Ensuring reality-based TV content is AI-proof
The many disruptions brought on by the advent of artificial intelligence are starting to impact pretty much every type of human work and activity. In the entertainment industry, the level of anxiety is often high as new AI tools are developed and new applications emerge, saving producers time and money, but threatening well-established practices and, more importantly, the very existence of countless jobs as their usefulness and relevance comes into question.
One particularly touchy issue is that of the use AI and intellectual property. After all, intellectual property is the only commodity that the television and media industry produces. If machines can replace humans in providing it, where does that leave the world’s screenwriters, directors, producers and even commissioners? Right now, we’re still very far from AI replacing creatives in storytelling when it comes to fiction, when it comes to content created from true stories, the issue is slightly different: how to ensure its protection from the throes of disinformation, fake news and ‘post-truth’ in a world where they are strengthened like never before by the development of artificial intelligence.
At MIPCOM Cannes 2023, a panel talk entitled « IP that is AI-proof », addressed this questions, bringing together two producers whose work is often based on investigative journalism: Danna Stern, the Managing Director of Berlin-based production company In Transit, and Nebošja Taraba, the CEO of Drugi Plan, in Zagreb, Croatia. Stern has been credited for bringing Israeli productions to global audiences, as she has been responsible for a succession of successful launches such as Fauda, Shtisel, The Devil Next Door or On the Spectrum. As for Taraba, he heads a leading Croatian independent production company, which has specialized in documentary and high-end drama productions; its TV series The Paper was picked up by Netflix.
In a conversation moderated by MIP Markets consultant Laura Gragg, both professionals discussed how journalistic investigation often reveals stories that AI simply couldn’t come up with. « Stories that no one suspected because they are hidden or highly personal, » summed up Gragg. « Real life storytelling is a great source of IP, » elaborated Stern. « It is so much stranger than fiction sometimes, with so many things that you cannot imagine. » Referring to the October 2023 attack conducted by Hamas against Israel, which happened only days before the panel took place, she used it exemplify how sometimes, neither human nor artificial intelligence could match the unexpected cruelty of reality. « At the end of the day, AI is a machine: you provide input and then output, and there are times when we never could have thought that we would be seeing what we see unraveling before our eyes in the news. That says a lot about the stories that can come out of human nature. »
There are quite a few similarities to be found between working for a news media company and creating a piece of fact-based TV content, noted Taraba, indicating he used to work as a journalist himself. Talking about The Silence, a crime series he recently produced based on a news story about a chain of prostitution of minors in Eastern Croatia that broke out in 2009; he said that « the process is similar to what we are used to in the newsroom. The Silence is the result of something we stumbled upon through our old journalistic networks and contacts. It was a big national scandal back then, but it was quickly covered up. We produced the first season in 2021 as a big European co-production with Russian, Ukrainian and German partners. We were very proud of that. »
The importance of finding an angle in intellectual property
This raises the issue of the appropriate duration that should be respected between the moment an event occurs and the moment it’s fictionalized on the screen. The danger of working on an extremely recent subject is the lack of perspective and therefore of objectivity in the way the event is treated. On the other hand, the dizzying pace of news today is driving writers and producers to no longer be afraid of drawing material for audiovisual content from extremely current news stories. « People aren’t embarrassed to work straight from the headlines anymore, » confirmed Stern. « In the old days you had to let things mature, think about them, put them in perspective. Now the market is such that people will just announce projects as soon as possible, plant their flag in a story when it’s still in the news. »
That’s certainly a way of creating intellectual property that no AI would probably be able to conjure. But does that make it a good idea? The lack of perspective can certainly be an issue – with or without AI, not allowing the dust to settle makes it hard to find the right balance between different points of view in a conflict, for example. Nevertheless, both producers on the panel agreed that drawing IP from current events with absolute immediacy was a valid way of creating content, that there is no right or wrong moment anymore. « Doing that is legitimate, because there’s interest, there’s attention, drama, » sums up Stern, citing examples such as the WeWork or Oxycontin scandals that were respectively turned into a documentary and two different TV series. « Times have changed. In today’s world, we react to things fast, it’s just the way it is. »
Going even further, Taraba considers that the fictionalization of current events can help us better understand them – therefore, the sooner the better. « We are saturated with news. We watch many events happening on a global scale in real time, so it’s hard to say when is the right moment to tell those stories, but it can really bring perspective on international news, by showing it through the eyes of relatable characters, with very personal stories, » he explains. « The angle of a story is what makes a TV series really unique. It’s always about angles. Finding the right angle is how you make quality IP out of real life stories. » A story based on true events may carry a weight that pure fiction doesn’t have, but in today’s market, that’s not sufficient: its angle is what will make that story stand out in a crowded content landscape.
