Screenwriting : Writer Bots by Nikhil Bagore

I too have seen these but I don't see AI being able to replicate creativity as we barely understand where creativity comes from. They also result in hilarious stories.

Yup, computer VFX have already replaced actors, living or dead.

Dan MaxXx That seemed to be the case in the recent chop-sockie Birth of the Dragon where CGI VFX made up most of the fight scenes with the real actors inter-cut at the pauses in the action. WWE produced...

Yes, I understand that this technology is very primitive at this stage. But since we all know that humans are extremely greedy, they won't stop until they have perfected this. All these flaws will not be there in future.

And reason for them doing is very simple. Why pay huge amount of money to a human being and then wait for a significant time period for him to finish the script, when you can just have a software that can do it for you in much less time, and probably for free.

Exactly my point, Matt! Robots can be programmed for anything. For example, about 20 years ago, people would never even have thought that someday a machine will operate the complicated surgeries. But now, people prefer machines over humans, because they're much reliable. I know these two are different things, but point is, AI can't be underestimated. One day, it might actually write better than humans.

I don't think those softwares would replace human screenwriters, we have what they will always lack, emotions and creativity. They won't be able to conveys stronger emotions than we do and won't be able to be as much creative as we are.

Yes and I suspect the scripts will be soulless pieces of garbage.

Wait if we're talking about robots writing garage, that won't be too hard. But I don't see a robot making a Shawshank redemption. At least not in our lifetimes. How can you program spontaneity, emotions, life experiences, etc.

That would explain how Matt Le Blanc ended up in Top Gear then.

There is, I believe, a science to the fundamental decision-making that goes into the crafting of a written text, but all of it can only originate from past, personal experience and obtained knowledge. Is a robot capable of recalling past experiences with the same level of understanding and reflection as a human being?

Hmmm...replace a writer...while technology has come a long way and will most definitely reach some unimaginable heights, I don't see a software being able to craft stories that a human might. Maybe more simplistic stories, but to compete with the human mind and it's imagination? I'm rocking with humans on this one. Calculation wise and stuff of that nature, they've got us beat lol

But they won't, take, our, writing! (The screenwriters cheer collectively!)

What if the AI cooperates with us, in that we write the stories and it makes changes so they comply to all rules written in books, formatting(you could write it as a story and it changes it to look like a screenplay), etc..?:)

Screenwriting is an art just like painting. There are computers can replicate a Picasso but cannot create a masterpieces all their own. They can copy the brush strokes, colors, tones and rearrange them in a different order but it is the creativity and experience of the painter that brings these things to life. Plus the audience has to be able to appreciate it. Art is subjective as in 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'.

The writer writes for an audience, a computer writes to parameters. And no matter how closely those parameters mimic writing patterns, something will always be missing. Just like when you watch a movie and can tell which parts are FX/CGI. Something just isn't right and we know it.

My partner is an AI geek and I see them messing about with codes all the time. From my perspective, this AI will soon be able to push out tons of scripts that are all about rinse + repeats formulas, i.e Rom Coms, Action, Thrillers, etc. I think it will struggle with Indies, Dramas, Sci-fis and the likes, and perhaps that'll be the area we humans will still be needed for. But if they're able to plug in and tap into that field that powers our imagination, then we humans may as well pack up shop, it'll be over.

I agree Owen, we are definitely complicated beings but AI is also quite intelligent, if written by very clever people. We are just at the very beginning of what super intelligent machine learning is capable of. I code for fun in my spare time and its scary when I see the results of just basic AI.

I agree with Caroline. To see how probable it is, all we've to do is look at the history of AI or computers. Where they began and where are we now. But yes, deep down, I'm hoping that I'm wrong.

Hey, as long as I can pull the power plug - I worry not.

I looked at that list that Erick put up. Where was Three's Company? Dang, I miss that show!

Doug, except it won't be the writer who decides to pull the plug. It'll be the producer. And he will not, since he gets scripts fast and free.

Someone did a post on this a couple years ago. I didn't get it then and I don't get it now. No two scripts are the same. It's not like building a chair on a factory line.

Zorrawa - Sounds like you're describing the same scenario I did in my "Revenge of the Robo Writers" comedy/fantasy scripts.

How about a robot writing partner, or just writing a story, and the AI will format it correctly and ensuring it follows all rules(as written in screenwriting books)?

It will compare it to all similar scripts ever written and every similar movie ever made to predict how it will be received(commercial potential).. ..

Yeah, definite answer is hard since it would imply predicting the future. But 3 things. That technology is quite developed by this point. At the same time, for some reason all this AI topic is being hyped up beyond reality. It is not even Intelligence, is data gathering and processing... I mean they can't even read a captcha... And last, creativity and human connection will be the jobs of the future. Machines are no way near to come up with an idea and so on... So I think there is no reason to worry about this... maybe in 50 years, non fiction ghost writers will be out of a job. But creative writing it will take a long, long time if ever.

