Hollywood Film Workers Strike Against AI: Understanding Algorithmic Resistance to Generative Cinematography
Submission Type
Paper
Start Date/Time (EDT)
18-7-2024 2:15 PM
End Date/Time (EDT)
18-7-2024 3:15 PM
Location
Algorithms & Imaginaries
Abstract
In this talk, I explore the central question: why were Hollywood film workers striking or supporting strikes against artificial intelligence (AI)? With the rise of large language models such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, RunwayAI, and more, generative AI is increasingly playing a role in the development of screenplays, imagery, sounds, and post-production processes—but not without resistance. While the image and its technological reproduction have ongoingly been in crisis, AI is among one of the latest advances that is generating controversy in the Hollywood studio system.
Through participant observation on the picket line and interviews with 15 film workers including union members of the WGA (writers guild), SAG-AFTRA (actors guild), and IATSE (behind-the-scenes workers guild), I investigate the growing resistance to AI for film production, as well as workers’ emerging perceptions of generative cinematography more broadly. Consequently, I argue that film worker opposition does not contest AI itself, but rather how studios might use it to undermine their labor and craft in mutually constituent ways. Toward this end, I identify boiling tensions across three axes of labor: automation of film crew and cast; disruption of roles and responsibilities; trivialization and invisibilization of workers. I then surface eight aspects of filmmaking’s humanistic tradition that AI challenges: subjectivity, nuance, slowness, spontaneity, heart and soul, physicality, connectedness, and realness. Amid these concerns around futures of labor and craft, I discuss how film production might integrate as well as refuse to integrate with AI developments—opening alternative algorithmic possibilities and worker-centered programs for generative cinematography.
Recommended Citation
Halperin, Brett, "Hollywood Film Workers Strike Against AI: Understanding Algorithmic Resistance to Generative Cinematography" (2024). ELO (un)linked 2024. 3.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2024/algorithmsandimaginaries/schedule/3
Hollywood Film Workers Strike Against AI: Understanding Algorithmic Resistance to Generative Cinematography
Algorithms & Imaginaries
In this talk, I explore the central question: why were Hollywood film workers striking or supporting strikes against artificial intelligence (AI)? With the rise of large language models such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, RunwayAI, and more, generative AI is increasingly playing a role in the development of screenplays, imagery, sounds, and post-production processes—but not without resistance. While the image and its technological reproduction have ongoingly been in crisis, AI is among one of the latest advances that is generating controversy in the Hollywood studio system.
Through participant observation on the picket line and interviews with 15 film workers including union members of the WGA (writers guild), SAG-AFTRA (actors guild), and IATSE (behind-the-scenes workers guild), I investigate the growing resistance to AI for film production, as well as workers’ emerging perceptions of generative cinematography more broadly. Consequently, I argue that film worker opposition does not contest AI itself, but rather how studios might use it to undermine their labor and craft in mutually constituent ways. Toward this end, I identify boiling tensions across three axes of labor: automation of film crew and cast; disruption of roles and responsibilities; trivialization and invisibilization of workers. I then surface eight aspects of filmmaking’s humanistic tradition that AI challenges: subjectivity, nuance, slowness, spontaneity, heart and soul, physicality, connectedness, and realness. Amid these concerns around futures of labor and craft, I discuss how film production might integrate as well as refuse to integrate with AI developments—opening alternative algorithmic possibilities and worker-centered programs for generative cinematography.
Bio
Brett Halperin's research investigates computational counter-media and film production within labor and social movement organizing contexts. He is pursuing a PhD in Human Centered Design & Engineering with a graduate certificate in Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Washington. His research has been published in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Design Research, as well as received multiple honors, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Best Paper Award at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.