This is, at best, a wildly misleading headline, as the WGA would in most cases NOT allow it. This was the official WGA statement on AI-generated writing:
“The WGA’s proposal to regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies ensures the Companies can’t use AI to undermine writers’ working standards including compensation, residuals, separated rights and credits. AI can’t be used as source material, to create MBA-covered writing or rewrite MBA-covered work, and AI-generated text cannot be considered in determining writing credits.
“Our proposal is that writers may not be assigned AI-generated material to adapt, nor may AI software generate covered literary material. In the same way that a studio may point to a Wikipedia article, or other research material, and ask the writer to refer to it, they can make the writer aware of AI-generated content. But, like all research material, it has no role in guild-covered work, nor in the chain of title in the intellectual property.
“It is important to note that AI software does not create anything. It generates a regurgitation of what it's fed. If it's been fed both copyright-protected and public domain content, it cannot distinguish between the two. Its output is not eligible for copyright protection, nor can an AI software program sign a certificate of authorship. To the contrary, plagiarism is a feature of the AI process.”
It seems they are trying to avoid ChatGPT doing to their union members what machine translation has already done to professional (human) translators. As far as I understand it, it's common practice for translation companies to automatically generate "alignments" (a sort of pre-translation of sentences between text in two languages) and then ask the translator to make a full translation based on the alignments- and only pay them for the time the company decides is needed for that task, which is of course less than the time to do a full translation from scratch.
Which sucks badly because the automatically generated pre-translations are often prtty bad and the translator must, in practice, do the full work anyway, and only get paid for less than that.
My source is a bunch of friends and acquaintances who are professional translators; somehow I happen to know at least three distinct groups of them. Also, they're all Greek so the situation may be different for translators between language pairs where automatic translation works better than, e.g. English and Greek.
Is AI generated content even copyrightable. It wasn't that long ago that US courts found that a photo taken by a non-human primate wasn't subject to copyright.[0] How different is this?
How would Hollywood navigate a world without copyright (see: Disney)?
Please note: I'm not an expert on copyright law or any other legal field. I'm genuinely curious about the legal ramifications of AI generated content.
Its simple did you have substantial/significant creative input? If so you probably have copyright.
AI content is not meaningfully different from procedurally generated content.
Take a Minecraft world. If you generate a random one do you have copyright? No of course not.
If you take a generated world and review and edit it substantially. Do you have copyright over the result? Probably.
There is a grey area where ever you don't start from scratch. Copyright is over the creative aspects of a project.
If I make a large printout of the letter A in Arial typeface just filling an A4 page on word, do I have copyright? No. What if I spend hours editing it in Photoshop? Yes probably if that involved substantial changes.
What if I generate thousands of samples and pick one? You probably do have copyright.
What I'd the prompt was empty? Probably don't.
This not to say that copyright itself is simple, just that AI generated works are not much more complex than the already subjective world of copyright.
While I agree with you in principle, but I think the courts have give themselves a lot of wiggle room with concepts like "substantial/significant creative input".
I'm not taking a position at the moment. Hell, I'm barely qualified to take a position. It just feels to me that the courts have given themselves so much wiggle room to change their minds in a second that we're back in the wild west.
As an aside, the first version of the GPL was released more than thirty years ago and it's hardly had a chance to "stand trial" in most courts. How long is it going to take something substantially more complex than a "simple" matter of contract law to make its way through that convoluted system?
I'm a working/repped screenwriter. The real deal here is that the union wants to prevent AI from enabling studios to undermine the IP chain to pay screenwriters less.
This is a big topic to unpack with lots of historical, political, and business context, but generally speaking the value-to-pay ratio for screenwriters is unfairly inverted and studios/producers will do anything they can to avoid paying you for creating the very intellectual property upon which their business depends.
Edit: HN has been invaluable in its discussion of IP and AI so thanks to y'all who are arguing furiously about this topic, and those that are building these new tools.
I'm a working screenwriter, and LLMs have been great for finding interesting research directions and saving me time!
Rest assured that the reason H'wood is hell-bent on regurgitating old material has nothing to do with screenwriters, and everything to do with the risk-mitigation imperative of everyone between me, the creator, and you, the viewer; producer, director, actor, studio exec, marketer, distributor – all of those have a veto – directly or indirectly – on every word I put on paper.
prompt = f"Write a script similar to {old_material}
but in {new_setting}, making sure that
it meets {studio_criteria}, maximizing
the probability of box-office success."
first_draft = LLM(prompt)
And yeah that's a no-go inside this system thanks in large part to the WGA. A lot of my work is defending, justifying, and otherwise 'handling' feedback from people who think they know better. Sometimes they do, too – it's a collaborative effort to be sure.
They have the tons of writers because writing isn't expensive in the grand scheme of things and small details and incremental improvements really matter. The tons of writers are actually a case there isn't a good use case for AI, because if it was all about saving money, a single writer would suffice...
I have no clue about the writing profession, so all this is just a speculation. But I feel like it would allow a head sitcom writer to flesh out concepts quickly and iterate quickly. I don't see it replace the writers coming up with high level concepts and themes or even the final script. But it should make iteration faster I guess.
