# Writers Guild of America goes on strike (5/2/23) tentative deal (9/25/23) Now accepted (10/9/23) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** ai\ **Created:** [May 2, 2023, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448 "2023-05-02T04:36:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/61 "2023-05-05T14:17:49Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > We want to be able to retire comfortably; but we also want other people to live their best lives. We don’t maximize for one thing, we balance competing concerns. If we get a smaller return on our financial investment, but we get a society with less poverty, that’s a trade-off we’re willing to make. Yeah, I always see that as a question as to whether you want to live in a better world, or do you want to have a slightly better place in a shittier world. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/62 "2023-05-05T16:32:55Z")
…I tired a quick thought experiment. Warning: the rest of this post will contain the use of the f@ck word, repeatedly. There was a classic scene in the television show called the Wire where the two characters, Bunk and McNulty, have a conversation in a crime scene where the only word they use is the word “fuck.” Here’s the transcript of the scene: > **[​The Wire (Ft. David Simon) – Cursing Scene](https://genius.com/The-wire-cursing-scene-annotated)** > > This scene was inspired by something Ed Burns once said that detectives can eventually communicate with each other by just using the word “fuck”. And here’s the scene itself: (Spoilered because the link contains excessive use of the f-word, as well as a photograph containing brief nudity) [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3n34oj](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3n34oj) I set ChatGPT the task of recreating this scene: > [@Chat](#): > > Write a short script with a conversation between two characters named Bunk and McNulty. They are both cops. They can only use the word fuck. > > ChatGPT > > Bunk and McNulty are standing outside a crime scene, smoking cigarettes. > > Bunk: Fuckin’ shit, McNulty. This is some fucked up shit we got ourselves into. > > McNulty: Fuck yeah, Bunk. This is a real clusterfuck. What the fuck happened here? > > Bunk: Looks like a drug deal gone wrong. There’s bodies all over the place. > > McNulty: Fuck me, man. This is a real shitshow. We gotta get to the bottom of this. > > Bunk: Yeah, but how the fuck are we gonna do that? We don’t have shit for evidence. > > McNulty: Fuck if I know, Bunk. But we gotta start somewhere. Let’s go talk to some witnesses. > > Bunk: Fuckin’ A, McNulty. Let’s get to work. > > No, this isn’t what I’m looking for. They can only use the word fuck. Nothing else. you can add narrative description if you like to add context: but the only word they can use is the word fuck. The context here is both detectives are investigating a crime scene. > > ChatGPT > > Bunk and McNulty stand outside the crime scene, looking around at the mess before them. > > Bunk: “Fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, this is some fucked up shit.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ A, it is.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, there’s blood everywhere.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ right there is.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, how did this even happen?” > > McNulty: “Fuck if I know, Bunk. We gotta find out who the fuck did this.” > > Bunk: “Yeah, we gotta find some fucking clues or some shit.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ right we do. Let’s get to work.” > > The two detectives start searching for clues, muttering “fuck” under their breath as they go. It’s just another day on the job for these two seasoned cops, and they’re not going to let a little bit of fuckery get in their way. > > No this isn’t correct. Every word in the scene has to be the word fuck. They cannot say any other word except fuck. > > ChatGPT > > My apologies, I misunderstood your request earlier. Here’s a short script with a conversation between Bunk and McNulty where every word is “fuck”. > > Bunk and McNulty stand outside a crime scene, looking around at the mess before them. > > Bunk: “Fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ right, fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck this shit, man.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ A, fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, we gotta find out who the fuck did this.” > > McNulty: “Fuck yeah, we do. Let’s start fuckin’ investigating.” > > Bunk: “Fuckin’ right, let’s do it.” > > The two detectives start searching for clues, muttering “fuck” under their breath as they go. It’s just another day on the job for these two seasoned cops, and they’re not going to let a little bit of fuckery get in their way. > > You almost got it. But you used words other than fuck. The ONLY word they can use is the word fuck. > > ChatGPT > > My apologies for the mistake earlier. Here is a revised script with only the word “fuck”: > > Bunk and McNulty stand outside a crime scene, looking around at the mess before them. > > Bunk: “Fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ right, fuck.” > > Bunk: “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” > > McNulty: “Fuckin’ A, fuck. We gotta fuckin’ find out who the fuck did this.” > > Bunk: “Fuckin’ right, fuck. Let’s start fuckin’ investigating.” > > McNulty: “Fuck yeah, let’s do it. We gotta fuckin’ solve this fuckin’ crime.” > > The two detectives start searching for clues, muttering “fuck” under their breath as they go. It’s just another day on the job for these two seasoned cops, and they’re not going to let a little bit of fuckery get in their way. The AI is really struggling here. And this is why I take any predictions that AI will be “better than a human script writer in a couple of years” with a huge grain of salt. I can’t see that happening. It will be “better” in one way only: speed. But what the AI is missing is this: > [@Vulture](#): > > We’re standing at a crime scene. We’re staring, and cops are just cursing left and right. Somebody said something that was so profanity laden that Terry McLarney just started giggling and saying, “One day we’re going to get to the point where we’re all going to be able to just use the word fuck to communicate.” And it was just a throwaway line for Terry, but I remembered it. So, I came to Ed with it, and then Ed wrote that scene. > > … > > He was telling David, basically, these homicide things are so matter-of-fact, it just becomes a matter of grunts. I wrote it, and I used four variations of the word fuck: “What the fuck? Oh, fuck. Fucked up.” But just four, and the actors were uncomfortable with the four