For most of his four-plus decades in Hollywood, Mr Thomas R. Moore has worked as a picture editor on network television shows.
During a typical year, his work followed a pattern: He would spend about a week and a half distilling hours of footage into the first cut of an episode, then two to three weeks incorporating feedback from the director, producers and the network. When the episode was done, he would receive another episode’s worth of footage, and so on, until he and two other editors worked through the TV season.
This model, which typically pays picture editors US$125,000 (S$166,000) to US$200,000 a year, has mostly survived the shorter seasons of the streaming era, because editors can work on more than one show in a year. But with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), Mr Moore fears that the job will soon be hollowed out.
“If AI could put together a credible version of the show for a first cut, it could eliminate one-third of our work days,” he said, citing technology like video-making software Sora as evidence that the shift is imminent. “We’ll become electronic gig workers.”
Mr Moore is not alone. In a dozen interviews with editors and other Hollywood craftspeople, almost all were worried that AI had either begun displacing them or could soon do so.
As it happens, these workers belong to a labour union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which can negotiate AI protections on their behalf, as actors’ and writers’ unions did during the 2023 strikes. Yet, their union recently approved a contract, by a large margin, that clears the way for studios to require employees to use the technology, just as Mr Moore and his colleagues have feared.
Some labour experts believe that the protections negotiated by the union, like regular meetings with studios on AI, may be the best it could do during an industrywide downturn. Union leaders have argued there is no way to prevent the use of AI in Hollywood crafts.
At a town hall meeting to discuss the contract – which covers not just editors but also thousands of make-up artists, prop makers, set designers, lighting technicians and camera operators – the union’s president advised members to make the best of it.
“If an AI job comes near your craft,” said IATSE president Matthew Loeb, members should embrace it and “make ourselves the experts”. In a recording shared with a reporter by a union member, Mr Loeb added: “Because that’s the way we’re going to keep our jurisdiction, keep people gainfully employed.”
But to Mr Moore and his fellow Cassandras, the failure to secure stronger AI protections bodes poorly not only for them, but also for workers across the country. “If a 70,000-member union like IATSE can’t protect workers, what does it mean for everybody else?” he said, referring to the number of craftspeople covered under two major contracts. “For society going forward?”
To fend off the threats, many IATSE members said, they hoped their union would negotiate protections similar to what Hollywood writers won in 2023 during their five-month strike: a prohibition on requiring writers to use AI programs like ChatGPT for scripts or outlines, along with strict rules on minimum staffing and duration, to limit potential job losses.
The new IATSE contract has neither of those measures. It says studios will not require workers to “provide prompts” that lead to the displacement of union members, but also says studios can “require employees to use any AI system”. Workers fear that studios will simply hire fewer workers for each project, knowing that AI will make them more productive.
Many of the contract’s AI provisions – like an agreement to negotiate in the future over the effect of AI – are procedural. They do not commit the studios to any concrete position, like preserving a certain number of jobs.
