[HN Gopher] GPT-4 Can't Replace Striking TV Writers, but Studios...
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GPT-4 Can't Replace Striking TV Writers, but Studios Are Going to
Try
Author : shscs911
Score : 32 points
Date : 2023-05-03 19:14 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| CSDude wrote:
| I asked it to mix Turkey elections in the form of a 24 episode
| and it was great. Cliff hangers, unexpected events, political
| dilemmas. As good as any episode. Of course the actual writing of
| dialogs and settings would be important as well, but the plot was
| great. I can't post the output because...
| lemmiwinks wrote:
| ...the first rule of Fight Club / Usenet is you do not talk
| about Fight Club / Usenet?
| InCityDreams wrote:
| ...if it's not on Strava...
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Looks like we're going to have a lot of accidental "pepperoni hug
| spot" coming to screens near you
| asdff wrote:
| A lot of early cuts of movies and other media are really hot
| junk, plot doesn't make sense, forgettable events or characters,
| lots of cruft and junk scenes, confusing dialogue, imagery
| doesn't make sense, etc. You would be surprised at how a seasoned
| producer can turn a pile of disconnected footage and have the
| actors rerecord some dialog after the fact and then turn it into
| an entirely different, much better film.
|
| I bet GPT-4 and others can easily make an early cut movie.
| Nothing great, but just a collection of scenes that someone who
| actually has some taste can piece together into a completed work.
| That sort of work is obviously scary for the industry where you
| have writers rooms developing this sort of stuff. Imagine it
| going from all the animators and writers required to write the
| Simpsons every week into just an automatic script where Matt
| Groening does some quick editing before it goes out. That would
| mean a huge reduction of jobs especially at the early career
| level. On top of that, how would you even become another Matt
| Groening caliber producer in that environment? The entire context
| of how the senior talent got their talent has been made obsolete,
| so once they are gone there's no one to fill the shoes quite the
| same way.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| A lot of what gets released as a final product is your
| description of an early cut. Most studios aren't making cinema
| anymore, they're making content for the sake of having
| something new to offer.
| not_enoch_wise wrote:
| Finally, the day when we can get dogshit blockbuster movies for
| 1/10th the cost has arrived!
| shric wrote:
| I know you were joking but "As of Apr 8, 2023, the average
| annual pay for a TV Writer in the United States is $62,837 a
| year." -- somehow eliminating writers isn't going to make much
| difference to the cost of a typical TV series.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| >The WGA proposed to regulate the use of artificial intelligence
| on union projects, saying that AI can't write or rewrite literary
| material,
|
| First, the literal wording of this is also means Grammarly and
| translation applications cannot be used.
|
| Second, the enforcement of this is very unclear. What happens if
| a film is halfway through production, and then _gasp_ it turns
| out a writer rewrote the screenplay using AI? You can 't use AI
| as source material, so arguably any use of that script or any
| work based off that script is "using AI as source material". Does
| the production just have to be cancelled? There's a problem here
| not only with proving that a writer DID use an AI, but proving
| that they DIDN'T and thus a production doesn't need to be burned
| to the ground.
|
| Third, how far do you take this? AI even before ChatGPT and LLM's
| is already broadly prevalent in writing, so what exactly
| establishes the pedigree of something as clean from the influence
| of vile AI?
|
| >It's very easy to imagine a situation in which a studio uses AI
| to generate ideas or drafts, claims those ideas are 'source
| material,' and hires a writer to polish it up for a lower rate.
|
| It's even easier to imagine a studio will simply continue hiring
| writers and buying drafts from writers using AIs. How can you
| possibly prove an idea came from an AI and not a person in the
| first place?
|
| >can't be used as source material or to train AI.
|
| How many studios are actually going to train their own AIs? What
| stops a studio or contractor from using an AI trained on such
| source material? Wouldn't it be more prudent to ban the use of
| AIs which were trained on WGA materials?
|
| This entire proposal seems to be based on the populist sentiment
| about creatives being the victims of both studios and AIs, so
| obviously we need to stop the studios from using AIs by banning
| AI usage in film productions. The problem is that the writers are
| the users of AIs and they're the only ones who know and can prove
| they used an AI in practice.
|
| I'm sure it's good politics because it leads to headlines like
| "GPT-4 Can't Replace Striking TV Writers, but Studios Are Going
| to Try".
| patapong wrote:
| I think you misunderstand. As I understand it, the WGA is very
| open to _writers_ using AI to help them in their work. The risk
| that the WGA is protecting their members against here is
| specifically a situation where a _studio_ uses an AI system to
| screw a writer out of certain rights with regards to a movie.
