Lately, it feels like everyone is talking about ChatGPT and how artificial intelligence seems to filter into our daily lives. There’s much to consider about whether these technologies can put our jobs at risk, but… what about our shows? Can AI actually affect what we watch?
The Rise of AI Applications
If you had to sum up what Artificial Intelligence is and how it’s currently being used, you could say it all comes down to programs that can generate text or create images. For example, you can give Midjourney a prompt like “Draw a mechanical dove”, and the app will come up with something like this.
The results are pretty impressive and have already motivated people all around the globe to create dreamy images or chat for hours with programs like ChatGPT, Bing AI, or Chinchilla. However, we’re about ten years away from AI being “general”, or able to demonstrate intelligence across a wide range of tasks. And yet… Artificial Intelligence is already impacting the entertainment industry.
TV and the Potential of Artificial Intelligence
At the moment, the most popular use of AI in TV and streaming services is linked to its ability to improve recommendations and analytics. In other words, companies are utilizing it to check a person’s viewing history and preferences and create personalized advice on “what to watch next”. The same technology can also extract information about the shows automatically, including genre, styles, and themes.
So, a natural next step for linking ChatGPT or similar platforms to your watching activities would be, for example, to support the ability to ask something like “Hey, I want to find a show on HBO that can lift my mood” — and the system would recommend… well, possibly Barry, or maybe Succession.
Check out our HBOWatchGPT Show Recommender
Now, what else could AI do apart from improving engagement? In the coming years, it could actually play a more significant role in both production and post-production.
At the moment, video editing requires sophisticated routines that involve searching for indexes to, for instance, support speech to text and metadata. Or to do things like following a ball in a game of tennis or soccer. In the future, though, we could see AI joining teams of writers to aid in character development, storyboarding, content optimization, and even dialogue generation.
A Less Scary Future
If the idea of ‘robots’ writing human tragedies scare you, don’t worry. Chances are these tools will be used as assistants, rather than replace the jobs that we do well (such as creating engaging and dysfunctional family dynamics).
A more reasonable use of AI in TV and movies will probably be linked to marketing and distribution. After all, the entertainment industry requires massive amounts of content. You need descriptions, synopses, press releases, social media posts… the list is endless. A lot of these tasks can actually be offloaded to ChatGPT and other bots, especially for the initial stages.
So, to answer the question of whether AI will change TV… the answer is yes, definitely. But in less glamorous ways than you probably imagine.
