The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is on strike over a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The WGA represents 11,500 writers and the strike has stopped production on TV shows and movies.
The issues in the dispute include lower residuals from streaming. Writers are not making as much from streaming on platforms like Netflix, Disney, Prime, HBO Max, etc, etc (there are so many of them now). It’s kinda like when people stopped purchasing albums and CDS and started purchasing downloads (after they couldn’t steal them on Napster anymore). Musicians still make a lot less for downloads than they do for sales of physical products.
There was an agreement on a minimum wage for writers who work for television and movies, but not for those who write for shows that stream. Writers who work for streaming shows make less than those who work for network shows. The agreement has expired.
Other issues involve mandatory staffing, duration of employment, pensions, and healthcare. But perhaps the most threatening issue is artificial intelligence.
Writers want a guarantee that artificial intelligence will only be used for research and script ideas but not as a tool to replace them. Now is a good time to get ahead of it before it takes over everything.
Artificial intelligence is a threat to creators, from writers of your favorite movies to what I do, creating political cartoons. If movie executives are anything like newspaper publishers, then they will not care if a human loses a job as long as they get their product cheap. And after the 11th Fast & Furious came out, it occurred to me that movie executives care about quality just as much as newspaper publishers do. They don’t.
I stand with the writers because creators are getting screwed over big time everywhere. And I’m going to ask you to stand with them too. I’m asking you to do it with more than words and posting on social media that you stand with them. I’m asking you to say no to artificial intelligence.
A month or so ago, a bunch of A.I.-created artwork of Republicans as drag queens went viral. Even people against A.I. were sharing it, thus, not being able to put their money where their mouths are. Over the past few days, I’ve seen more and more A.I. being shared.
People are sharing this stuff with the thought and consideration they use when sharing memes…none. When you share this stuff, you’re enabling it and eventually, it’s going to destroy someone.
Please stop sharing artwork created by A.I. “It’s funny” isn’t an excuse to destroy the livelihood of writers and artists. We are being systemically eliminated. The Terminator is here, and he’s us.
And since I stand with the Writers Guild of America, then how about some of those 11,500 writers speaking up for political cartoonists?
Music: I listened to Live again.
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CLAYTOONZ 
Artificial intelligence runs on computers that require a lot of cooling … cooling is becoming a scarce worldwide commodity as the earth heats up, Ocean temperatures are rising. Once the ocean becomes an algae filled cess pool sauna sea life dies and once that goes … well the future ain’t pretty. And artificial intelligence computers won’t get the cooling they need and if they do they will only hasten the rising of the water temperature. Bleak outlook.
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It’s no wonder, these playwrights, screenwriters are on strike, their job is currently, slowly, being replaced by, A I., and soon, most of the world’s, population would be, out of work, because, who wants to pay a human being a set wage, when you can get the same quality of work done, free of charge, by the, machines? The scientists did not, think about how the invention of artificial intelligence might one day actually, replace, human intelligence as they developed the, technologies…
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
“The issues in the dispute include lower residuals from streaming. Writers are not making as much from streaming on platforms like Netflix, Disney, Prime, HBO Max, etc, etc (there are so many of them now). It’s kinda like when people stopped purchasing albums and CDS and started purchasing downloads (after they couldn’t steal them on Napster anymore). Musicians still make a lot less for downloads than they do for sales of physical products.”
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Time to cancel subscription media. If the masters don’t pay then why should we?
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Actually that will only affect the writers and actors. They are still being paid residuals. It isn’t a lot for some. Years ago Wil Wheaton showed us one on his checks. It was for a penny! It cost the company more to mail it than was Wil got paid. Also the way their health insurance works that have to have earned at least $2640. Most of them don’t earn enough to cover it. All these people thinking that actors are rich are clueless. Eventually the guilds might ask us to boycott, but they haven’t yet.
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This morning on CBS News they interviewed Sean Gunn about Netflix streaming and part of what he said is that they will not release financial profits from the streaming service and that’s because they have much to hide. So until the companies are willing to show the truth about what they are making things are at a stand still.
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“And since I stand with the Writers Guild of America, then how about some of those 11,500 writers speaking up for political cartoonists?”
It is said that “a picture is worth 1000 words”. If that is true … isn’t a picture putting a writer out of work? And how many pictures have you drawn? When I look at cave drawings I wonder how many writers in the stone age were put out of work. Food for thought?
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