lines, so then he was like, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” and I asked the director, “Just give me the one. Get them to do the fucking job that they’re being paid for,” and I went to them and I said, “We need the one.” It turns out that David used the “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” which, to me, is like, wait a minute, the scene is about this harmony of doing an investigation and they’re so used to it. But we ended up with the “Fuck, fuck, fuck” because it was a little bit, apparently, more fun. I didn’t particularly see it that way, but it was fine. > > … > > He explained the whole scene to us. He said, “Now you guys are going to do that whole thing, but they’re going to be on me about the profanity and language that we use.” So, I said, “Let’s just come out the box with it.” He said, “You’re going to do that whole scene, but the only word you can say is ‘fuck.’” I said, “What?” > > … > > I tell folks, “Study that if you want to study what intent is,” because everyone understood exactly what we were doing at every moment, even though we were using just that one word or [a] variation thereof. [‘The Wire’: An Oral History of the ‘Fuck’ Scene](https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/the-wire-oral-history-fuck-scene.html#:~:text=Television%20had%20never%20seen%20anything,Year%20on%20the%20Killing%20Streets). That last quote is important. “everyone understood exactly what we were doing at every moment, even though we were using just that one word or [a] variation thereof.” ChatGPT doesn’t understand _any_ of this. It can’t write the scene properly because what its lacks is the life experiences that the writers and the actors and the directors bring to the table. David Simon was a crime reporter before he moved into television. He’s been on crime scenes. He knows cops, what they say, what they do. And without what he bought to the table here, if he hadn’t heard that cop stream of profanity, if the detective he was with hadn’t said “this would be a great scene”, if everyone didn’t understand the subtle differences in tone and inflection that made everything understandable in that scene even though the only word they said was “fuck”, then this wouldn’t have come together. AI can’t replace this. Because “garbage in, garbage out.” If you take the David Simons and the JMS’s and the Lindelof’s and the Shonda Rhimes and the Waller-Bridges out of the writers room, and if plot outlines are created by producers and passed onto an “expert AI prompter” to create the scripts then handed to a team of junior writers who “tidy” the scripts up, you lose the _magic_. I’m sure that AI will improve. And a better person at writing prompts than I will get something much closer to the intent of the scene. But if your prompts get you close to this scene…you may as well _just write the scene_. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/63 "2023-05-05T16:33:36Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Admittedly I didn’t read much more as my brain started to hurt. You seem to have been taking it very seriously, while I read it as absurdist comedy. Which I thought it did brilliantly. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/64 "2023-05-05T16:36:22Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Which reminds me of the cliche of the person who comes up to a famous writer and says “I have a great idea for a novel. I’ll tell it to you, you write it, and we’ll split the profits 50/50.” > > I suppose now the person with the Great Idea For A Novel could get ChatGPT to do the writing, and see how that turns out. I often think something similar for the images I generate–they would make great covers/illustrations for a science fiction stories, if only somebody would write them… ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/65 "2023-05-05T17:05:47Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > The AI is really struggling here. And this is why I take any predictions that AI will be “better than a human script writer in a couple of years” with a huge grain of salt. I can’t see that happening. It will be “better” in one way only: speed. I don’t understand why people think that what we see now from AI is anything like what we will see in a few years. AI is advancing very quickly, and not just in speed, but in complexity. Will it surpass human writers in two years? Probably many of them, if not most. Will it surpass _all_ human writers in two years? Probably not. Give it ten years, or twenty, and you really don’t think that AI will have improved substantially by then? > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > If you take the David Simons and the JMS’s and the Lindelof’s and the Shonda Rhimes and the Waller-Bridges out of the writers room What if you replaced them with 5 year old copies of those writers. Would you say that their inability to create such a complex scene means that they never can? AI will also gain experiences, anything a human can learn, an AI can as well. And it can do it faster, and it can then copy those experiences so that not only one agent understands what is going on, but all of them. Anyone underestimating AI is going to be left in the dust. It’s not just the writers who will be replaced, but most of the executives and managers as well. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > If you take the David Simons and the JMS’s and the Lindelof’s and the Shonda Rhimes and the Waller-Bridges out of the writers room, and if plot outlines are created by producers and passed onto an “expert AI prompter” to create the scripts then handed to a team of junior writers who “tidy” the scripts up, you lose the _magic_. Typically, the idea would be to have a _senior_ writer, one of your Simons’s or JMS’s et al to produce the prompt and to tidy it up. The junior writers get laid off. Obvious downside to this is that your senior writers will eventually retire or die, and since you don’t have any junior writers, you don’t have anyone with experience to take on the position of senior writer. But by then, AI may be good enough that it doesn’t really need that either. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > And a better person at writing prompts than I will get something much closer to the intent of the scene. But if your prompts get you close to this scene…you may as well _just write the scene_. I know the scene well, and I don’t think that it was the writing that carried that scene, but the acting. Anyway, this strike isn’t going to change anything. The production companies that agree to the terms are going to hobble themselves, and new ones that use AI will out compete them. They will be able to make stuff faster and cheaper, and not every scene of The Wire was the same quality as the “f@ck” scene, and not every show that people watch is the same quality as The Wire. Shows like Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men being as popular as they were should show you the quality that people are not only willing to accept, but actually seek out. