Will generative AI reshape TV shows and movies?

Writers Guild of America East members walking a picket line on May 16, 2023, in New York City. The looming danger is that studios will turn to generative AI for scripts. — AFP

Much has been said about the prime time schedule recently unveiled by US broadcaster ABC. In 21 hours of TV programming, long-time favourites such as Grey’s Anatomy and recent hits like The Rookie were nowhere to be found, and there were no new scripted shows introduced.

Instead, the network filled its schedule with 20 hours of nonscripted programming, including reality shows, Disney movie reruns, and American football. They reserved only one hour a week for reruns of Abbot Elementary, last year’s hit comedy series. In essence, they are offering no new scripted shows.

This strange situation is a result of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) being on strike, and writers refusing to write anything for TV or film until the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers concedes to their demands.

Unsurprisingly, one of the issues at stake is money. WGA members currently earn money when a TV show they’ve written is rerun or rebroadcast, but these payments are lower for streaming shows than for broadcast shows. When streaming royalties were first negotiated, nobody realised how massive companies like Netflix and Disney+ would become.

Another issue is control. The WGA is pushing for greater involvement in production. They want more writers on staff during production, and they want more influence over the day-to-day operation of the shows. They’re also advocating for greater input on the editing and final cut of shows.

This battle has been raging in the United States for over a month, and there’s no clear end in sight. As evidenced by ABC’s recent programming reveal, they don’t expect a resolution before September, when the fall season starts.

Of course, I look at all this drama and can’t help but laugh at the comparatively comedic situation here in Malaysia. I worked on a drama series for a Malaysian production company a few months ago; the project was for one of those international streaming platforms so they would pay big bucks, right? If I was a member of the WGA in the United States, as a staff writer on a series I could expect a minimum of about US$5,000 a week (RM22,600), and possibly up to US$40,000 (RM181,480) a script for an hour-long show.

But this is Malaysia. We earn a little bit less. Start by changing the “US$” symbols to “RM”, and then cut that number by about a tenth.

Don’t get me wrong, by Malaysian standards it isn’t terrible pay. Writing two scripts in a month gets you roughly what a mid-career programmer at an IT company would earn. It’s all about putting the right words in the right order anyway, right?

But the big difference is that while that programmer gets a dependable salary, writing work is sporadic and it’s not unusual to go months between projects.

In my life of writing for TV in Malaysia or Singapore I have never received a residual check for royalties. What I produce is “work for hire”, paid for upfront. Anything that I’ve seen repeat, both in Malaysia and in other countries, gets me nothing but pride.

The biggest impact of this is that writers in Malaysia can’t really earn a living working at it exclusively, and the best thing for a writer to do to improve as a writer is... well, write.

What does happen is that the broadcaster almost always has final say, and almost always makes its decisions unilaterally. I’ve seen shows, completed and ready to air, be pulled at the last minute for “reasons”.

Another aspect of the WGA strike that is not getting much coverage is the role of technology and how it’s shaking things up, and sometimes in unexpected ways. Almost a hundred years ago, sound technology highlighted the importance of scripted dialogue, and eventually led to the establishment of standard contracts for writers.

The technology that is now on the horizon and about to crest is artificial intelligence (AI). If a generative AI can churn out scripts that are “good enough” when compared with the product of human writers, then what is the value of a bag of flesh like me?

What is happening is that there might be something brewing in the works. People in power are not keen to see their money and control taken from them. The writer’s strike of 2007 was about DVD residuals, and that strike drove studios towards reality shows and unscripted programming (hint: they are never really completely “unscripted”). This is estimated to have caused a drop in income for the industry, costing the Californian economy an estimated US$2bil (RM9bil at today’s exchange rates).

I would not be surprised if the current strike could again reshape entertainment. Perhaps there’ll be a generative AI department that churns out scripts played out by virtual actors. Or perhaps we’ll have a more improv kind of TV, where scripts are just brief scene descriptions, and actors come up with dialogue on the spot.

Whatever the outcome, it’s safe to say it will maximise profits and control for the studios, with little regard for the art of good writing.

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.