Screenwriters want to stop AI from taking their jobs. Studios want to see what the tech can do.

The more than 11,000 film and TV writers who went out on strike this week for the first time in 15 years have seen the future, and it frightens them.

The explosion in streaming has already transformed the entertainment business in ways that can undermine screenwriters' income, and the advent of artificial intelligence threatens to take an even bigger bite out of their livelihood. That's why the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the union spearheading the protest, wants to put strict guardrails around how studios use "generative" text and image tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E.