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/66 "2023-05-05T19:47:11Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > Generally this sort of thing happens because there are enough people willing to work for the low compensation and in the terrible working conditions True, but why should it be considered a bad thing for workers to push back against such exploitation? “I can find enough people to work for starvation wages and shitty conditions so that I don’t have to offer anything better to anyone” is not a management position to which workers are ethically or practically obligated to acquiesce. > [@glowacks](#): > > I have literally no sympathy for anyone who could simply quit and get a job doing something else that’s paying great wages because there aren’t enough workers in the rest of the economy, but stays doing their shitty job for shitty wages because they like being a creative person. That seems to me like an idiotically and gratuitously punitive position to take. I think we all understand and accept that not all careers will be equally lucrative, but I think it’s hugely detrimental to creatives, the arts, and society as a whole for us just to complacently accept the view that “being a creator in the arts automatically implies doing a shitty job for shitty wages, if you don’t like that then don’t work in the arts”. Yeah, look how well that attitude is working for us with schoolteaching, to take another example. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/67 "2023-05-05T20:05:12Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > The production companies that agree to the terms are going to hobble themselves, and new ones that use AI will out compete them. This is another pious libertarian orthodoxy (“whatever management wants to do must be complied with or the company will go under!”), but it’s not necessarily true. I don’t think anybody’s trying to prohibit writers themselves from using AI if and as they want to, so their employers are not going to be shut out of the benefits of AI use. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/68 "2023-05-05T20:17:55Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > This is another pious libertarian orthodoxy (“whatever management wants to do must be complied with or the company will go under!”), I neither invoked such an orthodoxy, nor find your phrasing of it accurate. It’s more just acknowledging of reality. Having union jobs was great for the US, but it also mean that manufacturing overseas was cheaper, which meant fewer union jobs in the the US. Same issue here, having union writers is great, for the writers that have jobs, but it also means that companies that don’t have union writers will have an advantage. So fewer companies that use union writers will stay in business, and there will be fewer union writers. There’s only so much protectionism you can do before the market simply shifts elsewhere. > [@Kimstu](#): > > I don’t think anybody’s trying to prohibit writers themselves from using AI if and as they want to, so their employers are not going to be shut out of the benefits of AI use. The point is that AI is useful as a leverage tool, increasing productivity. And if it allows one writer to be ten times more productive, that means you only need 10% of the writers. We see it in every industry that automates or computerizes. In the 80’s tons of accountants got laid off because a person with a single copy of Lotus 1,2,3 could do the work of an entire floor of people with physical double entry ledgers. I don’t think that we will be getting rid of writers anytime soon (though “soon” there may be looking at a 10 year horizon at best), but we will probably be laying off 90% of them. And keep in mind that along with writers, AI is going to be replacing 90% of the management staff as well. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/69 "2023-05-05T20:31:57Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Having union jobs was great for the US, but it also mean that manufacturing overseas was cheaper The main thing that made “Third World” manufacturing so much cheaper than American was Americans’ much higher standard of living. (Also massive fossil-fuel subsidies that made low-cost manufactured goods shipped halfway around the world cheaper than American-made versions from the next county.) > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I don’t think that we will be getting rid of writers anytime soon (though “soon” there may be looking at a 10 year horizon at best), but we will probably be laying off 90% of them. If you’re talking about writers of generic boilerplate copy, especially people whose native language isn’t English tasked with producing, say, ad copy or assembly instructions in English, I completely agree. If you’re talking about long-format creative work like writing a TV show, I’m not at all so sure. Again, I definitely see how managers who imagine that creative writing is just a matter of getting a certain number of properly formatted reasonably relevant words into a document may be spoojing themselves at the notion of getting a chatbot to perform that task instantaneously for free, but I’m not convinced their optimism is warranted. What the WGA seems (not unreasonably IMHO) to be concerned about is the prospect of managerial optimism on the AI front leading to firings of writers and enshittification of the medium before the complicated reality dawns on them. Managerial optimism about particular technological advancements isn’t always warranted in the near term, as leaders of several autonomous-vehicle startups could tell you. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/70 "2023-05-06T00:55:51Z")
