Is 2025 the year AI scribbling levels up?
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Mark Zuckerberg predicted AI would replace mid-level coders at Meta in early 2025. It got me thinking about screenwriting. After 30 years of scribbling TV, film, and video games, I’ve noticed parallels between writing scripts and coding software. At the blank page level, the gigs break down to arranging specific elements to create desired outcomes. Change one line of dialogue or code, and everything shifts.
AI can already handle basic screenwriting tasks - cranking out standard dialogue, painting scene descriptions, and tracking story beats. The entry-level work that baby scribblers would execute and their seniors would rewrite. Well, now the machines are capable of all that.
So, the squeeze is coming for mid-level scribblers - the workhorse scribes of TV shows who churn out solid, reliable scripts on time and budget. AI is getting scarily good at matching tone, working within constraints of show bibles, and incorporating creative notes. Studios could soon use AI for the first drafts and the rewrites, leaving a lot of wannabe and working writers without a seat at the table.
But - the industry still needs visionary creators. The artists and provocateurs who dream up original stories and push existing boundaries. The folks who make creative leaps AI can't match. But w/o the support of a passionate and/or seasoned staff of supportive scribblers, those at the top of the typewriter will need to evolve. They’ll need to expand their skills and comfort levels to work with AI while focusing on the deeper stuff - emotion, theme, meaning.
We're verging toward a split: a smaller group of elite creators within the establishment and more people using AI tools to tell their stories independently, outside the Hollywood ecosphere. Fewer traditional jobs but many more ways to create, produce, and distribute.
The human edge remains what it’s always been. More important than ever. The understanding of WHY stories matter. The emotional core. The cultural resonance. The personal truth. To survive the transition, embrace AI as a collaborator while doubling down on what makes you uniquely human.
Ask yourself what you bring to the screen that no algorithm can replicate. Protect and feed your creative spark, telling relatable and relevant tales that connect with audiences.
Consider "Everything Everywhere All at Once." No AI could have dreamed up the Daniels’ wild ride through the multiverse. Or "Barbie" - a movie that took a stale corporate IP and turned it into a subversive commentary on feminism, gender roles and relations, and even the fundamentals of human existence.
Maybe one day, AI will match that level of creative awesomeness, but until then… ABS. Always. Be. Scribbling.
