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Thursday, 22 February 2024

Soap World



TV soaps could be made by AI within three years, director warns

Television soaps could potentially be created by AI within the next three to five years, according to a leading director. James Hawes, vice-chairman of Directors UK and director of the Apple TV+ Gary Oldman spy drama Slow Horses, told parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport committee inquiry into British film and high-end television that digitally made scripts will soon be upon us – particularly for soaps.

“We at Directors UK held a forum about Doctors, the BBC show that’s been cancelled,” said Hawes. “One of the members there started talking about AI and it sent me investigating how long it would be before a show like Doctors can be made entirely by generative AI.”


I'm surprised this isn't the case already. In fact I have my suspicions about the latest House of Commons spat because it looks very much like a TV soap to me. Unfortunately, many of the "MPs" involved are hardly any more realistic than Max Headroom

It's a work in progress I suppose.  

6 comments:

The Jannie said...

AI might have had a positive effect on "Doctors". I saw it once when trapped in a hospital waiting room. FFS it was dire, with all the imagination of "Mrs Dale's Diary".

A K Haart said...

Jannie - I haven't seen it but it sounds dire, even the programme title is unimaginative.

Sam Vega said...

You mean they are not already?

A K Haart said...

Sam - it surprises me how low key this is at the moment, because it implies that TV soaps could be churned out like sausages, but far more cheaply than now.

dearieme said...

Yeah, AKH, and they could colour in the characters to suit whichever foreign country they plan to show it in. Indeed, not only foreign.

A K Haart said...

dearieme - yes, any characters, any language, any historical era. The implications seem to be vast and it has been foreseeable for some time. One technical downside seems to be that the datacentres required take an enormous amount of power, so that's a problem for the EU and UK as suitable locations.