I was driven by Sony Studios (which I still want to call MGM) yesterday morning on my way to the ER, and I saw the picketers. I gave them a big thumbs up. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/71 "2023-05-06T01:26:10Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > You say that like it’s a bad thing; why shouldn’t someone be upset if their job is replaced by automation? I’m sure they’d be upset, just as someone gets upset if they get fired from a job for any reason. The question is, should not upsetting people override doing things better? If you do a job at half the efficiency of someone else, should I keep you on anyway to keep you from being upset over being fired? > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Part of the issue is fear of AI producing derivative works _by parasitizing/plagiarising existing works_ by human writers. Plagiarism is a specific thing, having to do with directly copying someone else’s work or a major part of it and claiming it as your own. ‘Parasitizing’ isn’t a thing. An AI producing an artwork after having looked at someone else’s artwork is no different than a human doing the same. So long as the art is different, it doesn’t matter who influenced the artist. Some jhuman artists are clearly from certain ‘schools’ that lean heavily on the work of previous artists. Why isn’t that plagiarism or ‘parasitism’? Ever heard the phrase “If I can see farther than most, it’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.” It’s a reference to the fact that everyone leans on the works of the past. Why should AI be different? It isn’t actually copying and storing those works, you know. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Depends. Do I have a Soap Opera Disease that will shuffle me off this mortal coil in a few months, or do I expect my retirement to last at least a decade or two? That has a rather large impact on my preference for short-term vulture capitalism versus long-term infrastructure building. How so? Are you admitting that you want your retirement fund to be a fiduciary maximizer of your investment, as opposed to being a quasi combination of investment and charity? Why wouldn’t you just maximize your investment and use the money to invest in the charity of your choice? > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …well, no. “Vulture capitalism” is exactly as described. It isn’t about “the search for efficiency and growing markets.” Its the utterly misguided belief that the size of the market will forever go up. That the goal is to extract as much wealth out of the system before it crashes. Can you point me to this definition? Or is this your definition? > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > It leads to what happened to K-mart, to Toys R US You mean they went out of business because their business models became outdated and others came along and offered better products, or the same products for better prices and more convenient shopping? Consumers voted with their feet on all of those, and for good reason. It wasn’t ‘vulture capitalism’, it was just capitalism - people investing in a better, cheaper way to do things, and making it happen. You realize that K-mart faced the same criticisms, right? They were responsible for killing the corner drugstore, the neighborhood hardware store, etc. Do you think the introduction of K-Mart was also ‘vulture capitalism’? Was it Vulture Capitalism when Netflix killed Blockbuster? Should we have prevented Netflix from crushing a huge business and putting tens of thousands of people out of work? > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > The gig economy hasn’t increased the standard of living for the people who now have to rely upon it to survive. It drove down wages. It drove down worker protections. It put health insurance out of reach. It made a few already rich people significantly richer. But it wasn’t an “engine that bought _everyone_ great increases in their standard of living.” For a not insignificant amount of people their standard of living declined. Then why do so many people choose it? To ask the question is to answer it: People choose the gig economy because of flexibility, being able to be their own boss, etc. The unemployment rate is below 4%. If you don’t want to be a gig worker, don’t be a gig worker. The idea that a government should pass a law to stop you from working a job you chose for ‘your own good’ is despicable. Everyone has their own unique goals and requirements. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Except not every " technological change in history" was the result of “people trying to make a profit.” And even if that _were_ true, there is a difference between a sustainable business plan and the kind-of-nonsense we are seeing from the robber barrons today. I never said that technological change always comes from a profit motive. For example, plenty of technological change has happened as we’ve tried to kill more people in war. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Its called a “negotiation.” This isn’t “special protection.” Why _shouldn’t_ the writers be able to negotiate for a deal that works best not only for them, but for people like us who want to watch interesting, entertaining television not driven by an algorithm? Oh, they absolutely should be able to. They aren’t essential workers. Strike away. I just question whether or not their demands should be accepted. Trying to keep AI out of writing seems like a fool’s errand, and either AI won’t help, in which case the strike is not needed, or AI would help greatly, in which case shackling themselves to human-only output could severely harm streaming services compared to their competition. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > I very much want the AI Corporate Overlords to stop using my photography without my permission, and I hope that the various lawsuits in place right now are successful. In many cases AI will make things orders of magnitude _worse_ for customers. “Where will it stop” isn’t a valid argument. Its just hand-waving. I like Yousef Karsh’s photography. It’s influenced my portraits. I often try to set up lighting and conditions to come close to what Karsh did. Do I owe something to Karsh’s estate? I wouldn’t be taking the portraits I take in tyhe way I take them if I hadn’t studied Karsh. If an AI learns the same way, then comes up with unique photos of its own, how is this any different? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/72 "2023-05-06T02:05:25Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m skeptical that an AI like ChatGPT could write a decent script. Has anyone tried it? I’d like read the results, The thing is, the WGA wants to get on this early before it’s too late to draw the boundaries. Someday, of course there will no longer be any boundaries, but in the meantime–“an ounce of prevention” and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/73 "2023-05-06T02:24:16Z")
