The Luddites of Hollywood
The Hollywood writers’ strike, like most strikes, is about money. It is also, fundamentally, about technology. The rise of streaming platforms has not had happy consequences for the writers who satisfy the ever-growing demand for scripted content. According to the Writers Guild of America, the studios have transformed an industry that once supported stable writing careers into a gig economy of precarious, low-paying freelance work. And a new technological threat looms: AI-powered writing tools. The strikers are demanding a guarantee that the studios won’t cut them out of royalty payments by crediting AI tools like ChatGPT as authors of scripts or as source material. In their opposition to a technological shift widely deemed unstoppable, the writers inevitably invite comparisons to history’s most famous technophobes: the Luddites.
has long and alike have declared artificial intelligence to be the next inescapable technological revolution. And so the WGA’s demand to limit the use of AI in script writing is distinctly Luddite. How could a bunch of scrappy wordsmiths stand in the way of this world-conquering juggernaut?
