Bonum Certa Men Certa

Hollywood’s Writers Are Under Attack and Techies Should Pay Attention

Skilled programmers and authors are viewed and treated as "production lines" or "assembly line" resources/fodder; same for patent examiners

Hey hi meme
Don't listen to buzzwords; they're misused a lot and sometimes just a passing fad



Summary: The media misportrays a power struggle, leveraging buzzwords to muddy the waters; but at the heart of it what we see is systematic devaluation of workforces, whose work cannot be properly or fully replaced by automation

"The WGA strike," one reader told us, "is about malicious and exploitative abuse of "AI" [as in CG or computer-generated stuff]" and "industry profits have ballooned from $5 billion in 2000 to $28-$30 billion from 2017-2021" [1] while people who did all the actual work did not see their compensation rising sixfold. So where did that surplus go? Another new article [2] states: "Actors, writers, and multimedia artists are all having their jobs threatened because of low-return, high-yield AI and generative products that do not have the ability to replicate human work and should not be utilized in order to do so."



"They sort of starve them into a position of weakness and (they hope) surrender."They've basically rebranded computer-generated (CG) as "Hey Hi", but buzzwords and semantics aside, this is an attack on workers whose yield or output (of labour) was always better than some means of automation. In other words, studios are willing to compromise on quality for purely economic reasons, prioritising shallow things over creativity and culture.

"Even if the 160,000-member SAG-AFTRA joins the WGA on the picket lines, the studios hope to get the actors back to the negotiating table in a few weeks," says another new article [3] (all those are in Daily Links already).

"The fight that these professionals are fighting closely resembles or aligns with the fight of programmers and system builders."They sort of starve them into a position of weakness and (they hope) surrender.

The fight that these professionals are fighting closely resembles or aligns with the fight of programmers and system builders. The "industry" has been working to crush and devalue them -- to the detriment of everyone who uses software or some kind of computer, i.e. almost everyone in the world. This is not a case of "neo-Luddites" against innovation, progress, and technological advancement. Just like at the EPO, what we have is actual professionals warning against illegal financialisation of everything.

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Hollywood’s writers are on strike. Here’s why that matters.

    “Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal — and though your strike vote gave us the leverage to make some gains — the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” the negotiating committee wrote to membership in a letter. “The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing.”

    [...]

    Meanwhile, according to the WGA’s calculations, industry profits have ballooned from $5 billion in 2000 to $28-$30 billion from 2017-2021. Spending on original streaming content grew from $5 billion in 2019 to $19 billion in 2023 — the lion’s share of it by Netflix, which reported $6 billion in operating profits in 2021 and $5.6 billion in 2022.



  2. Hollywood's 'Groundbreaking' AI Proposal for Actors Sounds Like a Nightmare

    If anything will help illustrate the absolute necessity of SAG-AFTRA striking, it’s these proposed “groundbreaking” AI concessions that the AMPTP allegedly offered during negotiations. It was addressed in remarks by one of the SAG-AFTRA leaders, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who explained: “They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity, in any project they want with no consent and with no compensation.”



    [...]

    This sort of investment in AI, regardless of how it abuses working class people or devalues artists, is spreading across multiple industries. Actors, writers, and multimedia artists are all having their jobs threatened because of low-return, high-yield AI and generative products that do not have the ability to replicate human work and should not be utilized in order to do so. As SAG-AFTRA officially joins the WGA and heads into a historic strike, both unions do so with the future of the industry in their collective hands.


  3. Hollywood Studios’ WGA Strike Endgame Is To Let Writers Go Broke Before Resuming Talks In Fall

    The severe method comes out of the guild’s successful battle with the agencies in 2021 over dismantling the lucrative practice of packaging. The WGA picked off one agency after another until final holdout WME backed down, a tactic seen as a warning sign by many in the studio and streamer C-suites.

    [...]

    On a parallel track and reinforcing the AMPTP’s divide-and-conquer approach, negotiations with the Director’s Guild in late May proved a success, with ratification coming last month. Even if the 160,000-member SAG-AFTRA joins the WGA on the picket lines, the studios hope to get the actors back to the negotiating table in a few weeks.





Recent Techrights' Posts

The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
 
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead