Four months into the Writers Guild of America strike, debates surrounding the value of human creativity are returning to Hollywood’s negotiation table.
Along with standard contractual disputes including benefits and payment models, the WGA strike has highlighted the presence of artificial intelligence in professional writing.
I am a writer, editor and communicator to my professional core. I love preparing and giving speeches. Even in the news section and my technical communications major, I have been able to find the humanity and creativity in serious writing.
Throughout my life as a student and a worker, my strengths have consistently avoided the realm of STEM fields. I proudly took any jokes people made about communications majors because of one piece of assurance: my job could never be replaced by a machine.
AI-generated homework assignments, movie trailers and news articles now show that I may have felt a little too comfortable in my job security. I am confident that AI is bad at my job. I am also confident that wealthy production company executives would still prefer a cheap, inadequate algorithm to a real worker that thinks, breathes and asks for a fair contract.
In 2020, Microsoft MSN laid off dozens of journalists in order to replace them with AI software. Last week, they published an AI-generated obituary with a headline reading “Brandon Hunter useless at 42.”
One Twitter user, @THESagerbomb, expressed, “I would love for the room of people who approved using AI to write obituaries to have to explain to Brandon Hunter’s family exactly how much money they’re saving.”
The rest of the article ranged from insensitive to unintelligible. This situation shows how many people are negatively affected by AI-generated content. Writers lose their paychecks, people featured in articles are poorly and disrespectfully portrayed and media outlets damage their own credibility.
Writing about death is one of the most difficult things a journalist has to do. We at the Torch understand how much extra work is required to properly pay tribute to someone’s life in print. This goes far beyond the writing process. Reporters are expected to build rapport and establish a respectful relationship with their sources, especially when covering a sensitive topic.
The press does not always adhere to ethical journalistic standards. I am aware of the negative effects of news in the TMZ era. Regardless, I believe a human being striving to write a story through connections made with other human beings will consistently win the battle against AI. Even if it wouldn’t, I believe it should.
We have algorithms and automation to make our lives easier. There are countless important jobs that require minimal soul and produce minimal joy for the worker. It is nonsensical to use this technology to take away jobs from creatives instead.
Finally, let’s not forget that these algorithms do not avoid human bias. Programs are written by programmers. Like many others, the programming industry is overrun by wealthy, cisgender white men. I don’t trust a computer to understand social ramifications or important concepts like intersectionality and the need for better diverse representation in media. When these machines learn through what has already been posted and printed, it hinders our ability to progress with new ideas.
As I prepare myself to join the workforce full-time, I need to understand the value of a writer. It is now my responsibility to convince hiring managers that I am a valuable worker who deserves steady work and decent pay. If these industries decide to replace writers while Gen-Z is just getting started to work, they will be doing a disservice to everyone involved.