BBC Boss Says He Watched a ‘Pretty Good’ AI-Generated Episode of ‘Doctor Who’: ‘Everyone’s a Creator, Not All the Creativity Is Bad’

BBC boss Matt Brittin says he was recently sent a fully AI-generated episode of “Doctor Who,” which he deemed “pretty good” – although he was quick to add it was “not going to replace humans.”

“Everyone’s got the ability in their hands — or six billion people have — to create content at the standard of a Hollywood studio,” said Brittin, who was speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in London, U.K.

“Somebody sent me a 50-minute episode of ‘Doctor Who’ that was AI-generated the other day. It’s pretty good,” he continued. “I mean, it’s not going to replace humans, and we’ll come on to that. So everyone’s a creator. Not all the creativity is bad.”

He didn’t give any more details about what the episode contained — for example using existing actors or generating entirely new ones — or who made it.

Brittin joined the BBC as director-general earlier this year after an eighteen-year stint at Google. He confessed at the conference, where he was in conversation with Kirsty Young, that he first turned down the job when he was approached. “They called me, and I said, ‘I can’t do the job, I’m not a program maker. I’m not a journalist.’”

“And actually, I was persuaded that being an outsider, I might be able to do the job, but only with all of you,” he said, gesturing to the audience, which was made up of senior television producers, commissioners and executives.

AI has been the dominant topic of conversation at the convention, which is this year hosted by Amazon and themed “United in change, if not now when?”

At the opening of the convention, Prime Video international boss Kelly Day also urged the industry to embrace AI, saying “AI doesn’t replace imagination, it amplifies it.”