THE WRITERS & ACTORS ARE REVOLTING!… ‘YES, THEY ARE,’ SAYS STUDIO EXEC.

So goes the legend… King George III was informed of rebellion in America with the words, ‘The colonists are revolting.’

‘Yes, they are,’ the mad monarch supposedly replied.

Let me take a pause here to state that I have in no way whatsoever employed AI technology in the writing of this article. I require no enhancements. I am quite capable of achieving mediocrity under my own steam. Speaking of the steam age, I found myself wondering if the current terror consuming my fellow working class writers and actors is the same sort of fear that plagued the makers of buggy whips? Horses have been the principal form of transport for many thousands of years. Surely this horseless carriage thing is just a fad? But what if it’s not?!

I’m old enough to know how strikes go for creatives… eventually, a few bread crumbs are thrown to the peasants, and the union spins it as a grand victory. (The last negotiated residual structure for broadcast television purportedly cost actors money.) The prolific writers and actors who worked before the strike will work after the strike, and they will, in fact, snap up all the first jobs once the strike order is lifted. Those who worked sporadically before will wait patiently for their turn to come back around in a year or two. And the industry as a whole will use this opportunity to cull, while blaming desperate times. Giant, faceless agencies will clear the decks of talent who make under a certain figure each year, and the studios will shutter the offices of creative producers whose next hit has surely been just around the corner for the last decade.

Meanwhile, household names condemn the fat cats who are unable to constrain their glee at the thought of banks foreclosing on the homes of the underlings. This is appreciated, but let’s be honest, if America as a whole gave a damn about equitable incomes, American citizens would have achieved universal healthcare 50 to 75 years ago along with most of the rest of the western world. It earns one brownie points, but if you’re itching for a class war, you’re in the wrong country. Find an illicit abortion or speech against the 2nd Amendment in the exec’s past, you might resonate with the rest of America. But I’d say it is near impossible in the middle of a cultural civil war to gain the sympathy of long-suffering flyover states, whose industrial plight has been mostly ignored by the artistic centres of our country.

As I contemplate the writing of my third novel, I decided to ask Google if novels can be written with AI. It appears that AI prompts can help one through moments of writer’s block, but the true creative juices still flow from the human mind… for now.

It is because of my innate realism that I have never felt quite so scared for my future earning potential as I do now. I used to say I will never retire. But what if retirement becomes a necessity simply because I one day find myself incapable of keeping up with the technological upgrades sweeping civilisation? While my grandchildren pop over to their local hologram playground and, with a few taps of the finger, program the parameters of that day’s adventure, I will likely be enjoying a quaint, live, all-Trans production of Much Ado About Nothing. It is very possible that I am the 21st Century version of the buggy whip wielding stagecoach driver. And no amount of collective bargaining can ultimately prevent me from having to sell my horse to the glue factory.

Strike like your life depends on it. Because it does. It could end up meaning almost nothing in real terms, but at least you’ll be able to say you went down fighting.