Following that experience but before ChatGPT debuted in November 2022, he says he communicated with the union about the burgeoning technology. With Sudowrite initially focused on prose fiction, August says AI’s implications for screenwriting first “set off alarm bells” in June 2022, after he saw a peer use an early iteration of OpenAI’s GPT to write a script. Again, I wanna make sure these are tools used by writers instead of replacing writers.”Īugust argues in his Friday blog post that his early experiences with tools like Sudowrite helped alert the guild to the potential pitfalls of generative AI for writers. “Mostly because I’ve been curious about it for a long time to see where it goes.
Scrutiny synonym full#
“I should say for full disclosure, I’m a very minor investor in a company called Sudowrite, which was well before ChatGPT,” he told THR at the time. In a separate interview with THR about ChatGPT for a story on ChatGPT published in January, August did disclose his involvement with Sudowrite. The worry is that down the road you can see some producer or executive trying to use one of these tools to do a job that a writer really needs to be doing.” The WGA is attempting to ensure that AI-generated content cannot be used as source material for adaptation and cannot be used to write or rewrite what is considered “literary material” under the contract the guild is also pushing to prohibit projects covered under its contract to be used as fodder to train AI.Īugust has become one of the most outspoken guild leaders on the topic of the regulation of AI in scripwriting, telling The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month, “The challenge is we want to make sure that these technologies are tools used by writers and not tools used to replace writers.
Regulation of artificial intelligence is one of the WGA’s negotiations priorities in 2023 in talks with studios and streamers that have resulted in the union’s current strike. The Writers Guild of America West has tweeted out August’s post on his involvement with Sudowrite, stating, “Read how WGA Negotiating Committee member history with AI informed his concerns on AI’s use in generating content.” By Friday afternoon, August’s name and quote about the product were no longer visible on Sudowrite’s website. “It really does feel like magic,” August’s quote read.
I haven’t hyped it up or used it beyond those initial few weeks.” He says that, to his knowledge, his books and scripts haven’t been used to train the technology and “neither I nor my company ever made a cent from our investment in Sudowrite, and never incorporated any of their stuff into the apps we sell.”Īs of early Friday, August was listed as one of several prominent writers endorsing the product, alongside novelist Hugh Howey and journalist Mark Frauenfelder.
Writers' Shut-It-Down Strategy Has Been Effective, Executives Privately ConcedeĪugust adds in the post, “I’m listed as an advisor to Sudowrite, but that overstates my involvement. (As of Friday, the service was advertising to writers online that it would help them “write your novel or screenplay faster.”) He tried an early demo at that time, over a year before ChatGPT entered the public consciousness, and his company “made a small investment in Amit’s company and started talking about ways actual writers might use this technology,” he writes. In the post, August - who beyond his writing work helms the Quote-Unquote Apps company, which is behind the Weekend Read and Highland apps - says that he was first introduced to Sudowrite founder Amit Gupta in August 2021, when the company was focused on prose fiction. The Big Fish and Aladdin screenwriter (and co-host of the popular Scriptnotes podcast) on Friday posted a blog entry about his involvement with Sudowrite, an “AI writing partner” fueled by OpenAI’s GPT-3 that purports to generate early drafts, perform revisions and offer synonyms and word suggestions for writers. Writers Guild of America negotiating committee member John August has publicly disclosed his company’s investment in an artificial intelligence-powered writing tool and is facing some member blowback as the WGA is seeking to regulate the use of the technology in its current negotiations.
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