The advent of artificial intelligence poses a threat to Quebec’s culture, believes the union, which represents screenwriters writing stories in French for television and cinema.
“Works without authors that would give works without cultural coloring and without taste,” says Pauline Halpern, President of the Quebec Radio, Television and Cinema Authors Society (SARTEC).
Like their conspicuous American counterparts at the Writer’s Guild Association, who have made artificial intelligence an issue in renegotiating their collective bargaining agreements, SARTEC members fear producers will turn to applications like ChatGPT for scripts at a fraction of the price.
“I’m afraid of losing Quebec’s cultural originality, which is recognized worldwide,” says Ms. Halpern, who sees “a danger” to our culture in these new technologies.
“We have been fighting for years to protect this culture, to protect our language, an iconoclastic thought, a very specific vision of the world that is expressed in our documentaries, our fictions. We have fantastic TV series that are the result of writers’ imaginations. What happens when it is replaced by artificial intelligence?”
She would refuse
Sophie Deschênes, producer of TV series to whom we owe Avant le crash, Les pays d’en haut and Mensonges in particular, expresses a concern unlike SARTEC: that authors who lack inspiration are using artificial intelligence.
Image archive/Agency QMI
Sophie Deschenes
The President of SOVIMAGE assures that she would refuse to create a scenario that, due to its public nature, would have been created with a software like ChatGPT.
“I wouldn’t take it because I have no guarantee that it won’t be reused in all sauces once it’s in the system,” says Ms. Deschênes, referring to fears of plagiarism.
A useful law… for now
SARTEC currently sees barriers to using artificial intelligence in screenwriting, the most important being copyright law.
“As currently interpreted by case law, the law provides that a work to be protected by copyright must exhibit some form of originality. This takes the form of human intervention. Currently, copyright does not protect creations that arose from artificial intelligence. At least that is the interpretation that I and other experts draw from it,” supports Pauline Halpern.
Sophie Deschênes is also tickled by the question of copyright.
“If I use ChatGPT, do I own the rights? There is someone who owns it, this side,” she adds.
“At the moment there are many unanswered questions.”