As the American film and television writers’ union, the Writers Guild of America West, announced the possibility of using ChatGPT software for writing scripts, the dramatic effects of artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging. ChatGPT is a chatbot developed by the company OpenAI that constructs texts such as articles, songs, or poems, as if written by human writers. Its usefulness is even being tested by many French screenwriters, which may bode a new horizon for the future of scripts and production.
The transparency and efficiency of ChatGPT have put it in the spotlight. Its language model collects instructions, filters them and then aggregates them in order to return with a text. It can be used by those in the creative field, to store technical information such as protocols in order to ensure accuracy in scripts prior to writing. Furthermore, it allows users to gain insight into certain ideas or topics, serving as a powerful Google-like search engine made especially for screenwriters. With the surge of ChatGPT and other AI software, the world of culture has been thrown into commotion.
The French Screenwriters’ Guild is interested in exploring the effects of this technology and recently created a working group of screenwriters to tackle the many issues it may bring. The guild made sure to establish one condition and that was for screenwriters’ incomes not to be affected by the usage of AI for script-writing.
Vincent Luciani, founder and CEO of Artefact, a French AI developing company, commented that ChatGPT is capable of reading “the entire internet” before responding to instructions, something humans have yet to do. As Louise de Longueville, head of development at Federation Studios, notes, the efficiency and intelligence of AI-based software makes it an important resource. She argues that ChatGPT’s ability to synthesize information using an extensive body of data makes it effective in giving vivid contexts to stories.
Arié Chamouni, a 35-year-old television writer, has personally made use of the chatbot, believing it can work as an alternative to the Google search engine. He notes the importance of double-checking the facts after the bot has done its job. By manually examining the results from ChatGPT, Chamouni is able to “humanize” the data to bring a polished script to life.
With the looming writers’ strike in the US, more and more production houses are taking notice of the effects AI-based platforms can offer, potentially providing a new horizon for the industry. Hopefully, through the ingenuity of French screenwriters, ChatGPT will be set on the path of revolutionizing the way scripts are written as they work harder than ever to ensure that their income is unaffected.
