Writers Guild Of Great Britain's Sandi Toksvig Urges Streamers To End "Buy-Out Agreements" & Embrace Residual Model
Writers “are very afraid that we’re all going to put them all out of business. That is so far from the truth,” Vinciquerra said. “AI is an unbelievable tool for the writers. Every writer we talk to says, ‘We’re using AI to speed up our process and make it better.’ You can’t copyright a product that is generated by a computer. You can only copyright product made by a person. So, we’re not going to take a script written by a computer and make it into a TV show or a film.
As far as actors, he continued, “you can’t take someone’s image or likeness without their permission. And everyone in the AMPTP and the production business is fully aware of that and will adhere to that. So, I think on AI, we’ll find a way to come to a common ground, hopefully soon.” While Vinciquerra observed that “there are a lot of things that play into” the resistance to AI, he said it would need to be adopted in some fashion. “You can’t get in the way of technology. People who get in the way of technology don’t last long in business,” he said. “You look at the buggy-whip business, radio manufacturers. When radio started in the ’20s and ’30s, there were thousands of companies making radios. There aren’t many people making radios anymore.
AI, the CEO argued, makes production “more efficient. It makes it faster. Speed is one of the biggest problems in production.” Producing TV shows or films is “a complex process” and AI “will speed that up.”