‘Slow Horses’ & ‘One Life’ Director Predicts A Show Made Entirely By Generative AI Is Only Three-To-Five Years Away

deadline.com:

A TV series made entirely by generative AI is only three-to-five years away, according to the director of hits including Slow Horses and Anthony Hopkins movie One Life.

James Hawes spoke with legal teams at SAG-AFTRA and the WGA and undertook a poll with fellow directors and VFX workers after the BBC canceled long-running drama Doctors, in which he probed the likelihood of a fully AI series, he revealed today. “The best guess was three to five years,” he told the British Film & High-End TV Inquiry. “Someone will say, ‘Create a scene in an ER room where a doctor comes in and he’s having an affair with a woman and they’re flirting, and someone is dying on the table,’ and [AI] will start to create it.

Maybe it won’t be as polished as we are used to but that is how close we are getting.” Hawes, who is also vice chair of Directors UK, raised concerns that shows with AI so central to their creation will have an impact on “vital training grounds” for below-the-line staffers making their way through the industry, citing Doctors.

He simultaneously acknowledged the “genie is out the bottle” on AI and the UK should work to catch up with the likes of the U.S., as he pointed to the launch of Open AI’s Sora program last week, which can generate scenes digitally. “My worry is that if we don’t get up to speed with this then the AI-generated stories will come from elsewhere,” he added. “We need to take note and act on it now.