The Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are on strike, telling us that their members are without sufficient income, and that they are deeply worried about the threat posed to their work by artificial intelligence.

‘Oh’, you might say and scroll on to the next thing, but it feels like a big ‘oh’ to me, an ‘o’ that comes from my s-o-ul.

I love stories and film, and those who create and deliver them – those who are seen, and those who are not. Together they produce the ultimate emotional takeaway for us to consume almost anywhere, at any time. They fill our worlds with the rest of the world, and way beyond its boundaries, making entertainment that is now so easy to access it’s almost impossible to understand how much work has gone into its making. Embedded in our lives, and loved by all of us, we take it for granted, but sadly its earnings don’t seem to be filtering down properly to its creators.

I hope a way can be found soon through this tangle. It doesn’t feel like a good time to be without the imaginations that help us see so much of what it means to be human.

Here’s a link that provides more information about the strike.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023