Me to ChatGTP: Imagine you are a tv script writer. Using the first verse of the Illiad as inspiration, please write the intro for a modern sitcom.
---
FADE IN:
INT. A COFFEE SHOP - DAY
We open on a bustling coffee shop in a trendy part of town. The camera pans around, showing baristas making coffee and customers chatting over their laptops.
Suddenly, the door bursts open and a disheveled man rushes in, looking around frantically.
MAN: (to no one in particular) Rage! Sing, goddess, of the rage of Achilles!
The customers stare at him in confusion, some even looking scared.
BARISTA: (approaching the man) Sir, is everything okay?
MAN: (calming down) Yeah, sorry about that. I'm just a bit of a classics nerd.
BARISTA: (smiling) Ah, I see. What can I get for you?
MAN: (grinning) A latte, please. And maybe a muffin to calm my nerves.
As the man waits for his coffee, he pulls out a worn copy of The Iliad and begins to read.
The camera zooms in on the first verse of the book: "Sing, goddess, of the rage of Achilles..."
The scene fades to black, and we hear the man's voice-over:
MAN (V.O.): (excitedly) And that's when I knew I had to start a classics club!
FADE OUT.
The opening sets the stage for a quirky, offbeat sitcom about a group of classics nerds who bond over their love of ancient literature. Each episode will focus on a different classic work, as the group navigates modern-day life while drawing inspiration from the past.
---
or even better:
Imagine you are a tv script writer. Using the first verse of the Illiad as inspiration, please write the intro for a campy sci fi sitcom.
---
FADE IN:
EXT. SPACECRAFT - DAY
We open on a sleek spacecraft hurtling through space. The camera zooms in on the cockpit, where a crew of three is gathered around the controls.
CAPTAIN: (looking out the window) Sing, goddess, of the rage of the galaxy!
The other two crew members exchange a look, clearly confused.
ENGINEER: (sarcastically) Uh, captain? Did you forget to take your space meds again?
CAPTAIN: (ignoring the comment) I just can't get this verse out of my head. It's like something's calling to me.
The ship suddenly jolts, throwing the crew off balance.
PILOT: (gritting their teeth) Captain, we've hit an asteroid field!
CAPTAIN: (determined) Then we'll fight like the heroes of old! Helm, set a course for the nearest planet. We'll make our stand there.
The ship careens through the asteroid field, dodging debris and blasting rocks out of their way. The crew works together, their skills and training kicking in to save the ship.
Finally, they make it to the planet's surface, touching down with a shaky landing.
The captain steps out of the ship, looking around at the strange new world before them.
CAPTAIN: (to the crew) We may be far from home, but we will not give up. For we are the heroes of this story, and our fate is in our own hands.
The camera pans out, showing the crew standing in a vast, alien landscape, ready for whatever challenges lie ahead.
FADE OUT.
The opening sets the tone for a campy, action-packed sci-fi sitcom about a crew of space adventurers who find themselves in increasingly ridiculous situations. Each episode will feature a new planet, new aliens, and new challenges, all while the crew channels their inner heroes and fights for the greater good of the galaxy.
You’re thinking too small there. With AI you could have it write it, then computer generate the video itself.
You could have a TV channel which is just infinite seinfeld customised to the user. Don’t like a character? Tell the TV and it kills them off in the script. You get your own custom show for as long as you want it and no actors or writers or anyone has to be involved.
It will be the death of humanity but it will be glorious. “TV, write me a different ending to game of thrones and start playing”
Most writing sucks. Speaking as an intense hobby writer.
Bad writing is tolerated at a level that is not in any other consumer good.
We don't accept worms in our meals, we don't accept meals that are missing half the portions. Yet we expect plot holes, we expect stories that don't complete, or get hastily completed.
Most written stories suck, because it is incredibly time consuming to craft an interesting AND airtight story. Most writers resort to cliches, because cliches are 10 times faster to write. Writers resort to 'plot beats', because they are 10x easier to execute than letting character motivations and world events naturally play out. Just look at Game of Thrones, the book is original and natural, so it takes decades for 1 book. The show decided to make it fast, and we get an atrocious ending.
AI will change this. Writers will be come directors, directing the AI-simulated characters in their stories, guiding the world states. Writing becomes outlining the general plot, background setup, and themes of the story, and then the characters come alive via AI, and the story begins! With 10x faster iteration and experimentation, the quality of the stories will start spiking dramatically up.
This is the biggest change to fiction writing since the printing press. Novels will merge with comics (given images are cheap now), video games will have genuinely massive story branches (given stories can be iterated quickly), they may even have NPCs that are simulated via AI.
Fans will be able to write a proper conclusion to the Song of Ice and Fire, with AI-assisted writing. Even niche fantasy novels can get LOTR level adaptations etc.
Struggling to reconcile the first part of your post with the second
AI is extremely good at the sort of writing that sucks, because it writes tight prose, substitutes character x and related tropes into story archetype y fairly well and it can handle cliches and beats and it can reasonably be assumed will start to get a better handle on overarching structure as the number of tokens it handles gets bigger. Yes, this will allow people that can't write for toffee to attempt fanfic too, and other models will let writers who can't draw illustrate and maybe even animate their stories.
