BBC boss Matt Brittin said he was recently sent an episode of “Doctor Who” produced entirely by AI, which he found “pretty good” – but was quick to add that it “won’t replace humans”.
“Everyone — or six billion people — has the ability to create content to the standard of a Hollywood studio,” Brittin said at the Royal Television Society conference in London, England.
“Someone sent me a 50-minute AI-generated episode of ‘Doctor Who’ the other day. It’s pretty good,” he continued. “What I mean is, it’s not going to replace humans, and we’re going to continue with that. I mean, everyone is creative. Not all creativity is bad.”
He didn’t provide further details about what the episode involved (e.g. using existing actors or creating entirely new actors) or who was doing it.
Brittin joined the BBC as director general at the beginning of this year, following an eighteen-year stint at Google. Chatting to Kirsty Young at the conference, she admitted it was the first time she turned down the job when she was approached. “They called me and I said, ‘I can’t do this job, I’m not a program producer, I’m not a journalist.'”
“And actually, as an outsider, I was convinced that I could only do this job with the participation of all of you,” he said, gesturing to the audience of senior television producers, commissioners and executives.
This year, Amazon hosted the event titled “Unity in change, if not now, when?” Artificial intelligence was the main topic of discussion at the themed congress.
At the opening of the meeting, Prime Video’s international boss Kelly Day also called on the industry to embrace artificial intelligence and said, “Artificial intelligence does not replace imagination, it strengthens it.”