Are the writers themselves allowed to use AI? Maybe not for final output, but for drafts, outlines, character sketches, storyboards, etc? If so, should the writer take a pay cut if AI makes them twice as productive? Sauce for the goose, and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/74 "2023-05-06T03:50:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > How so? Are you admitting that you want your retirement fund to be a fiduciary maximizer of your investment, as opposed to being a quasi combination of investment and charity? > > Why wouldn’t you just maximize your investment and use the money to invest in the charity of your choice? When did building business infrastructure (e.g. maintaining a skilled labor force that attracts sufficient newcomers to remain self-sustaining) become a “charity”? You know, _most_ attempts at presenting a straw man argument dress up the straw man sufficiently that someone just might possibly mistake it for a real person, but you do you… ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/75 "2023-05-06T04:07:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I don’t understand why people think that what we see now from AI is anything like what we will see in a few years. AI is advancing very quickly, and not just in speed, but in complexity. …its very much like the “self-driving car” situation. We’ve been promised that “full self-driving” would be “just around the corner” since 2014. But it isn’t for a variety of reasons. The “fantasy” and the reality are two different things. So I see AI script writing developing the very same way I saw full-self-driving develop: the tech-bros will say that it will “change the world”, and in many places, like copy-writing and some areas of design, it might have _significant_ impact. But when it comes to telling stories? There are significant barriers to overcome, and those some of those barriers are exactly the same as you see with self-driving cars. AI doesn’t have an _imagination_. Outside the parameters of its algorithm, it literally can’t think outside the box. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Will it surpass human writers in two years? Probably many of them, What does this even mean? No I mean seriously, what are your benchmarks here? I’ve already conceded that the AI scriptwriter would be _faster_. The AI literally put together the Wire script in _seconds_. AI wins here. It’s faster than every other scriptwriter in the world right _now_. So what are the metrics here? And who is setting those metrics? Because obviously if the “success” or the “failure” of AI scriptwriting is determined by the studios, then they will withhold any information (like they are doing now) that says otherwise. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > What if you replaced them with 5 year old copies of those writers. I’m sorry, but how are you imagining that this would work? How do you copy a writer? > [@k9bfriender](#): > > AI will also gain experiences, anything a human can learn, an AI can as well. And it can do it faster, and it can then copy those experiences so that not only one agent understands what is going on, but all of them. This isn’t something that will happen in our lifetimes. We are not going to have an AI be able to experience the same things that David Simon has lived through. An AI will never do a ride-along with a cop. Will never smell the stench of a crime scene, feel the tension during an interrogation. The AI might _learn_ about these things. But where will it learn it from? From writers like David Simon. The people that have actually _done_ this shit. And the AI will never write about this shit as good as a human will because it doesn’t understand it. It hasn’t lived, or breathed, or felt any of these things. And when it comes to telling stories, this makes all the difference. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Anyone underestimating AI is going to be left in the dust. It’s not just the writers who will be replaced, but most of the executives and managers as well. The executives are very much not going to give away their jobs. They won’t be underestimating AI. They will embrace it, and use it to substantially profit from it right up until the point the industry becomes unsustainable and collapses. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Typically, the idea would be to have a _senior_ writer, one of your Simons’s or JMS’s et al to produce the prompt and to tidy it up. The junior writers get laid off. I’m not sure the executives would see it that way. For starters: there isn’t single senior writer at this level in the guild right now who would work in this system. They are _writers_ for goodness sakes. They write. Its what they do. There may be some utility to using AI in some capacity, and the WGA haven’t discounted this. But none of the writers at this level are stupid enough to think that taking a position like this will do anything more than bring the whole industry down. Because: > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Obvious downside to this is that your senior writers will eventually retire or die, and since you don’t have any junior writers, you don’t have anyone with experience to take on the position of senior writer. This isn’t “just a downside.” It’s the entire point of the strike. What the guild are fighting for is a system that means that a writer can afford to be able to do this for a living, and to ensure that the pipeline for new writers doesn’t get shut down. The AI thing is just kinda the icing on the cake. The damage is already being done. AI would finish the job. The system as it worked as short as ten years ago meant that writers had some measure of job security, that there was room and scope to be innovative and creative and also allowed junior writers to learn on the job. But over the last few years, and especially since the start of the pandemic, the studios have been trying (and largely succeeding) in changing those dynamics. And probably the easiest ways to show exactly how that is happening is to look at what is happening with the Marvel TV shows. In the traditional model you might get a writer or a writing team pitch an idea for a show, and if it goes into development, a Showrunner is appointed, they build a writers room, and they start the process of [breaking the story](https://screencraft.org/blog/5-ways-to-break-story-for-your-movie-or-tv-show-idea/). Breaking the story is a critical part of the process. It’s how the show _defines_ itself. It’s how a script or a show becomes _more_ than just the log-line. From there different writers would get allocated their episodes to write…but that doesn’t mean that the writer then disappears to a log cabin and knocks out their scripts overnight. The continue to break the story…this time instead of the breaking the direction of the show they are breaking down the direction of each script. They work through many the plot beats together, making sure the themes and the tone and the characters match the blueprint. When the show goes into production, the Showrunner is still in charge. The Showrunner in television is the boss. They almost always come from the writers room. They are responsible for the show. In film the director calls the shots. When we think of film, we think of the Steven Speilbergs or the Alfred Hitchcocks, we don’t think of the Matt Charman’s or the Joseph Stefano’s. In television that dynamic is reversed. Its