Under sunny skies and towering palm trees, sunglass-bespectacled screenwriters circle studio sidewalks, carrying “Writer's Strike!” signs scribbled with quips: “I told ChatGPT to write a picket sign and it sucked.” “Spoiler alert: you need writers.”
Here in Los Angeles, this ongoing strike has parts of the entertainment business and the Californian city stuck in slow gear. In May, the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) authorised a strike after failing to come to a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the organising coalition of Hollywood's studios and streaming services – Universal, Walt Disney Pictures, Amazon Studios and Netflix, among others. At the time of writing, SAG-AFTRA, the corresponding actors’ union, is expected to take similar action if a deal can't be worked out around similar concerns in the streaming era.
These disputes are primarily around the issues of streaming residuals, the ever-shrinking size of writing rooms, and the threat of generative AI – artificial intelligence that can create content such as text and images. Such clashes have slowed down traditional production in the entertainment capital
