The Hollywood writers strike ended Wednesday after the Writers Guild of America reached a pact with the studios. The union’s leadership has unanimously recommended that members support the deal, which takes steps toward protecting workers against the threat of artificial intelligence.
“The basic controls on the use of AI are more than the studios wanted to agree to, I’m sure,” Patricia Phalen, the assistant director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, told Barron’s. The explosion of interest in generative AI follows last year’s public rollout of ChatGPT, which has left labor organizers scrambling to set guidelines for how employers use the tech.“AI guardrails will be the cement wall more workers and industries try to put up given this generational tech shift,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Barron’s. “The writers strike is just the tip of the iceberg and what’s coming to the industrial and consumer ecosystem in 2024 and beyond.
With the writers strike over, attention will turn to the Screen Actors Guild’s own strike. George Washington’s Phalen notes that AI is hitting hard for actors because the technology can imitate likenesses and speech. Among SAG-AFTRA’s demands is protection of actors’ images and performances to prevent replacement of humans by AI technology.