Over 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike on Tuesday morning after negotiations with the top studios seeking higher minimum pay, more writers per show and less exclusivity on single projects among other demands fell through. The Board of Directors of the WGA West and the Council of the WGA East was exercising the authority granted to them by the Guild’s members when they announced the strike, the first of its kind since 2007.

The picketers are standing outside the major studios including Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Amazon, Apple, Sony Pictures Entertainment and more as they demand better work conditions for themselves.

The writers are also protesting against the use of AI by studios. The guild offered a proposal that would protect writers from encroachment by AI on their credits and compensation, but the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) rejected it. They suggested annual meetings could be arranged to discuss technological advancements.

C. Robert Cargill, best known for writing Doctor Strange, The Black Phone and Sinister tweeted, “The immediate fear of AI isn’t that us writers will have our work replaced by artificially generated content. It’s that we will be underpaid to rewrite that trash into something we could have done better from the start. This is what the WGA is opposing and the studios want.”

The ripples of the strike are already being felt with late-night shows such as Saturday Night Live and the Late Night Shows hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel went on a hiatus immediately. It will also affect the release of upcoming seasons and films in the coming months.

The last time the Guild went on strike it lasted for three months. However, with no signs of pending talks between the WGA and AMPTP, there’s no telling how long writers will have to go without pay and how many projects will be delayed, shortened or scrapped.