The final instalment of my notes about notes.

AI?

Don’t. Just don’t. LLMs are built on the theft of the work of those who have gone before you. 

The great illusion of GenAI is that with a few words it creates something that would take time, skill, effort. But the reality is that it is an algorithm that is creating a predictive text version – the statistically most probable version of what you’re asking for.  Not a human version with experience, and insight, and humour, and pain. 

We need stories for humans by humans. 

Cautionary Tales

The other risk with AI notes (and contests) is you have no idea what people are doing with your content. The risk of having your work as an emerging writer stolen by a human is very low, and manageable. The risk of not knowing what happens to your work if you feed it to a machine is unknown. 

And consider who is encouraging the use? The vendors, the ‘creativity hackers’, the ‘pioneers’. Are they writers trying to create a better story? No, in almost every case of AI assisted screenwriting or evaluation, they are developers or entrepreneurs first. Don’t be the early adopters of their product. It’s not worth the risk, and it’s not good for our craft or the business.

Is ANY use of AI okay for screenwriters? 

Not for actual writing. 

As the Writers Guild of America states (after the Writers Strike): 

Neither traditional AI (technologies including those used in CGI and VFX) nor generative AI (GAI, meaning artificial intelligence that produces content including written material) is a writer, so no written material produced by traditional AI or GAI can be considered literary material.

What that means for someone writing their script, on spec, is that if you have used AI to write, there are a host of untested, contested, and possibly limiting, intellectual property issues in commercialising your IP, having it considered for contests. 

Some competitions forbid the use of AI in the generation of the work. For example, the rules  for the AWG Emerging Writer Awards state: 

The Australian Writers’ Guild asserts that art in all its forms is an expression of our humanity; that good writing is human writing; that the art and craft at the core of great writing results from human endeavour, experience, and aspiration, and often from application across many years. The Australian Writers’ Guild’s primary purpose is to affirm and defend the right of every writer to have the value of their work recognised and protected through copyright and properly remunerated through just and fair industrial agreements. Artificial Intelligence is by its nature iterative, and therefore an affront to that purpose. By those measures, Artificial Intelligence will never knowingly be awarded for writing excellence by the Australian Writers’ Guild. No script, or part thereof, that has been created, generated, storylined, drafted, or iterated utilising Artificial Intelligence can be entered into any Award Category. Any script discovered to have been wholly, or in part, the result of Artificial Intelligence, will immediately be disqualified, and the entry fee forfeited. Further, any Award later discovered to have been awarded to a work that did employ Artificial Intelligence at any point during the writing process will be withdrawn and re-awarded to the runner-up in that category for that year, and the new results will be publicly announced.

These are the non-negotiables about AI for screenwriting and notes. In terms of GenAI, it’s a hard no in terms of the writing process if you want a clear path for future development of IP. 

As an assistive technology, there are some things that would be acceptable use. The AWG, Screen Australia, WGA, each outline some of the acceptable uses from an industrial and legal perspective. 

The guiding principle is be transparent about your use. 

• Most spell checkers built into software.
• Audio transcription services (such as CoPilot or Otter.AI just don’t rely on the outputs without oversight.
• Assisting with file management
• An agent to look out for news or articles about a topic you’re researching.

I do know some writers who have used GenAI to practice scenarios or to consider what a character may do as though they were a persona. Based on guild guidelines, while this is a murky area, if any of that output makes it to a script, it’s AI content.

Legalities and other things

If you’re writing a short script and you’re not Wes Anderson, asking a reader to sign an NDA or other forms of signposting that you’re worried that someone will steal your material is a red flag to readers. 

What it says loudly is that you’re being a dick about your work. 

How do you avoid being a dick about your work?

Read the room. Join communities that feel like your people. In the words of my high school’s motto, there is harmony in diversity, but if you’re a sci-fi writer who’s dropped yourself into a rom com fan fic community without moderating your approach to your context, you’re not setting yourself up for success.

Don’t defend AI as a tool in the process.

If this has been a helpful series, please let me know. And if you have anything that needs a read, think about your goals and whether I might be a good fit for your story.