Those of us looking for signs of the end of television will surely have seen the grim news this weekend that ITV plans to generate new ideas for television shows using artificial intelligence. According to the Telegraph, the broadcaster is willing to pay someone £95,000 a year to get AI to come up with “TV shows, films and digital-first content”.
Which does sound a death knell, doesn’t it? For a while now, broadcasters around the world have coveted AI as a cheap way of creating entertainment – in fact, much of last year’s Writers Guild of America strike revolved around seeking assurances that commissioners wouldn’t just hop on ChatGPT and churn out hundreds of scripts. But ITV has become one of the first to stick its head above the parapet and declare that it is actually going to do it.
