Fran Drescher holds Hollywood hostage: On Sunday evening, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) reached a tentative agreement with studios and streaming platforms, likely ending the 146-day strike that has brought new TV and movies to a halt. The WGA has won many concessions, such as an increased rate for residuals (payments made when a program is rebroadcast or, nowadays, placed on a streaming platform) and regulations on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the writing process. But unless the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA also reaches a deal (negotiations are being led by Fran Drescher, star of The babysitter and apparently a formidable negotiator), Hollywood will continue to be plagued by strikes.
In the coming days, nearly 12,000 WGA members will vote on the deal, which includes minimum staffing requirements for writers’ rooms, increased compensation for residual costs and restrictions on the use of AI-written scripts. While the 2007 strike was a preview of problems arising from the shift to streaming, the 2023 strike can be considered a preview of the threats AI poses.
“Whether the union can secure its AI moratorium or not, ChatGPT and its kin will likely change the industry in some way — if they don’t replace writers entirely, but then become subordinate to them, to be used as a tool for generating ideas or sketching an initial development. design”, i wrote back in May. “Do you think Hollywood feels the same way now? Wait until it’s the same 100 people rewriting ChatGPT,” says screenwriter C. Robert Cargill told me Than.
Per The New York Times, “More than 100,000 behind-the-scenes workers – including directors, camera operators, publicists, make-up artists, set makers, set makers, lighting technicians, hair stylists and cinematographers – in Los Angeles and New York will remain idle,” the pressure remains high on SAG-AFTRA to also get a deal.
Sadly the worst news not the AI regulations or minimum staffing requirements, which prevent entertainment companies from quickly adapting to new technology that could prove useful; it’s the fact that John Oliver and Seth Meyers may return soon to the ether.
The debate phase is only a side issue: President Joe Biden on Tuesday shall “join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of” United Auto Workers (UAW) – who are demanding a 40 percent pay increase over four years, pension plan expansions and a 32-hour, four-day workweek from the Great Three car manufacturers. Former President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential candidate, announced a trip to Detroit just before Biden did. Trump will speak to union members on Wednesday instead of appearing on the Republican debate stage. “Every fiber of our union is being used to fight the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “The autoworkers are being sold out on their leadership, and their leadership should support Trump,” the man himself countered Meet the press.
IRS goes back on promises: Remember when the nation’s tax collectors promised they wouldn’t increase the audit rate for people making less than $400,000 annually? (How did that happen to work out in 2022?) This was a crucial part of the battle for the $80 billion cash infusion received by the IRS as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. But now, quoting from a report by the Inspector General of the Treasury Department of Tax Administration (TIGTA): Rode‘s JD Tuccille explains That “The IRS’s current standard definition of high-income taxpayers is $200,000 and over,” and that it has no plans to change it.
“The IRS does not have a uniform or updated definition for high-income individual taxpayers,” said TIGTA on August 31st. “The current exam coding scheme uses $200,000 as the main threshold, even though this is no longer a reasonable standard for high incomes given inflation since 2005.”
“The report recommends revising the definition of ‘high income,’” Tuccille writes, “so that the term means the same thing to IRS agents as it does in press releases from the Treasury Department and the White House.” Amazingly, the IRS said no to TIGTA’s request for review; This would somehow “deprive the IRS of flexibility to address emerging issues and trends.” (Note that this is the same agency that required Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in February to submit a report detailing how it would spend the new $80 billion it spent. has not done so until 48 days after the deadline.)
Scenes from New York:
Nothing but respect for my socially awkward mayor:
.@NYC mayor with the robocop, who cannot get the mayor’s heart because he has no arms pic.twitter.com/vuvkmslYwz
— katie honan (@katie_honan) September 22, 2023
More here.
FAST HITS
- ICYMI: Last week Zach Weissmueller and I had an interview Johan NorbergWHO knocked down some common myths about Scandinavian ‘socialism’.
‘We have been socialists in Sweden and we have been successful, but never at the same time’ @johanknorberg tells @TheAbridgedZach And @LizWolfeReason.https://t.co/41ITV5DEmn
— reason (@reason) September 23, 2023
- South Korea has made the subway free (more accurately, taxpayer-funded) for the elderly. The New York Times documented his horsemen wandering through the city.
- Amazon will invest $4 billion in AI company Anthropic.
- Relations between Canada and India are deteriorating, leaving travelers in the lurch.
- On Friday, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted on bribery charges; This is the second time he has been accused of corruption. Six years ago he was indicted on these charges, resulting in a hung jury. He will resign from his chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
- New term just dropped: “A number of experts we spoke to said younger workers are more comfortable with softer terms like feedforward,” reports The Wall Street Journal. (I have some feedforward: stop embarrassing yourself.)
- Is drug decriminalization in Oregon doomed?
- AI x Dallas Cowboys.
- Sportswriter Ethan Strauss slyly explains the Dave Portnoy/Washingtonpost saga: “Journalism is a kind of ‘there are no rules, but you break them at your own peril’ industry. This explains why so many have come to hate it. We are not ordained. There is, in fact, no journalistic Hippocratic Oath; we just pretend it is. The only real rule is, “Don’t make up nonsense,” but more specifically, “Don’t make up nonsense in a way that could credibly get you accused.”
- Didn’t we used to have another word for the pregnancy belief? It started with one M…
According to a CDC advisory committee, pregnant people should receive an RSV vaccine at 32 to 36 weeks’ gestation to protect their newborns against RSV. https://t.co/fyB4S8xsQ6
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 22, 2023
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre downplays any concerns about Biden retelling a story, minutes apart at the same event, about Charlottesville inspiring his 2020 campaign:
“Sometimes we also speak from here and retell a story… He spoke from his heart.” pic.twitter.com/9OsvxZjFFO
— The Recount (@therecount) September 22, 2023