The future of storytelling
Writers Justin Haythe, Danielle Ward, Iain Morris and Ben Schiffer discuss their feelings towards AI as advancing technology offers the opportunity to help with research, create episodic outlines and even produce full scripts.
When artificial intelligence (AI) went mainstream with the release of chatbots such as ChatGPT towards the end of 2022, the possibilities looked to be infinite. So it has played out, with endless amounts of information at the touch of the button and the ability to request it in any format, whether as articles, restaurant recommendations, city break itineraries, or even images and video.
Of course, the implications for the television industry proved to be monumental, with ChatGPT and other AI products able to write scripts, create shooting schedules, support post-production and more within seconds, putting numerous jobs in the sector at risk.
However, most writers in the business say they don’t use this emerging technology as part their writing process and doubt its scriptwriting credibility (so far). Additionally, they question whether viewers would even want to watch AI-generated work on screen.
“I certainly don’t use it, and I’m totally ignorant to it,” Justin Haythe, creator of historical drama The Serpent Queen, tells DQ. “That tends to be my reaction to a lot of technology, to try to be wilfully ignorant as long as I can be while they sort it out.”
Haythe acknowledges that AI represents an “enormous transition across our world,” specifically when it comes to his field and the business of storytelling. “There’s a certain kind of story that is reassuring because we know it. We know the shape. We know exactly what’s going to happen,” he says. “People having a long day at work come home and you can pop it on in the background and look at your phone while it’s on, and by minute 10 there’s a body and by minute 20 there’s a resolution.”
“There’s a reason that people are rewatching shows from years and years ago. Part of it is that familiarity, and I wonder if that’s what AI is going to be able to do quite easily.”
But while Haythe can see AI being able replicate a ‘case of the week’ story with a familiar structure, he questions whether machines could surprise an audience in the way the “extraordinary” David Chase did with HBO’s mafia sensation The Sopranos.
“There was something familiar about the mob story and the family story, but putting it together the way he did felt completely new,” Haythe says. “I don’t think AI can do that. It may just up the stakes in terms of innovation, in terms of originality. But in terms of what the impact could be on employment and [for television production] technically, it’s a big concern.”
Haythe also shuns the idea of using AI for the historical research needed to prepare for a show like The Serpent Queen, which stars Samantha Morton as Catherine de Medici, the 16th century Queen of France. “A historic show should all be about research – and on some level it is, but on another level you have to leave it all behind,” he says. “Anybody who tells you they know what it was like in the 16th century, it’s not true. Nobody knows. So you have to take this spirit of truth, and then let these people be real people. So research is a part of it up until a point, and certainly online research is some part of that. But I’m not a ChatGPT guy.”
Neither is Time Bandits (pictured top) co-creator Iain Morris. “I’m not using it. I can barely get photos off my phone to be honest, so I’m barely answering emails. I’ve never logged onto ChatGPT or anything like that. I’m sure there’s reasons to do it, but not for me,” he says.
“I have never used AI, I’ve never even used ChatGPT,” echoes Danielle Ward, the creator of BBC comedy Daddy Issues. The series stars Aimee Lou Wood and David Morrissey as a daughter and her hapless father who end up living together as they confront the trials of parenting.
“For me, writing is the thing I love doing, so the idea that I’d get something else to do that… I know a lot of writers don’t like writing, they like having written, [but] I’m never happier than when I’m at my desk,” she says. “I have headphones on, playing rain noise, and I sit and write for about nine or 10 hours at a stretch, and I love that.”
Ward, who has previously written on In The Long Run and Brassic, can see the threat posed by AI, particularly when it comes to long-running series with dozens of episodes that can be used to train an AI. “But it feels to me that it’s much more of a threat because it needs to gather data. A good comedy is so uniquely voiced that I don’t quite believe AI can do that,” she says.
“What I can see it being used for is these big runners, so I can see AI being used for kids’ TV where there’s loads of episodes, as there’s loads of data to feed into the machine, like continuing drama. I can really see if you work on something like EastEnders or Coronation Street, you might be worried because there is so much to feed in that AI could definitely develop one of those scripts.
“For something in my voice, you’ve got six episodes and I think if you’re a good writer and you’ve got a good voice, it’s maybe not that much of a threat because there’ll always be scope for you bringing something interesting. But a big, serialised show or something that’s got loads of episodes, I can see why that would be a worry.”
Meanwhile, The Turkish Detective creator Ben Schiffer is among the writers who say they have used the likes of ChatGPT, revealing: “I’ve experimented with it a little bit.” And the results? “I find it quite comforting because every time I’ve used it, I’d be like, ‘ChatGPT, write me a treatment for a TV series set on a farm.’ And in 10 seconds it does it, but reading it, I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is alright. This is plausible. It’s not rubbish, but it’s alright.’ That’s the level that it comes out with,” he notes.
“Maybe it’ll improve and maybe ChatGPT will become [The West Wing creator] Aaron Sorkin or something, but maybe I’m being naïve [because] I can’t quite see that. Just because of the way it works, as far as I understand, it’s a collation of what’s come before. It doesn’t seem like there’s a huge scope for it to come out with works of genius, because real creativity is connecting things that don’t seem to be connected at all. I feel like AI can’t do that.”
The Inbetweeners co-creator Morris, who partnered with Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi to reimagine Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy film Time Bandits for Apple TV+, sums up the attitude of many writers to AI when he says: “I hope the arts remain human arts, or at least there’s a differentiation between the human arts and the computer generated arts.”
The writer recalls a conversation with a photographer 10 years ago at a time when photographic editing software was becoming more accessible. “He was like, ‘I know how to light stuff. I know how to make that beautiful, and that’s how I made my art because I could shoot these people. Now anyone can basically get it, and they can make a photograph look a bit like one of my lighting effects,’” Morris recalls. “But then he says, ‘I got over that and then I realised it opens the world up to anything and it becomes about taste. I can do anything, but this is what I’ve done. Do you like it?’
“My greatest hope for it is to go, ‘OK, well, in a world where anything is possible, human writers or human directors and people have made this thing and hopefully people connect with it forever.’ That’s my great wish.”
For years, Schiffer avoided watching smash-hit musical Hamilton because he couldn’t believe it would be as good as they hype surrounding it. “Then I saw it on Disney+ during Covid and I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this really is amazing,’” says the writer, who adapted Barbara Nadel’s The Turkish Detective novels for a crime series picked up by broadcasters including the BBC.
“One of the reasons it’s so amazing is it’s such a bad idea. Imagine if you were like, ‘What are you working on next?’ and I was like, ‘A hip-hop musical about a slightly obscure founding father.’ You’d be like, ‘That sounds not good.’ But Lin-Manuel Miranda had this incredible vision and he saw how that would work. I hope AI couldn’t really replicate that.
“I also don’t really believe that an audience wants to see something that’s been generated by a computer,” Schiffer adds. “Storytelling is so fundamental to human beings. It’s such a core thing that we’ll always need it and want it, and I think people don’t want to watch something that was written by a computer. I really believe that.”
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