Luddite Blood
Like many delusional idiots, I'm an aspiring screenwriter, but in my day job I'm a software engineer so you might expect me to look favorably on the use of AI for screenwriting. Instead, what I mostly feel is revulsion.
There could be a genetic component to this. I'm originally from Nottinghamshire, so there's likely some trace Luddite blood in my veins; some historical drive to take a hammer to data centers in the same way my ancestors might have done to lace-making machines.
This isn't to say that AI hasn't had a positive impact on my writing. A few years ago the simple depressing fact of AI's existence made me realize that a narrow window of opportunity may actually be closing, and that I needed to hurry if I was going to try this screenwriting lark while it still existed.
Anti-AI spite can be motivating, but actually using AI for writing? I'd rather just walk into the ocean.
Taking Credit
Imagine that I call up another writer, Alice, and pitch her an idea for a movie. Alice goes away and writes the script, and then brings it to me for feedback. I make a few suggestions and Alice implements the changes.
Once she hands me the completed screenplay, I scrub her name off the title page and replace it with my own.
Is "Written by David Dean" an accurate credit? Was I the screenwriter?
I hope you'd agree that the answer is an emphatic no since Alice clearly did all the actual work here.
Now take that hypothetical and switch Alice out for a machine. Has the credit become accurate? Have I magically become the screenwriter?
If the answer's now yes then it means the "Written by" credit has nothing to do with the work being done, since in each case my involvement was the same. The only difference is that I can now claim the writing credit without anyone around to dispute it. Alice might have complained, but the machine won't. Thanks to the machine, I can take credit for work I didn't do and get away with it.
And this is meant to appeal to me?
It's unethical to put my name on a script I didn't write. It doesn't matter whether another person wrote it instead of me, or a machine wrote it instead of me. If it wasn't me, then "Written by David Dean" is a lie.
I Actually Want to Do This
There's a common misconception that coming up with an idea is the hard part, while the actual writing of the screenplay is more of a formality. The use of AI distorts the work of screenwriting into that misunderstood version, overlooking the fact that writing the screenplay is where the skill is, where the challenge is, and where the joy is.
There are certainly aspects of screenwriting that are hard, laborious work, but this isn't like unblocking a toilet. It's not a task I want to complete as quickly and easily as possible and ideally wouldn't have to complete at all.
Writing isn't something I do begrudgingly, and I'm not looking for a tool that purports to help me write but actually helps me avoid it. If I was, I wouldn't need ChatGPT for that. There are easier ways to not screenwrite.
I'd like to be able to re-read one of my scripts and feel proud of the writing, but I can't do that if it's not mine. I want to improve, but I can't develop a skill that I don't use.
A Pessimist's Forecast
Many of my fellow aspiring writers are already embracing AI to generate screenplay posters, pitch decks, and trailers. They look like utter shit, but the quality will likely improve. Any time I see one I instinctively assume they used AI for the writing too, and I lose interest in the script and respect for the writer. I wouldn't want to spend more time reading their script than they spent generating it.
Perhaps I'm being unfair and these people do actually write their own screenplays, only using AI for promotional tools, but that implies they're cool with other people's creative pursuits being thrown to AI, just not the ones they care about. It's a trend of compartmentalization that I'm starting to see applied within writing itself.
- "I'd never use AI for the actual writing, but I do find it useful for the initial brainstorming."
- "Of course I wouldn't use AI for coming up with ideas, but it's helpful for just getting that first draft on the page."
- "I barely use it at all. Just for character names / alt lines / polishing... etc."
Sections of the writing process are incrementally carved out and redefined as Not Really Writing in order to justify having AI do them. Repeat until there's nothing left.
And if this is true for aspiring writers under comparatively little pressure, the situation's likely worse for professional writers with deadlines and money on the table.
For employers the choice may be even clearer.
"But AI will never be as good as a human writer"...
Okay, but if it's a thousand times faster and a thousand times cheaper, it will win. And "Human Writer vs AI Writer" is a false binary anyway, since, at least initially, it'll be a combination. A lower paid human kept in the loop to provide just enough originality and voice, but otherwise acting merely as an initial prompter and final editor, and now working against deadlines that are impossible for a human alone.
I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
— Douglas Adams - The Salmon of Doubt
- 1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
- 2. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
- 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
Eventually a generation will be born for whom AI has always existed, and they won't view it as a disruptive force. They'll learn that AI generates movies at the same time they learn what a movie is. They'll grow up surrounded by stories that weren't written by humans and that only came into existence at the moment they were requested.
The human expression will be gone. The human connection will be gone. Stories will simply be simulacra and remixes of previous stories, dispensed on request like vending machine coffee. Perhaps only live improv will remain untouched.
All of this is crushingly sad, but short of a Butlerian Jihad or larger civilization collapse it's hard to see a way out.
I don't know how screenwriting survives that. The issue isn't just that AI will be able to write screenplays, but that screenplays won't even need to exist.
I'd love to be deeply, stupidly, wrong about all this, so if you're not a fatalistic doomer and have a cheerier forecast I'd genuinely appreciate hearing it. I enjoyed sleeping at night.
We Were Always Doomed
So the smart money says we should just accept it. It is The Future after all.
And sure, it's built on plagiarism, undermines the purpose of art, jeopardizes the livelihoods of artists, and turns credits into lies, but it's here to stay, and if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
I don't find that argument persuasive.
Most things I ethically object to are going to exist regardless of my objection. That doesn't make the objection evaporate, and it certainly doesn't make me want to join in.
"But you'll get left behind. If you want to be a screenwriter you're gonna have to..." As if the thing I care about is the job title, not the work it represents.
Besides, this whole enterprise was always delusional. There's an oft-quoted claim that there are fewer A-list screenwriters than there are players in the NBA. The chance of selling a screenplay at all is pitifully small, let alone finding consistent work in an industry that seems to have been dying since shortly after it began.
A writing career is not one you aim for if your priority is good pay or reliable employment. This is a deeply impractical goal that only ever made sense as the result of passion, and so draining that out in service to automation is miserably self-defeating.
The AI hype — "We're not replacing writers, we're empowering them" — is a sales pitch from people who don't understand why I would want to do any of this. They think I'm looking for a short cut because they think creative effort is merely an inefficiency to be ironed out. They look at the work it takes and can't fathom caring about it this much.
Whether or not it turns out to be the future, I will never have AI generate material for me. If other writers choose differently I will view their choice with a healthy and respectful contempt.
And while I don't normally use em dashes or the "It's not x, it's y" phrasing, I dislike the idea of limiting our language to avoid sounding like a machine that's trying to sound like us. Sometimes you just have to write these things out of spite.
Motivational writing tip: Every time you sit down to write, imagine an AI screaming. #scriptsky
— David Dean (@cynohead.com) January 23, 2026 at 6:33 PM