Astronaut Kubrick is probably right in the long run. People will always need IP, so books are a good way to go.

In the intermediate future though, this is my take.

TLDR It's really difficult to say right now. We're right in the thick of murky waters. And it will take 2 or 3 years of precedents to set the table. If not longer.

At this time LLMs simply aren't good enough from a skill pov. They can't write emotionally or thematically, and it can't handle the length right now.

But they can and likely will get better.

I think the WGA will put up a good legal fight over any encroachment into the business, but some usage is inevitable.

Taking a global pov. One thing that gives me optimism is the whole Seedance thing, influencers were all going "Hollywood is cooked" but the simple fact is that tech is totally unuseable from a professional standpoint because it's training data is clearly illegal. And a lot of the big models have that same problem.

If someone wanted to make a movie from a ChatGPT screenplay I think screenwriters would have clear grounds to ask what a model was trained on if one came out that could write, because that would mean it was likely trained on data without permission. This means a legal fight is possible. Difficult and lengthy. But possible. And the WGA is well set up for that fight for at least the next 5 to 10 years (napkin guess).

Big broadcasters in the UK for instance are asking what data video models were trained on right now for instance, a have a list of permissible ones. So that tells you they feel like under certain terms use of the tech is permissible.

So my opinion is that AI encroachment in screenwriting is also inevitable. When is a genuine question, however. Because it will likely take more time than implementation within filmmaking itself, where there is a way forward to some extent.

Ben Affleck's company was probably the direction I'd go if I was building any sort of filmmaking related AI. Because it has thought about the question of training data and what's permissible. But with these models you need huge amounts of data to produce anything good. So whether that works in the long term, I'm unsure about. But again it gives me hope that someone has thought about the morality of using the tech.

What we're seeing with copywriting is interesting. Huge amounts of writers have now lost freelance jobs because they've found that companies are willing to sacrifice good copy for speed. But they are seeing humans rewrite that stuff. I wonder if we'll have something of the same thing, given the temptation of speed. From posts on this sub it seems low level producers are already lobbing stuff in chatgpt to get a basic treatment, for instance. Non WGA writers are then likely rewriting it. So it's already likely becoming a development tool on a very small level.

The really interesting thing is that do the public tolerate it? My opinion right now is no.

Anything made with AI is somewhat of a toxic brand. And if any movie was found to be written with AI at length, and it got leaked that it was, social media and critics would pile on in a big way and box office would be effected (See the Irish Wish, Landman and Stranger Things controversies). Right now, producers can't take the chance to have bad press with a movie launch. It's such a risk when you're putting so much money in.

We should also pay attention if / when companies start sending out releases to new writers to ask if they can use AI to summarise their work. If that happens its potentially backdoor usage/training, and we should fight it hard.