the page to get the information you want, ChatGPT just does it for you and takes the information and gives it to you. If you ask for ChatGPT to write a episode of SpongeBob it will take it from actual episodes of SpongeBob so I am sure no one wants to use plagiarized works right?

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

Hollywood needs to end their woke agenda.

Woke agenda being? I have seen that buzz word used to disparage neurodivergent, LGBT+, feminism, anti-prejudice, etc. inclusion so was wondering if that's what you meant or not.

 

[SailusGebel]

Woke agenda being? I have seen that buzz word used to disparage neurodivergent, LGBT+, feminism, anti-prejudice, etc. inclusion so was wondering if that's what you meant or not.

Bruh.

 

[TheMonotonePuppet]

Bruh.

Bruh back at you?... I mean, it's true? The "woke agenda" is used to write off movements like that. I have no regrets for asking the question!