How AI Took Center Stage In The Hollywood Writers' Strike

more than 11 000 Hollywood film and TV writers are on strike the first time a major writer's strike has put Hollywood on the brink of a full production shutdown but this could be the first one in which artificial intelligence plays a big role there are various tools that are trying to push the boundaries of what is possible whether it's third fourth fifth generation it's going to be very soon until we can literally just type in a prompt and see something as a consumer and you don't have to have any sort of skills as a visual effects artist or as someone in the entertainment industry oh here's why the generative potential of AI has emerged as a key issue in this year's writers strike [Applause] [Music] inside the life force behind your favorite Hollywood production may be fueled by upwards of 58 different entertainment guilds and unions these unions operate in tandem with one massive trade Association the alliance of motion picture and television producers or amptp which represents all major Studios and streaming platforms to stay on Pace with the ever-changing media landscape the studio Alliance and the Hollywood unions convene once every three years to establish minimum basic agreements past negotiations have tackled pension programs Health funds residual payments and minimum wage agreements of the many topics under consideration in this year's contract negotiations one nascent technology has entered the conversation for the first time artificial intelligence I hope I'm wrong but I do think that the use of AI is going to take over the entertainment industry and I think it's going to be really bad foreign the last wga strike in 2007 lasted a hundred days and cost California's economy approximately 2.1 billion dollars in Revenue when I was on the negotiating Committee of Screen Actors Guild around 0708 we were trying to get residuals for made for New Media that's what streamer was called then the studio said well it's so new we don't know if we're even going to make money on the internet I mean it's so untried so unproven and I said to the rest committee like we better get some real estate in here because this is just another way to distribute things after 14 months on the picket line wga Riders ratified a deal that granted the union jurisdiction over New Media and codified a system for creators to receive royalty payments from streamed content the hard-fought win laid a foundation for residual compensation before streaming took over as a leader in content distribution widespread consumer adoption of streaming has made it the new standard for entertainment but businesses operating in the space are struggling to achieve profitability today the only one we know that is cash flow positive is Netflix they've estimated there'll be about 3.5 billion dollars of free cash flow this year every other company out there if you think about it are losing money Disney Warner Bros Discovery losing billions and billions and billions of dollars a year and then you also have to scale this it's not enough to have a couple million subscribers it took Netflix getting to about 200 million subscribers before they got cash flow positive the platforms are trying to figure out what works best from their bottom line in the face of weak revenues streaming companies have been issuing layoffs bundling services and removing content from their platforms while content removal helps curtail balance sheet losses the action cuts off content creators from receiving residual profits often without any formal notification streaming platforms that are creating their own content in their own original they're constantly changing the way they license content they've jumped from service to service to service in New licensing deals some of those deals are are one year long some of them are multi-years every time a Content deal is done with a streaming platform or distribution it has a direct impact on on those that created the content Distributors producers writers actors because they're getting royalties based on that so they don't like that some content is being removed from streaming platforms because now they're not getting compensated for that anymore the Advent of streaming has granted audiences unprecedented access to massive libraries of on-demand content a modern luxury that could dampen how viewers feel the effects of a strike last time the Writers Guild struck was in 2007-2008. and everybody really felt it the audience felt it the studios felt it because if there wasn't new material being made there was nothing there's no streaming there was broadcast television there was cable television and there were movies now there's a strike and there are streaming sites where you can watch an almost unlimited amount of material while we're on strike so just in that way you can see how striking now has possibly less impact than when we struck in 07 and 08 with content generation imperative to the success of both writers and Studios the Advent of AI has thrown an unforeseen wrench into contract negotiations rather than an outright ban the wga has proposed guardrails for AI technology that aim to protect the working standards payment systems and authorship credit for writers as for the studios their statement on AI acknowledges ambiguity around the emerging technology and proposes annual discussions before landing on an official regulatory agreement the alliance's unwillingness to outline strict policies around generative AI tools has led to a stalemate as the wga takes to the picket line other entertainment unions have begun their own contract negotiations with the alliance the Director's Guild of America struck a contract agreement with the studios on the topic of AI both parties agreed that AI is not a person and that generative AI cannot replace the duties performed by members Alliance negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild are underway with the existing contract set to expire June 30th 2023 ahead of contract negotiations with the alliance The Screen Actors Guild voted in favor of a strike a proactive step in hopes of bringing more leverage to the bargaining table they maintain that using AI to replicate an actor's voice or likeness requires the performer's consent and compensation really I think the place that we are going to as a society is prompt to entertainment literally being able to type in I want to see an action movie and I want it to be funny and I want it to take place in Texas go and it spits out a movie this is Caleb Ward he's the founder of curious Refuge a production Hub and learning portal for AI filmmakers curious refuges viral videos have given millions of viewers a brief glimpse of what an AI film future may look like AI generates content through a digestive process the model takes in pre-existing content both copyright protected and public domain from this it produces an amalgamation of information the output looks new but comes from existing media and sources these tools are now teaching themselves based on those iterations and generating its own reference points now we're seeing works that you would never know what the inspiration Source was and it seemingly is something that's coming from thin air but it's being pulled from you know a million different resources and not just one writers will be able to show what the final product will look like in the writer's room that has never been possible before in the grand tapestry of Fate I'm less of a golden thread and more of a not and so I think writers now are going to have more power than ever before to direct these creative projects AI enthusiasts like Caleb see the technology as an equalizer that enables individuals with no experience in the entertainment industry to produce cinematic worlds creative tools like this have always evolved how we tell stories and I think that this is just a time of transition for us and so we're all going to learn how to use these tools soon I think the idea that AI would democratize entertainment is absolutely ridiculous what that's really saying is that the unskilled and the untalented would be able to pretend that they are skilled and talented as the alliance in the Union's hash out disputes over artificial intelligence a budding faction of AI filmmakers continues to take shape AI is a Hot Topic right now pretty much any industry out there when it comes to video you do have some people that are saying that they think it's going to replace writers or directors or production pre-production post-production so does anybody out there know what the impact of AI is going to be yet no it's far too early I look back in the days of when YouTube first started and there was this idea that because YouTube is this open platform and anyone can create videos that users themselves would replace Studios out there creating all their own content because it was free to upload it was free to stream but the reality is we're all looking for the best content eighty percent of your traffic comes from 20 of your content but with video it's storytelling and I believe you have to have a human to really tell that story

Channel: CNBC

Views: 337,401

Keywords: CNBC, business, news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, Stock market news, stocks, writers, writers strike, hollywood, striking, strikes, AI, artificial intelligence

Id: eK9QWB1OOro

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023