Hollywood writers and directors are training AI to replace them, and getting paid to do it

Key points

• Hollywood writers, directors and producers are earning $12 to $200 an hour teaching AI systems how to do their jobs.
• The work involves training large language models, the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT, to write screenplays and plan film shoots.
• A prolonged jobs slump in the entertainment industry is pushing experienced, award-winning creatives toward this gig work.
• One person described the experience as being "handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession".

There is a particular kind of desperation involved in teaching someone to take your job. Now imagine the someone is software.

That's the situation facing a growing number of Hollywood professionals, as first reported by The Guardian. Experienced writers and producers are taking on gig work to train AI models, meaning the AI systems that learn from examples to produce text, scripts, shooting schedules and more, to replicate skills it took them years to build. When we reported in August that a showrunner was ordering her writers to use ChatGPT, this looked like a management imposition. Now creatives are volunteering, because the bills don't wait.

What does this work actually look like?

The tasks are surprisingly intimate. A screenwriter might craft sample dialogue or walk an AI through the logic of a three-act plot. A line producer might map out a shooting schedule step by step, narrating decisions as they go so the AI can learn the pattern.

Pay ranges from $12 to $200 an hour depending on experience and the platform hiring. That spread is wide. The low end barely clears retail wages. The high end rivals a decent television staff-writing gig, though without credits or job security.

The people doing this aren't beginners. Some are award-winners with long industry credits. That they're turning to AI training at all tells you something about the state of Hollywood right now.

Why are so many entertainment workers doing this?

The usual work has dried up. A jobs slump, driven by post-strike caution from studios and broader cost-cutting, has left many creatives scrambling for income. AI training gigs have appeared in the gap, often advertised on freelance platforms with few questions asked.

The uncomfortable irony isn't hard to miss. Every hour a writer spends teaching an AI to draft a scene is, at least theoretically, one more hour of future screenplay work a human may not be hired for.

"Handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession" is how one creative described it to The Guardian. The bills are real, the moral discomfort is real, and neither cancels the other out.

What should workers and audiences make of this?

For anyone in a creative field, this pattern is worth watching. Expert human knowledge training AI systems that later compete with those same experts has shown up in writing, illustration and music. Film and television production is now clearly on that list.

If you work in a creative industry and you're considering AI training gigs, read the contract carefully. Many agreements sign away rights to your contributed examples permanently, with no ongoing payment if the AI later generates commercial work from what you taught it.

For audiences, the practical effect may take time to show up on screen. The economic pressure on the people who make the shows you watch, though, is already visible.

Common questions

Does training an AI with your work mean you lose rights to your own ideas?

Generally, yes, under most current contracts. When you submit examples to train an AI model, the platform typically owns those examples and everything the model learns from them. No ongoing royalty applies.

Can writers refuse this kind of work without losing out?

There's no obligation to take it. But with traditional commissions down, many writers feel the financial pressure leaves them little real choice, which is precisely the tension this story highlights.