Screenwriters across the US have taken to the picket line for the first time since 2007-08, with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) making the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in film and TV production one of its key points of contention.

Most of the negotiating is based around antiquated contracts which were established before the advent of streaming, with writers still receiving a significant amount of their residual income based on reruns and syndication.

This, the WGA argues, is not a consideration for hit streaming-exclusive shows like Stranger Things and Ted Lasso, published by Netflix and Apple TV+ respectively, meaning that writers have seen their wages stagnate or decrease at a time when production budgets have ballooned to be on par with big budget blockbuster movies.

But while the argument of wages is pressing for the present, the WGA is concerned that studios could use AI to effectively replace writers in an effort to make streaming service more profitable and deal with shrinking ad revenues.

In a document noting the state of negotiations, the WGA on AI said that it had proposed to “regulate use of artificial intelligence on MBA-covered projects: AI can’t write or rewrite literary material; can’t be used as source material; and MBA-covered material can’t be used to train AI.”

The guild says that this was rejected, with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) offering annual meetings.

Representatives from the WGA have argued that while AI will not come up with ideas out of nothing, studios could plug ideas into an AI for a sloppy first draft and then hire a real writer to produce a second draft at a fraction of the cost.

In comments to Reuters, screenwriter John August, a member of the WGA negotiating committee, also highlighted the problematic nature of AIs being trained on existing scripts as this would open the door to intellectual property theft.

The writer referred to the ‘Nora Ephron problem’ (the late Ephron wrote movies including When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail). “One can imagine a studio training an AI on all of Nora Ephron's scripts, and having it write a comedy in her voice. Our proposals would prevent that," he said.

As such the WGA’s chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman has referred to AI as “plagiarism machines”, saying: “We have made a reasonable proposal that the company should keep AI out of the business of writing television and movies and not try and replace writers.”

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