the J . Michael Straczynski’s or the Joss Whedons that are the household names, not the David J Eagles or the David Grossmans. In television, the Showrunner manages the production. They keep the story on track. And the writers are still very much part of the production. In the traditional model, one of the writers was always on set, typically the writer of that particular episode, but not always. And the reason for this was two-fold: it allows the script to be re-written or new lines added as need be, and it gives the writer valuable experience in what actually happens when their script goes into production. So what model do the studios want to move towards? There is a move to make a clear demarcation between the writers room and everything else. And we can see this most clearly with the Marvel TV shows. Each Marvel show gets allocated a couple of executive producers. For the Falcon and the Winter Soldier it was Alonso and D’Esposito. For Ms Marvel it was Alonso and Winderbaum. They oversee the production, taking on many of the roles that you would typically see being done by the Showrunner. And the way each show was produced was much closer to a feature film production than a television show. The scripts would get written, then handed to the production team where the directors would take over. The “Creator” of each show doesn’t really fill the role of Showrunner any more. They are the Head Writer, they lead the writers room, they hand over the finished scripts to the production team then the _director_ takes charge, with the executive producers overseeing the process. On paper, this could work. And I think that the best of the Marvel TV shows (IMHO), Wandavision and Loki, show how it could work. Both of these shows (along with Falcon and the Winter Soldier) only had a single director, Kate Herron for Loki, Matt Shakman for Wandavision and Kari Skogland for FATWS. And that singularity of vision made a strong difference because as a story, Wandavision and Loki both held together tonally from beginning to end. So in theory, this model could work. But the realities of making a television show quickly caught up with Marvel. Episodes of television have to go through a pre-production process, then go into production, then into post. So in television you would have all of these things happening at the same time. One director would be working pre-production, another director on location shooting the show, another director working with the editing team helping them to put it together. And so the television show Ms Marvel didn’t have a single director. It had three different directing teams, all of them extremely talented and very good at what they do, but they weren’t singing from the “same songbook.” The two episodes directed by El Arbi and Fallah (episode 1 and episode 6) work really well together. So do the episodes by Obaid-Chinoy (episodes 4 and 6), and to a lesser extent (but not in any way her fault) the two episodes by Menon (episodes 2 and 3). But as a whole? The show doesn’t work. Entire character arcs are introduced, played out and ended in the blink of an eye. Tonally things are all over the place. The playful sense of delight that we get in the first episode just disappears and doesn’t really come back until the finale. Its a mess. Because the “showrunners” here, the executive producers, are working from within a box. They paint with a broad brush. Fortunately they are fans of the genre, very experienced at what they do, so what we got wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But they literally don’t have the same skllset that a Showrunner from the writers room would have. And part of that job is making sure that once a show goes into production things adjust and pivot and are tweaked so that the story continues to make sense. They see the bigger picture because they _created_ that bigger picture. The directors can’t see that picture, because they are only seeing what is happening in the episodes they direct. And the producers can’t see that picture because that _isn’t_ what they are good at. And the thing is…I LOVE Ms Marvel. I think the show is great. Its one of my favourite Marvel things ever. And one of the reasons why it works for me is that _despite_ the fact the story just falls apart, there is a genuine passion for telling comicbook stories baked into the Marvel infrastructure, they had rediculous amounts of money (in TV terms) that were spent on every episode, and that Marvel have made a genuine and ongoing committment to giving opportunities to and allowing diverse talent (both in front of and behind the camera) to step up and tell their stories. That wouldn’t be how it worked _outside_ of “fandom” lead studios like Marvel and Star Wars and (now with James Gunn) DC. It wouldn’t be the Senior Writer who would be at the top of the production any more. Because none of them will cross the picket line. It will be, just like with the Marvel shows, the executive producers. Writers won’t be doing the pitches: new shows will be pitched at the EP level based probably on whatever it is the algorithm spits out. Breaking the story will also probably be done at this level, with the EP and a group of consultants tweaking the plot outlines to maximize whatever they determine is their metric of success, be it “watch minutes” or “impressions” or whatever the heck they come up with. Its only then that it would get handed over to the writers. And it probably won’t be a “writers room” as we know it today. We’ve already seen the rise of the “mini-room.” What it will evolve into (if the studios get their way) are underpaid junior writers who are largely disconnected from the larger process using AI to flesh out the plot-outlines handed to them from the EP’s into a somewhat shootable script. We won’t be getting the Sopranos or Lost or The Bear or Abbott Elementary anymore. Because the intent here is to cut costs to the bone. And at the moment, with all of the cuts the studios have already put in place, many writers are struggling to put food on the table. The writer for the TV show the Bear had no money in his bank account and had to get a bow-tie on credit when he turned up to accept the prize for best writer at the WGA awards. Thats with the system as it is now. If the studios get their way then people like Christopher Storer end up having to walk away from the industry. And the other thing that will get killed if the studios get their way is that there will be no path for anyone who _isn’t_ independently wealthy to ever work on a television show. It will utterly _destroy_ diversity. Film and television are already the domain of largely white men. And you will only ever be able to work in film or television if _pay is not a factor_. We’ve seen how this plays out in industry after industry. And the end result is homogeneity, not just because much of the writing tasks will be undertaken by a computer, but also because diverse and marginalized voices will be locked out of the system. