Writers Strike – The Health Care Blog

You’re Not Going to Automate MY Job

Oct 21, 2024

By KIM BELLARD

Earlier this month U.S. dockworkers struck, for the first time in decades. Their union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILW), was demanding a 77% pay increase, rejecting an offer of a 50% pay increase from the shipping companies. People worried about the impact on the economy, how it might impact the upcoming election, even if Christmas would be ruined. Some panic hoarding ensued.

Then, just three days later, the strike was over, with an agreement for a 60% wage increase over six years. Work resumed. Everyone’s happy right? Well, no. The agreement is only a truce until January 15, 2025. While money was certainly an issue – it always is – the real issue is automation, and the two sides are far apart on that.

Most of us aren’t dockworkers, of course, but their union’s attitude towards automation has lessons for our jobs nonetheless.

The advent of shipping containers in the 1960’s (if you haven’t read The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, by Marc Levinson, I highly recommend it) made increased use of automation in the shipping industry not only possible but inevitable. The ports, the shipping companies, and the unions all knew this, and have been fighting about it ever since. Add better robots and, now, AI to the mix, and one wonders when the whole process will be automated.

Curiously, the U.S. is not a leader in this automation. Margaret Kidd, program director and associate professor of supply chain logistics at the University of Houston, told The Hill: “What most Americans don’t realize is that American exceptionalism does not exist in our port system. Our infrastructure is antiquated. Our use of automation and technology is antiquated.”

Eric Boehm of Reason agrees:

The problem is that American ports need more automation just to catch up with what’s considered normal in the rest of the world. For example, automated cranes in use at the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands since the 1990s are 80 percent faster than the human-operated cranes used at the port in Oakland, California, according to an estimate by one trade publication.

The top rated U.S. port in the World Bank’s annual performance index is only 53^rd.

Would You Picket Over AI?

May 9, 2023

By KIM BELLARD

I’m paying close attention to strike by the Writers Guild Of America (WGA), which represents “Hollywood” writers. Oh, sure, I’m worried about the impact on my viewing habits, and I know the strike is really, as usual, about money, but what got my attention is that it’s the first strike I’m aware of where impact of AI on their jobs is one of the key issues.

It may or may not be the first time, but it’s certainly not going to be the last.

The WGA included this in their demands: “Regulate use of artificial intelligence on MBA-covered projects: AI can’t write or rewrite literary material; can’t be used as source material; and MBA-covered material can’t be used to train AI.” I.e., if something – a script, treatment, outline, or even story idea – warrants a writing credit, it must come from a writer. A human writer, that is.

John August, a screenwriter who is on the WGA negotiating committee, explained to The New York Times: “A terrible case of like, ‘Oh, I read through your scripts, I didn’t like the scene, so I had ChatGPT rewrite the scene’ — that’s the nightmare scenario,”

The studios, as represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), agree there is an issue: “AI raises hard, important creative and legal questions for everyone.” It wants both sides to continue to study the issue, but noted that under current agreement only a human could be considered a writer.

Still, though, we’ve all seen examples of AI generating remarkably plausible content. “If you have a connection to the internet, you have consumed AI-generated content,” Jonathan Greenglass, a tech investor, told The Washington Post. “It’s already here.” It’s easy to imagine some producer feeding an AI a bunch of scripts from prior instalments to come up with the next Star Wars, Marvel universe, or Fast and Furious release. Would you really know the difference?

Sure, maybe AI won’t produce a Citizen Kane or The Godfather, but, as Alissa Wilkinson wrote in Vox: “But here is the thing: Cheap imitations of good things are what power the entertainment industry. Audiences have shown themselves more than happy to gobble up the same dreck over and over.”