The Writers Strike
When I wrote “The War on Normal People” a number of years ago, I was deeply concerned about the impact AI would have on all sorts of jobs.
One job I didn’t talk about much is writers – yet the Writers’ Guild of America strike is very much now on the frontlines of what is happening with new technologies. The strike was initially thought of as the Streaming Strike because of writers being compensated more poorly with the shift to streamers. But now AI is front and center as studios want to retain the right to use the technology to produce scripts. Writers understandably want to restrict the use of AI and its ability to develop models based on their work. “This town is going to be leveled by AI” is how one friend in LA put it to me. That’s in part what the writers are going on strike to prevent.
There are about 11,500 writers in the writing strike. This week on the podcast I interview one of them, Michael Jamin, a showrunner and writer for such shows as King of the Hill, Beavis & Butthead, and Just Shoot Me (I’m a big Mike Judge fan). “It takes a while to become a good writer. You learn a lot from the veterans in the room. You need to spend time not just in the writers’ room but on set if you’re ever going to run a show,” Michael comments.
Michael continues, “We want to make sure that writing continues as a profession. It’s gotten harder and harder for anyone to make a living as there are fewer episodes per season with the streamers. They’ve also put in mini-rooms where they have you write scripts that may or may not be used and say, ‘we should pay you less because we might not use these.’ Our argument is, if I go into a grocery store can I pay less because I might throw the banana away? It takes the same amount of work to make it whether you use it or not.”
There’s a notion that Hollywood writers are all rich. I can say with authority that that’s not true, as I know a few of them. “A lot of us don’t know where the next gig is going to come from. Some people have other jobs to tide them over.” Even some writers with noteworthy credits are essentially on the edge.
That said, the writers seem very determined. The last strike in 2007 went on for 100 days. How long might this one last? “Keep in mind it’s not just the writers who are going without pay due to the strike. It’s the caterers, the set decorators and carpenters, the countless small businesses that benefit from a film shoot. This is disrupting a lot of lives.” The content pipeline would really dry up if the Actors join the strike later this year; SAG-AFTRA is voting to authorize a strike right now.
The media landscape is being quickly transformed as tech firms grow in prominence; Amazon and Apple essentially have major studios stapled onto them as marketing arms, and the content producers are competing for finite attention and dollars. They want to manage their costs. On the other side are the writers. What role will human creativity play in the future of storytelling? I told Michael that good writing is what distinguishes the good shows from the not-so-good ones; who will be doing the writing in the future? And if the most skilled creatives are in danger of being commoditized in the 21st century economy, who is safe?
We essentially turned a blind eye when automation came for manufacturing and industrial workers. It’s coming for more and more of us. The Writers are an unusual group to be on the frontlines of the tug-of-war between tech-fueled efficiencies and humanity, but here they are. They’ll have more company soon.
For my interview with Michael, click here. For my book “The War on Normal People” click here. To join Forward to humanize our economy, click here.