But its model of character motivations is limited at best, especially with fresh, original characters, it resorts to cliches by design since its output is literally derived from overlaps with similar concepts and training approval of those overlaps, it doesn't know what a plot hole is, and it can't tell a brilliant, original ending from an atrocious ending. It can absolutely tweak paragraphs a writer doesn't like very much and do absolutely everything for content creators that don't like writing very much and are happy with "good enough", but I don't think the bottleneck to someone like GRR Martin's creative output is that he can't think of lots of permutations himself or type out scenes fast enough.
You are correct that AI writes cliched, boring stories. I've tried writing stories with GPT since GPT2. But currently it looks like it'll only be very useful at GPT-5 levels.
That's why writers like AI way more than artists. Writers get to design the interesting stories and characters. While AI handles all the prose and detailed dialogue. That's still a massive acceleration (100%+) compared to the old ways. Writers don't usually enjoy hammering out the words, coming up with ideas is fun, writing it much less so.
I would love fiction with less plot holes. It definitely kills the immersion for me. An AI would also (eventually) have no issues with continuity which would be stellar.
I'm a working screenwriter, so please forgive us, but you'd be surprised at how challenging it is to make something air-tight plot-wise.
The way it works is it's a giant Rubik's cube – but imagine a dozen people trying to complete the puzzle, each of them with veto power over each turn.
Often what happens is that someone insists on some change without realizing that it creates serious consequences later, downstream. It's obviously my job to keep all of it together - and script coordinators too – but in the rush to get it built, directors, actors, producers can all make changes that ramify down through what is the most waterfall-y of all waterfall processes.
Also there's a lot of fans – especially in, say, comic-book movies or popular shows – who go over your stuff with a fine tooth comb. It can get pretty toxic, but rest assured nobody regrets more than us those little holes and details that get missed! We're sorry!
Read in a book a decade or two ago about an early attempt by Disney to speed up animation by creating a rudimentary AI for characters generated by CGI. Instead of creating each frame, they'd instruct the character to move from point A to point B on its own. The problem came in when they wanted the character to something unusual. Mickey Mouse would refuse to step off the edge of a cliff because it had been trained too deeply that when walking from A to B, you don't step off the path. Other odd personality quirks would pop up out of nowhere, such as Donald Duck randomly brutalizing his nephews for seemingly no reason. There was a reason somewhere in the nest of rules Donald Duck had been given, but no one could figure out how to make it stop.
All of that makes me wonder if writers directing the creation of an AI assisted story could run into something similar, where the AI refuses to have a character engage in a certain activity because the AI believes it's too out of character. Alerting you to behavior that would be out of character is one thing, but if the AI simply refuses to write or acknowledge edits that it deems inconsistent with the character, you've recreated the conflict between human writers with differing ideas. Being able to convince the AI of the reasons why the character would behave in such an uncharacteristic manner will become a new skill for writers.
No books help. Only time and deliberate practice help.
I've been writing my hobby novel for 10 years. That's how I got good. Everything I written in the first 8 years is unreadable now, that's the pace of improvement. I should note the book is not even in English. Good and clear writing is transferable across languages (As GPT-4 has shown...)
Fiction writing has been a unimaginable boon to my life, both career and happiness wise. Writing about a hacker made me try learning coding, and the clarity of communication helped me ace interviews. That being said, I didn't seek out to a 'writer', I merely wanted to bring my story to life, whatever it took.
Now that AI will actually bring the story to life, I spent the last 6 months learning every bit about AI, faster than any learning I've done before, because its pure joy.
Sorry for sounding too grumpy but I don't understand how you can say that "its pure joy" to let someone else do the writing for you. In my head that just doesn't compute.
I suspect that you just don't enjoy writing. If that's the case, then how did you decide to start writing in the first place? If you just wanted to tell a story, why not choose another medium?
How? When "AI" is trained on the output of human writers, the majority of which has all the problems you flag above? How is "AI" going to produce something so radically different than the material it was trained on?
“The WGA’s proposal to regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies ensures the Companies can’t use AI to undermine writers’ working standards including compensation, residuals, separated rights and credits. AI can’t be used as source material, to create MBA-covered writing or rewrite MBA-covered work, and AI-generated text cannot be considered in determining writing credits.
“Our proposal is that writers may not be assigned AI-generated material to adapt, nor may AI software generate covered literary material. In the same way that a studio may point to a Wikipedia article, or other research material, and ask the writer to refer to it, they can make the writer aware of AI-generated content. But, like all research material, it has no role in guild-covered work, nor in the chain of title in the intellectual property.
“It is important to note that AI software does not create anything. It generates a regurgitation of what it's fed. If it's been fed both copyright-protected and public domain content, it cannot distinguish between the two. Its output is not eligible for copyright protection, nor can an AI software program sign a certificate of authorship. To the contrary, plagiarism is a feature of the AI process.”