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I know the scene well, and I don’t think that it was the writing that carried that scene, but the acting. The scene _would never exist_ if not for the writers. Television isn’t improv. The script is the blueprint. It what drives the entire production. The script is what everybody works off to create a televison show. The Art Director uses it as the basis of how to create a set. The Prop Master uses it to figure out what is needed in the scene. The script isn’t just “lines on the page.” Any production at any scale is a Behemoth, a thousand different moving parts and the only reason we ever get something enjoyable on screen is because hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, all working in a weird kind of synergy, _are very good at their jobs_. But the script is at the centre of it all. And if you start changing the process, if the creation of the blueprint is handed off to in-experienced and automated architects, then that affects _everything_. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > The production companies that agree to the terms are going to hobble themselves, The goal of the strike is not to “hobble the production companies”, and there is absolutely nothing in any of the WGA demands that would result in this. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > They will be able to make stuff faster and cheaper, They would be able to make stuff faster and cheaper and very much more _crappier_. You know the golden rule. If you have “fast and cheap” you can’t have “good.” And the system the studio want to bring in will largely result in the production of even more garbage than you are seeing right now. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Shows like Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men being as popular as they were should show you the quality that people are not only willing to accept, but actually seek out. Shows like the Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men were written by human writers, lead by an experienced showrunner, with properly staffed writers rooms, all had full seasons of television and were written in the very system that the WGA are trying to defend. If the studios win we won’t be getting more of the Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men. Instead we get “Friends and the Avocado Invasion”, a 10 episode limited series only available if you subscribe to Nixflix, that will get filmed, get most of the way through post-production before getting shelved because the streaming company wants to take advantage of a tax loophole. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2023, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/76 "2023-05-06T05:21:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Can you point me to this definition? Or is this your definition? …I’ll point you back to John Rogers series of tweets where the context is pretty clear, the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_capitalist) entry, and the case that I make below which outlines what _really_ happened to Toys R Us. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You mean they went out of business because their business models became outdated and others came along and offered better products, or the same products for better prices and more convenient shopping? Nope. > [@The Fool](#): > > The death of Toys R Us did not come due to increased competition from the internet. It died – at least in the United States – **because the company had a tremendous amount of debt due to a leveraged buyout used to take the company private.** That stopped the retailer from investing in its stores at a time when demand faltered and major retailers lowered. > **[Remember, This Is What Actually Killed Toys R Us | The Motley Fool](https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/14/remember-this-is-what-actually-killed-toys-r-us.aspx)** > > The company went bankrupt and closed its U.S. stores, but don’t blame the internet. > [@CNN](#): > > oys “R” Us’ debt problems date back to well before Amazon ([AMZN](http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=AMZN&source=story_quote_link)) was a major threat. Its debt was downgraded to junk bond status in January of 2005, at a time when Amazon’s sales were just 4% of their current level. > > A year later the company was [taken private](http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/17/news/fortune500/toysrus/?iid=EL) by KKR, Bain Capital and real estate firm Vornado. The $6.6 billion purchase left it with $5.3 billion in debt secured by its assets and it never really recovered. > **[Amazon didn't kill Toys 'R' Us. Here's what did](https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/toys-r-us-closing-blame/index.html)** > > It wasn't Amazon and the growth of online shopping that killed Toys 'R' Us. It was a bad store experience and unaffordable debt that ultimately doomed the company. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Consumers voted with their feet on all of those, and for good reason. It wasn’t ‘vulture capitalism’, it was just capitalism - people investing in a better, cheaper way to do things, and making it happen. It was the vulture capitalism. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You realize that K-mart faced the same criticisms, right? They were responsible for killing the corner drugstore, the neighborhood hardware store, etc. Do you think the introduction of K-Mart was also ‘vulture capitalism’? Nope. Because vulture capitalism is a very specific thing. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Was it Vulture Capitalism when Netflix killed Blockbuster? Should we have prevented Netflix from crushing a huge business and putting tens of thousands of people out of work? Did either John Rogers or I mention Blockbuster? If it was relevant, I’m sure John Rogers would have bought it up. He didn’t because it isn’t. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Then why do so many people choose it? Because for many people everything is shit, and working in the gig economy is slightly less shit than anything else. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > People choose the gig economy because of flexibility, being able to be their own boss, etc. Some people do. But the reality is working in the gig ecnomy isn’t really “being your own boss.” That’s just marketing speech. Propaganda. I’m self employed. I _am_ actually my own boss. I decide how much I want to work each week and set my own prices and marketing accordingly. I decide what my margins will be. I negotiate directly with clients. An Uber driver is just a taxi-driver without the guaranteed wage, without the insurance and protections that come with having a job. And if you do anything to “upset the algorithm” they can cut that revenue stream off completely. This isn’t “self employment.” Its a loophole that has made a few millionaires richer. