REGINA, Sask. — Delegates at the recent Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL) convention heard from one of the leaders of the Writers Guild of America about the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI).
Adam Conover, a comedian and writer who served on the Writers Guild of America West board and negotiating committee during the 2023 labour dispute, spoke about that labour fight during his address to the convention Thursday, Oct. 22.
His message focused on artificial intelligence technology and how his union, which he called traditionally one of the most militant in Hollywood, stood up to the threat AI posed to members' livelihoods.
Conover said they did it because “we knew that we had power.”
“And that is the most important thing I want to impress upon you. Because what the tech industry tries to tell you is that you don't have power. They say AI is coming for your jobs and you're just going to have to deal with it because it's going to replace you. But that is not the case. We still live in a world that is made of people. Every single job that is done has people in the system. Every single company is selling stuff to people…
“If they don't pay people, if they don't give people a living wage, then who is going to buy the products that they make? It's ultimately self-defeating.”
The AI transformation proved to be a major issue during the 2023 strikes that crippled Hollywood. The issue emerged only months before the labour dispute.
Conover noted that ChatGPT was released about six months before the WGA contract came up for negotiation.
“So, what does ChatGPT do, right? It outputs text. What do people think writers do? We output text, right? Everybody said, ‘oh, you guys are going to be replaced by AI.’”
At the same time, he explained, companies were “trying to employ less writers to write more seasons of shows with less job security.
“So we were going from a world where writers would work nine, ten months out of the year, to one where people were working three or four months of the year, and couldn't make a whole year just working as writers. They had trouble making their health care and things like that.”
Conover said during the early discussions, the writers had sought a minimum guarantee of employment and also called for basic protections against AI.
“They were not even willing to have that conversation. They were not willing, they were not willing to talk about it in the negotiating room. And I was in the room with them. I sat across from the people from Disney and Amazon and Apple as they just sat there stone-faced and refused to even talk about AI. And it became clear that they were going to force us to go on strike,” said Conover.
“So that's what we did. We went on strike.”
The WGA strike that followed in 2023 lasted five months. The writers were soon joined on the picket lines by members of SAG-AFTRA because “actors were so incensed and worried about how the industry had changed, but also how AI was going to change our industry.”
With two major unions off the job and Hollywood production grinding to a halt, it ended up being perhaps the most disruptive labour dispute in Hollywood history. Conover noted that the situation put pressure on the studios and production companies to reach a deal.
After holding out for five months, Conover said the companies “gave us those employment protections that they said they would never give us. And they gave us those AI protections. We became the first union in, I believe, the world to have protections against AI in our contract.”
Conover said they were able to stand up for themselves because a writer “does not simply output a text. A writer is a worker who is part of a system. And the system needs us…”
“The writer is a person who is part of a system made of people. And that is where our power lies. So the risk was not that they were going to replace us with AI. The risk was that they were going to pretend that they had replaced us with AI.”
He told the SFL audience that the protections put in place mean “they can't give us an AI script and force us to rewrite it and say that the AI wrote it. If a human wrote it, a human wrote it, right? We had put in specific protections in place to protect our wages and working conditions based in our value as people in the system.”
Conover made the point to the SFL audience that when “average people combine our power and get together, we actually can force the tech companies, the government, the capitalist companies to do as we demand.”
He pointed to people showing up at meetings to stand up to AI data centre builds in their communities and change elected officials’ minds as an example. He called it an example of people “finding their collective power” and using it against those trying to harm them.
“We all exist within a web of personal connections and social connections and economic relationships,” Conover said. “And those give us power and leverage somewhere in the world. And if we get together and combine that power and leverage and use it to fight for what we collectively need, we can win. And I believe this to the fibre of my being, and I urge you to reject anyone who tells you otherwise. That's my message to you folks. You can win.”