Be yourself, everyone else is taken... Hi Nikhil, try not to worry about an algorithm or any other type of competition in this business. I know its hard, but try to focus on writing stories only YOU can write, for an audience YOU connect with, in a unique way and YOU will succeed. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, you only 1000 true fans to support a career - thats 0.00001% of the population.

Here is an example of a screenplay written by Artificial Intelligence... https://youtu.be/LY7x2Ihqjmc

Doubt it, but who knows what AI will eventually be capable of.

That screenplay Sunspring is total garbage. It makes little sense and tries to act like a complicated story but its just a waste of time watching it. Although there is lots of stuff out there written by humans and is just as bad. LOL

Myles; but will an audience pay money to watch it?

I know this is an old thread. AI is more than capable of developing a formula based screenplay. I am not a great programmer and I could half way there. The reason it will not happen, is the millions of unproduced specs. When you have a machine (us) making material for free. Why develop the tech.

Maybe not Writers but Warner Bros, they’re using AI to replace Executives.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/warner-bros-signs-deal-ai-dri...

Cranking out the low-brow stuff might go to the bots one day, but anything savory will always come from a human imagination. We will always have a lock on the conflicted emotions and agendas that make for real drama. A machine could never endure so many contradictions. Perhaps it will be the final test for any real Artificial Intelligence. Can it make art? Can it touch you soul?

Dan, I could see that. We created an AI that could classify complaints to the government and direct them appropriately. It could also understand sentiment.

This wasn’t just word matching. It was true natural language processing and it learnt.

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Humans will always create/write. Whether they have an audience is another matter.

Bots can only write what they’ve copied from shows - creativity has not made it to AI yet.

Dan I'm not so sure that's such a bad idea. AI stands for Artificial Intelligence and based on what I've observed, there seems to be more than just a few executives who exhibit little/no intelligence, artificial or otherwise at all. AI Executives doesn't sound all that bad to me.

John Iannucci I don’t think it ever will. When you work with AI you give it a training set (info/data) and a confirmation set (what the answers should be). From there it learns. Therefore it is impossible to innovate beyond its own understanding.

We are safe.

Once read an article where they developed an AI by feeding it on movie scripts so it can behave more human...so basically any staff writer is a bot...just an organic one...

Take the bot work as a draft and then add a human.

I believe so ardently in the abilities of writing bots that I wrote a short script about it - "Revenge of the Robo Writers". It's available on my profile page if anyone's interested.

Here I have one more question in mind .On one side we are trying to secure our written material,ideas by copy writing . Here every body says that BOT writes from the ideas and material fed to it in the form of different scripts. It will pick up some from one and next from another. Is it not a copy write infringement Or people wanting to use BOT want to discard the sole purpose of WGA and other writers association? Secondly these people taking so much efforts to develop AI to write script. To me it looks like they are trying to curb huge expenses ( As if they are spending 25-50% of production budget on script writing )

Depends on the organization and persons who do the hiring and budgets.

I don't believe a writer bot could capture the human emotion in scripts. How would it come up with funny ideas for a sitcom? Even though Seinfeld claimed it was about nothing. It had situations that were ridiculous. I have heard that some studios have created an algorithm that predicts the success of a movie.

Have you read the script? (It’ll make you LOL) I don’t think bots will take over writing roles anytime soon!

Any new research on this since your original post?

Rohit - Thanks for checking out the Revenge of the Robo-Writers script. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

AI might try but I don't see it better than humans. There are gonna be major lapses.

I personally think that we are a bit out from that, but yes, I think that AI can also create. Sort of scary that we actually come to Terminator times, but alas we are here. My grandchildren will probably never drive a car, go to a checker to check out, and clean their house themselves. They'll have robots doing jobs. I know it's scary, huh! However, I think at the end of the day, that it is going to be hard for them to trust the computer to write their scripts. It's such an expensive genre to put your trust in AI. They'll need writers. Cheers and blessings, Diana

There are three things science i.e. technology i.e. robots will never be able to explain or replicate: God, love, and art. These things go so much deeper than basic programming, and cannot be explained by simple math or basic technological logic. So no, I don't believe that robots will be able to replace screenwriters. Look at all the repetitive, check-the-box movies we have now - seems like Hollywood is running robotically already - and I think we all know what audiences think of repetitive, check-the-box movies!

It will create a story from the story ideas from previous films because will just search into the data already fed, select one idea and paste it. It will be like when we search on google ,many a times we don't get the thing we search for but just one word from what we have typed is picked up as a keyword and suggestions are given accordingly.