96th Academy Awards

I just wanted to see Ryan Gosling perform "I'm Just Ken" but I had to wait until almost the end of the show, so I just stayed on to see the rest.

Photo by Mirko Fabian on Unsplash

So, I missed publishing something at 4:20 p.m. today.

It was a long show, you see, the 96th Academy Awards, but quite a good one, especially when compared to the disaster that was this year’s Golden Globe Awards. Jimmy Kimmel hosted and there was a reference to the Hollywood strike last year. Kimmel said actors no longer have to worry about being replaced by AI, but as to writers, he cracked a joke about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts which I didn’t understand, so I just looked for information elsewhere.

Just what did Hollywood writers get by the time the strike ended?

Under the new terms, studios “cannot use AI to write scripts or to edit scripts that have already been written by a writer”, Conover says. The contract also prevents studios from treating AI-generated content as “source material”, like a novel or a stage play, that screenwriters could be assigned to adapt for a lower fee and less credit than a fully original script.

For instance, if the studios were allowed to use chatGPT to generate a 100,000-word novel and then ask writers to adapt it, “That would be an easy loophole for them to reduce the wages of screenwriters,” Conover said. “We’re not allowing that.” If writers adapt output from large language models, it will still be considered an original screenplay, he said.

“How Hollywood writers triumphed over AI – and why it matters” in The Guardian

Good for them.

Too bad “I’m Just Ken” was the last nominated song to be performed, and then it lost to another song from the same movie, Barbie. Bias aside, the song by Billie Eilish (co-written with her brother) deserved the win. Heart-tugging, hopeful, introspective… all that relayed with a voice replete with hopefulness and soulful wonderment, and…. it’s one hell of a song. Could be an anthem for millions of today’s women.