|
| There is a big difference in terms of pay and credits when a
| writer adapts source material (such as a book) compared to when
| they write a screenplay from scratch. The fear here is that the
| studio could circumvent the purpose of this difference by
| writing material using AI, and then hiring a writer to "adapt"
| this material as a screenplay. Or the studios could write a
| full AI-generated screenplay and hire a writer to "fix" it.
|
| In my opinion this is a relevant worry, and if I was a writer I
| would be happy that the WGA took this stance.
|
| More info here: https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/writers-
| guild-artificial-i... "Instead, the proposal would allow a
| writer to use ChatGPT to help write a script without having to
| share writing credit or divide residuals."
| [deleted]
| faeriechangling wrote:
| >As I understand it, the WGA is very open to _writers_ using
| AI to help them in their work
|
| I can't actually find a direct quotation of them actually
| saying they're open to this. Whereas I can find a direct
| quote of them saying "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."
|
| I also fail to see how a random studio executive who writes
| up a draft using an AI and hands it off to a professional
| writer to cleanup, isn't themselves a writer.
|
| It's also already possible to just hire some random person
| off the street, have them draft up a screenplay based on what
| an executive says, have them give up their copyright, and
| send it off to a writer for "Adaption". The only truly novel
| thing about AI is that it's cheaper and it's possible to
| produce creative works which are not copyrightable in the
| first place using AI, and if the contractual implications of
| this are the specific concern, the WGA should be far more
| narrow with their proclamations.
|
| Also what they say on twitter:
|
| "[AIs] output is not eligible for copyright protection, nor
| can an AI software program sign a certificate of authorship."
| Is literally wrong."
|
| Is not literally true, it's possible to produce both
| uncopyrightable or copyrightable work with an AI: https://www
| .federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
| patapong wrote:
| > It's also already possible to just hire some random
| person off the street, have them draft up a screenplay
| based on what an executive says, have them give up their
| copyright, and send it off to a writer for "Adaption".
|
| I don't think this is true. Any studio that has signed on
| to the WGA collective bargaining agreement can only hire
| WGA members to write. I am sure studios would love to do
| that otherwise and pay the writer less. Here the WGA has
| identified a new potential way of this occurring and is
| protecting against it.
|
| https://www.romanolaw.com/2022/11/11/what-to-know-when-
| hirin...
| [deleted]
| more_corn wrote:
| Too bad AI generated content cannot be copyrighted.
|
| We'll need to remember to sue first time they try.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Too bad AI generated content cannot be copyrighted.
|
| The Copyright Office opinion on that only states that is the
| case when there is _no_ human involvement beyond prompting, and
| in any case, with the Supreme Court likely to strike down
| _Chevron_ deference in _Loper Bright Enterprises_ v. _Raimondo_
| , that opinion may quite soon have very little weight.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| There's definitely a tension in my mind between the idea that
| prompts, which on their own could attract some level of
| copyright[1], _do not_ produce copyrightable elements in the
| output and the plaintiffs ' claims in the copyright lawsuits
| against LLM companies that training inputs _do_.
|
| I'm not sure which side I even agree with more, let alone
| which side has the stronger legal case (and the balance point
| will certainly be different in different jurisdictions).
|
| [1]: tweets are copyrightable (subject to the usual creative
| input, originally, etc requirements) and a detailed AI prompt
| can certainly be as involved as a tweet.
| dllthomas wrote:
| I don't have a well thought through opinion on what the
| resolution should be, but it seems hugely inconsistent that
| pointing my camera at whatever in my environment, with little
| thought or care or creativity, produces something copyright
| covers while carefully picking a prompt to get the sort of
| image I want out of a different sort of machine does not.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Sure it can, no one can tell what is human or not.
| coppsilgold wrote:
| The skill set to guide an LLM to the output you want is different
| from the skill set required to write from scratch. The current
| interfaces don't make it as seamless as it could be.
|
| Imagine writing a stream of bullet-points with no care taken for
| proper sentence structure and have the LLM convert them to
| properly written paragraphs of what you were trying to convey.
| And be able to determine if you have conflicts between bullet-
| points for you to fix.
|
| You may also be able to provide bullet-points on different
| scales/modes. Such as the overall setting of a story, specific
| dialogue between characters, character personalities, character
| views of each other, plot progression.
|
| Suddenly anyone who can have coherent thoughts (which is not a
| low bar) and some imagination will be able to synthesize what is
| in their mind onto paper in well written form.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| This isn't surprising I suppose. There's always been a conflict
| between the studios and the writers, but they needed writers. The
| first chance to get rid of them must be very appealing. No more
| arguments about artistic integrity, or adult references sneaked
| into a script, or anything edgy or controversial. No arguments
| when they want something rewritten 20 times.
|
| It must be like a dream come true!
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Yes they can and yes it will work, if they use the right
| technology.
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