Hollywood Is on Strike Against High-Tech Exploitation | Hacker News Reader

Hollywood Is on Strike Against High-Tech Exploitation

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8 pointspwmtr9 comments

Hollywood is a great example of an industry that has created stability through unionization. But it requires a strike like this almost every decade (or even more frequently) because as technology keeps evolving, the studios engineer new ways to stop sharing revenues with the workers.

> But it requires a strike like this almost every decade (or even more frequently) because as technology keeps evolving

If I were a studio right now, I would be pouring *more* money into AI since people keep going on strike

Which is why the strike is necessary. The unions aren't against using technology, they are against using technology for the benefit of the studios at the expense of the workers. You're implying that not striking would prevent studios from doing that but it would not. This conflict is as old as industrialization at least and being nice about it has never prevented capital owners from exploiting workers.

Apparently, my comment was completely lost on you.

Here's an example that might make it more clear: Stagecoach drivers are mad that cars have been created, so they go on strike demanding more money. People interested in transportation spend more money on cars because the price for stagecoach drivers is going up.

The strike is likely just accelerating investment in not being dependent on workers

No I understood you clearly. Please reconsider in light of that.

I’m not the one failing to reconsider positions on it.

If there is technology available to reduce expenses (and in the case of a strike… uncertainty and variability), a business would be shortsighted to not consider or invest in other options.

And a union isn't foolish for preventing them applying those "other options" to their own work in a way that makes that work more precarious.

There's not a neat center position that can reconcile these things. Profit motives demand exploitation and human dignity demands resisting it. The balance shifts back and forth but at no point is everyone happy with the arrangement.

I have some sympathy for the writers striking, but the actors I really don’t. They look like stage coach drivers complaining that cars will take their jobs, except they make millions of dollars a year. Heaven forbid one of them sell their second beach house in Malibu to raise money to pivot to a new income stream.

This has been coming for a long time. Digital made everything associated with analog film irrelevant. CGI made puppets and special effects mostly irrelevant. AI will eventually make actors mostly irrelevant.

Every industry is dealing with this constantly, Hollywood is not special.

The strike is about more than actors. Anyone whose role could be impacted by AI either by direct replacement or more work should be paying attention to the result of this strike and how the show biz reacts to it.

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