Striking Hollywood Writers Have Few Options to Stop AI Creep

Film and TV studios could replace striking writers with artificial intelligence bots, and there’s not much labor unions could do to stop it without language in a collective bargaining agreement.

Federal labor law gives employers broad authority to introduce new technology—whether it be autonomous forklifts or Chat GPT-like programs that mimic human writing—without engaging in collective bargaining, labor attorneys and academics say.

AI technology is years away from posing an actual threat to screen writers’ jobs. But the lack of legal bargaining requirements explains why the Writers Guild of America—which went on strike May 2 for the first time in ...