Two Years On, the Contract Changes, the AI Provisions, and What Actually Improved for Working Screenwriters

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

The 2023 WGA strike, which lasted 148 days and was followed shortly by the SAG-AFTRA strike, was the most consequential labor action in Hollywood’s recent history, producing contract terms that addressed the specific economic concerns that had been building across the streaming era and, significantly, establishing the first contractual framework for AI’s use in screenwriting that any major Hollywood labor agreement had included. Two years on, the practical effects of the strike are visible in how development rooms operate, how writers are being compensated, and whether the concerns that generated the strike have been meaningfully addressed.

The Mini-Room Problem and What Changed

One of the central grievances of the 2023 strike was the “mini-room” model that streaming platforms had developed: small writers’ rooms hired for short periods, often without the option to work on production, at rates and for durations that did not provide the income stability that traditional television writing rooms had offered. The mini-room concentrated the writing for a series in a very small group for a compressed period, reducing employment opportunities for mid-level writers and eliminating the apprenticeship function that traditional rooms had provided. The new WGA contract established minimum room sizes, minimum staffing durations, and requirements for production-phase employment that were designed to address the mini-room model’s most exploitative features. Whether these minimums have been sufficient to restore the working conditions that the traditional television model provided is the question that the two-year assessment is beginning to answer.

The AI Provisions and Their Adequacy

The AI provisions in the WGA’s 2023 contract established that AI-generated material could not be used as the basis for scripts to be rewritten by writers (preventing the replacement of first draft work with AI output), that writers could not be required to use AI tools, and that AI-generated material would not be considered literary material under the contract. These provisions were among the most forward-looking in any major labor agreement, but they addressed the AI capabilities of 2023 in a landscape where AI capabilities had continued developing. The 2026 contract negotiation, which began earlier this year, is addressing the gaps that two years of AI development have exposed in the original provisions. More screenwriting industry coverage at Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

The Broader Significance

The specific subject of this piece connects to the broader question of how research informs practice in the domains that most directly affect people’s wellbeing and relationships. The gap between what the research shows and what common practice reflects is often large, and the journalism that bridges this gap — translating research findings into accessible, accurate information that people can use in their own lives — performs a function that neither the academic literature nor the popular advice industry consistently performs. The academic literature is rigorous but inaccessible; the popular advice industry is accessible but often not grounded in research. The journalism that combines accessibility with rigor serves both audiences and deserves the sustained attention that good health and relationship journalism provides. The coverage at bohiney.com and prat.uk aims for exactly this combination: evidence-grounded, accessibly written, and useful to the people who read it for guidance on the aspects of human experience that matter most.

The research in this area is ongoing, and the findings that seem most established today may be refined by future studies. What the accumulated evidence does provide is a basis for practical guidance that is considerably more reliable than intuition alone, and that people who engage with the research — through their own reading, through therapy, through relationships that provide corrective experiences — consistently find useful. The evidence-based approach to human wellbeing is not the whole story, but it is an important part of it.

The practical application of this research and these principles requires more than reading about them: it requires the willingness to engage with specific practices in specific relationships, to tolerate the discomfort that deliberate behavioral change produces before the new patterns become natural, and to seek professional support when the self-directed application of the principles is insufficient. The evidence consistently shows that both self-directed learning and professionally supported intervention produce meaningful improvements in the outcomes these studies measure, and that the combination is more effective than either alone. The resources available for this work — from evidence-based self-help materials to qualified sex therapists and couples counselors — are more accessible than many people realize, and the research on outcomes from engaging with these resources is consistently positive for people who approach the work with genuine commitment to the process.

The value of bringing research findings to bear on these questions is not that research provides simple answers but that it replaces speculation and anecdote with evidence — the accumulated findings of studies conducted with methodology rigorous enough to distinguish patterns from noise and to identify which variables actually predict the outcomes that matter. Acting on research evidence rather than on received wisdom, cultural scripts, or individual intuition is not a guarantee of better outcomes, but it is a more reliable path toward them than the alternatives. The journalism and commentary that makes this research accessible performs a genuine public service, and the engagement with it that readers bring — the willingness to apply findings to specific situations with appropriate nuance — completes the work that the research begins.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/