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The idea that a government should pass a law to stop you from **working a job** you chose for ‘your own good’ is despicable. One minute its “be your own boss.” Nek Minnit: its “working a job.” Pick a lane and stick to it. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Trying to keep AI out of writing seems like a fool’s errand, and either AI won’t help, in which case the strike is not needed, or AI would help greatly, in which case shackling themselves to human-only output could severely harm streaming services compared to their competition. It isn’t a binary option. AI can help. And the WGA have been explict here in ways that it think it can be useful. Those options were put on the table and part of the early negotiations. But here is what the WGA were asking for. - Regulate use of artificial intelligence on minimum-basic-agreement projects - AI can’t write or rewrite literary material - AI can’t be used as source material - minimum-basic-agreement covered material can’t be used to train AI A lot of this is about protecting intellectual property, including the intellectual property of writers _outside_ of film and televsion. It would stop, for example, an authors novel being used as a basis for an AI generated plot outline and script. This isn’t unreasonable. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Do I owe something to Karsh’s estate? If you copied and pasted a Karsh photograph then tried to pass it off as your own, you very well might. Because the thing is: > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If an AI learns the same way This isn’t what AI is doing, and this isn’t the basis of the Getty lawsuit. > [@The Verge](#): > > An [independent analysis](https://waxy.org/2022/08/exploring-12-million-of-the-images-used-to-train-stable-diffusions-image-generator/) of the dataset found that Getty Images and other stock image sites constitute a large portion of its contents, and evidence of Getty Images’ presence can be seen in the AI software’s tendency to recreate the company’s watermark, as in the example image below So the AI obviously isn’t always > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > comes up with unique photos of its own because we can literally see the copyright watermark in some of the images that it creates. Taking inspiration from other artists and creating your own independent work is already well baked-into existing IP laws and precedent. Scraping images from the internet without the permission of the original artist and using that as a dataset to “train” an “artificial intelligence” is not. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2023, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/77 "2023-05-07T01:07:03Z")
…here’s a great thread on Twitter from Showrunner on Supernatural and co-creator of You Sera Gamble on the reasons why and the importance of having a writer on set. > [@Sera Gamble](#): > > WHY HAVE A TV WRITER ON SET? > > Since they already wrote the script (and rewrote it 8 times, and tweaked it after the table read)? > > Glad you asked, here’s a thread. > > … > > There are near-infinite "or"s that can pop up on the day. Or, one of your actors sprained their ankle and must be seated. Or, it’s raining. Or, the location with enough floor space for the time machine fell through and there was no time to tech scout this one. > > So where’s the writer in all that? For each scene, there’s a rehearsal, and then the crew springs into rapid, efficient action. In the, say, 20 minutes it takes to light, the writer will confer with the director on needed changes, provide adjustments and write new dialogue. > > … > > The writer on set is often the only person who knows minute details of what’s gonna happen 6 episodes from now. So they’re able to see performance through that lens, and advise the director who can work with an actor to make choices that will best support their character’s arc. > > The writer on set is the extension and representative of the showrunner. They’re probably texting said showrunner 5-20 times a day. They can get quick answers, real-time heads-ups from the writers’ room, or official word that flower crowns absolutely should not be in a scene. > So the writers job doesn’t stop once they hand over the script. And its yet another reason why AI isn’t going to be “better” than a human script writer any time soon. We know that AI can work lightening fast. But when an actor sprains an ankle and must be seated for the rest of the scene, what would be faster: typing the revised scenario into the Chat Writing AI and then phoning the showrunner to check to make sure the changes won’t affect what happens in episode 17, or just ask the writer on set to quickly rewrite the scene? If you have been wondering why over the last few years some TV shows seem to be “oddly disconnected” at times in terms of tone and continuity from episode to episode, one of the reasons for that is that at the start of the pandemic the studios tried to (and sometimes succeeded) in keeping the writers off set. The reality is that the executives (just like most of the public) are largely removed from the creative process. They don’t know “how the sausage is made” and it leads to decisions that actively _hurt_ that process. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2023, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/78 "2023-05-07T01:24:42Z")
…and dammit. (checks the NZ Writers Guild website first to make sure I’m in the [clear](https://mailchi.mp/nzwritersguild.org.nz/nzwgstatement?fbclid=IwAR3cEGgJaRaZezytbe73X3fo5fCRXfHbUBCjvMrh3gf6uPTzOJTGUhGYbFs)) I’m 50 this year. I’ve written a couple of short film scripts for film school, but nothing more than that. I’ve gotta a lifetime of experience and a copy of Fade In that I haven’t opened in a year. :: cracks knuckles :: Time to finally write that movie script. This thread has gotten me fired up. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2023, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/79 "2023-05-07T01:25:57Z")
Great post. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2023, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448/80 "2023-05-07T01:46:07Z")
…cheers. I spent WAY too much time writing that though 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-guild-of-america-goes-on-strike-5-2-23-tentative-deal-9-25-23-now-accepted-10-9-23/983448.md?page=5)