{"id":573196,"date":"2023-05-05T20:18:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T17:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/could-ai-pen-casablanca-screenwriters-take-aim-at-chatgpt\/"},"modified":"2023-05-05T20:18:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T17:18:14","slug":"could-ai-pen-casablanca-screenwriters-take-aim-at-chatgpt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/could-ai-pen-casablanca-screenwriters-take-aim-at-chatgpt\/","title":{"rendered":"#Could AI pen ‘Casablanca’? Screenwriters take aim at ChatGPT"},"content":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 When Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, was recently extolling the capabilities of artificial intelligence,<\/a> he turned to \u201cGame<\/a> of Thrones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine, he said, if you could use AI to rewrite the ending of that not-so-popular finale. Maybe even put yourself into the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what entertainment will look like,\u201d said Brockman.<\/p>\n

Not six months since the release of ChatGPT,<\/a> generative artificial intelligence is already prompting widespread unease throughout Hollywood. Concern over chatbots writing or rewriting script<\/a>s is one of the leading reasons TV and film screenwriters took to picket lines earlier this week.<\/a><\/p>\n

Though the Writers Guild of America is striking for better pay<\/a> in an industry where streaming has upended many of the old rules, AI looms as rising anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI is terrifying,\u201d said Danny Strong, the \u201cDopesick\u201d and \u201cEmpire\u201d creator. \u201cNow, I\u2019ve seen some of ChatGPT\u2019s writing and as of now I\u2019m not terrified because Chat is a terrible writer. But who knows? That could change.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI chatbots, screenwriters say, could potentially be used to spit out a rough first draft with a few simple prompts (\u201ca heist movie set in Beijing\u201d). Writers would then be hired, at a lower pay rate, to punch it up.<\/p>\n

Screenplays could also be slyly generated in the style of known writers. What about a comedy in the voice of Nora Ephron? Or a gangster film that sounds like Mario Puzo? You won’t get anything close to \u201cCasablanca\u201d but the barest bones of a bad Liam Neeson thriller isn’t out of the question.<\/p>\n

The WGA\u2019s basic agreement defines a writer as a \u201cperson\u201d and only a human\u2019s work can be copyrighted. But even though no one\u2019s about to see a \u201cBy AI\u201d writers credit at the beginning a movie, there are myriad ways that regenerative AI could be used to craft outlines, fill in scenes and mock up drafts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not totally against AI,\u201d says Michael Winship, president of the WGA East and a news<\/a> and documentary writer. \u201cThere are ways it can be useful. But too many people are using it against us and using it to create mediocrity. They\u2019re also in violation of copyright. They\u2019re also plagiarizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guild is seeking more safeguards on how AI can be applied to screenwriting. It says the studios are stonewalling on the issue. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on the behalf of production companies, has offered to annually meet with the guild to go over definitions around the fast-evolving technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that requires a lot more discussion, which we\u2019ve committed to doing,\u201d the AMPTP said in an outline of its position released Thursday.<\/p>\n

Experts say the struggle screenwriters are now facing with regenerative AI is just the beginning. The World Economic Forum this week released a report<\/a> predicting that nearly a quarter of all jobs will be disrupted by AI over the next five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a bellwether in the workers’ response to the potential impacts of artificial intelligence on their work,\u201d says Sarah Myers West, managing director of the nonprofit AI Now Institute<\/a>, which has lobbied the government to enact more regulation around AI. \u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me that a lot of the most meaningful efforts in tech accountability have been a product of worker-led organizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI has already filtered into nearly every part of moviemaking. It\u2019s been used to de-age actors, remove swear words from scenes in post-production, supply viewing recommendations on Netflix and posthumously bring back the voices of Anthony Bourdain<\/a> and Andy Warhol.<\/p>\n

The Screen Actors Guild, set to begin its own bargaining with the AMPTP this summer, has said it’s closely following the evolving legal landscape around AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman creators are the foundation of the creative industries and we must ensure that they are respected and paid for their work,\u201d the actors union said.<\/p>\n

The implications for screenwriting are only just being explored. Actors Alan Alda and Mike Farrell recently reconvened<\/a> to read through a new scene from \u201cM(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H” written by ChatGPT. The results weren\u2019t terrible, though they weren\u2019t so funny, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy have a robot write a script and try to interpret human feelings when we already have studio executives who can do that?\u201d deadpanned Alda.<\/p>\n

Writers have long been among notoriously exploited talents in Hollywood. The films they write usually don\u2019t get made. If they do, they\u2019re often rewritten many times over. Raymond Chandler once wrote \u201cthe very nicest thing Hollywood can possibly think to say to a writer is that he is too good to be only a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Screenwriters are accustomed to being replaced. Now, they see a new, readily available and inexpensive competitor in AI \u2014 albeit one with a slightly less tenuous grasp of the human condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, AI can\u2019t do what writers and humans can do. But I don\u2019t know that they believe that, necessarily,\u201d says screenwriter Jonterri Gadson (\u201cA Black Lady Sketchshow\u201d). \u201cThere needs to be a human writer in charge and we\u2019re not trying to be gig workers, just revising what AI does. We need to tell the stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dramatizing their plight as man vs. machine surely doesn’t hurt the WGA’s cause in public opinion. The writers are wrestling with the threat of AI just as concern widens over how hurriedly regenerative AI products has been thrust into society.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer, recently left Google<\/a> in order to speak freely about its potential dangers. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,\u201d Hinton told The New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s especially scary about it is nobody, including a lot of the people who are involved with creating it, seem to be able to explain exactly what it\u2019s capable of and how quickly it will be capable of more,\u201d says actor-screenwriter Clark Gregg.<\/p>\n

The writers finds themselves in the awkward position of negotiating on a newborn technology with the potential for radical effect. Meanwhile, AI-crafted songs<\/a> by \u201cFake Drake\u201d or \u201cFake Eminem\u201d continue to circulate online.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re afraid that if the use of AI to do all this becomes normalized, then it becomes very hard to stop the train,\u201d says James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and information law at Cornell University. \u201cThe guild is in the position of trying to imagine lots of different possible futures.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that way, the long work stoppage that many are expecting \u2014 Moody\u2019s Investor Service forecasts that the strike may last three months or longer \u2014 could offer more time to analyze how regenerative AI might reshape screenwriting.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, chanting demonstrators are hoisting signs with messages aimed at a digital foe. Seen on the picket lines: \u201cChatGPT doesn’t have childhood trauma”; \u201cI heard AI refuses to take notes\u201d; and \u201cWrote ChatGPT this.\u201d ___ Associated Press Writer Krysta Fauria in Los Angeles and Robert Bumsted and Aron Ranen in New York contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter<\/a> at: http:\/\/twitter.com\/jakecoyleAP<\/p>\n

Originally published <\/span>