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Here’s our breakdown of the WGA Strike as promised. We’re gonna talk about the AI aspect of it.

This week in Explainers: Writers’ Strike

The writers in Hollywood are on strike. There’s a large number of stories out there but let’s talk about the most salient issue that’s come up. It kinda affects us all.

Protection against Artificial Intelligent

This is an interesting sticking point. We might be looking at the first sketches of what AI regulation in America looks like.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is demanding AI protections so their work can’t be created/re-written by AI, and source material shouldn’t be used to train AI to create new material.

Aside from the obvious drivers, another force behind the demand is that the number of writers in the room has decreased significantly over the years. Especially with the rise of streaming giants and the reduction of the number of episodes in a given season.

This would also affect actors as well, since AI isn’t that far away from using a characters likeness to promote TV shows, products, etc. So basically, you can come in, say a few words, make a few expressions, and your face can be on NBC’s fall TV lineup all the way to your favorite tampon commercial (would someone even have a favorite tampon commercial?).

Unfettered use of AI in this sense, would mean that new TV shows could be created at the literal push of a button, and there’d be no use for writers, actors, crew members, or even directors.

Okay, so here’s the thing, and here’s why you should care.

We’ve been thinking about this one today, so here it is:

Basically, labor protections benefit everyone. If a union negotiates and gets a strong deal, that trickles down and provides momentum for other unions and we’re able to see new workplace protections in our offices, worksites, etc.

We all felt the last strike, if you go back and re-watch whatever your favorite TV show was around 2008-2009, you’ll notice there was a weird and short 3rd or 4th season.

That’s not happening now. You have a library of endless crap to stream. Excess supply of content has clearly outstripped demand (demand for quality TV, is something else).

Also, here’s another thing to consider: did you unsubscribe from Netflix? Hulu? Max? Prime Video? Disney+? No, you didn’t.

Executives know the leverage they have here. We think Netflix and other streaming giants might have some of their best quarters ever since all their costs went to Zero with this writers strike.

It sounds…terrible to be honest. We’re really rooting for Fran and the rest of the crew.

What AI made this week

Have a great week!

Ahmed and Peter