Why is a story’s angle such an important characteristic? Well, one simple thing to remember when discussing the pertinence of using AI to help create stories is that those stories are destined to be enjoyed by people, not computers. « Humans respond to humans, not to headlines, » quips Stern. « It’s about taking the news stories that are out there for everybody; that’s the beauty of this kind of IP – it’s free. But then you have to figure out what the story is, who your lead characters are, and that’s where the expertise comes in, usually of journalists, sometimes writers dissecting that and figuring out what is the human thread that’s going to tell a bigger picture story. »
AI makes the truth more valuable than ever
With more and more countries and companies producing high-level, quality drama in today’s market, there’s consequentially a need for high-level, quality intellectual property, and the news has become a much more prevalent source of storytelling to uncover that IP. As Laura Gragg reminded the audience, « sometimes you have good IP on hand, sometimes you don’t – but true stories, they exist everywhere. » And you don’t need an artificial intelligence for their creation. Another reason for this shift towards the rapid fictionalization of current news is that there are now new countries the global market considers from which entertainment content of global appeal can emerge, outside of the traditional American and Western European markets.
With new sources comes new stories, coming at audiences with contexts and perspectives they aren’t used to, which is good news for everyone. But how does one go about distinguishing which stories are fit to be told – or rather, fit to be turned into a compelling piece of entertainment content – and which ones should be discarded? It all boils down to purpose, said Stern: « Because this projects take so long to get made, you need to be able to be really clear on why you’re choosing this story to tell among all the others. You need a reason why more than anything today. «
And this is even more true in our era of « post-truth », where even true events have become extremely difficult to ascertain, where even images raise suspicion because technology has made it so easy to doctor them or create them from scratch. In this sense, AI has become a weapon that can be aimed at killing the truth. « Ten or twenty years ago, we never would have believed that the most valuable thing in 2024 would be the truth, » observed Taraba. « People are investing an enormous amount of work and money to hide the truth, for example on climate change. There are political reasons for this of course, but on the other hand you have people who really believe that the Earth is flat or that climate change is not real. Today it’s easier than ever to make the choice of saying, ‘ok, I’m going to be ignorant, it’s my choice’. »
Danna Stern tempered somewhat that statement by saying that « we’re getting a lot of our information from unreliable sources and that makes us skeptics when we’re told things. Nobody ever believes anything anymore, so where is the truth? People have a belief, and we have the technology to supply them with any kind of information they want. AI will do that. Technology is so advanced right now it actually allows you to manipulate pretty much anything, so within that, we are no longer capable of knowing what is true or not. »
AI and intellectual property: a question of faith?
All that being said, circling back to the panel’s initial question, how can content creators come up with an IP that is AI-proof? In the context of disinformation the panelists alluded to, it’s difficult. Perhaps the only solution is to forge ahead, check your facts of course, and believe in what you’re doing, as Danna Stern put it. « Maybe in the future we’ll look back at the rise of AI-fueled fake news and say ‘wait, we should have done things differently’, but it doesn’t seem like we’re headed in that direction right now. So it’s a question of faith, really. »
Faith in what? At the end of the day, in people. « Technology is global and information is global, » added Stern at the end of the panel talk. « Once something is out, it’s out, and I don’t think there can be some kind of international agreement or policy to regulate the internet and prevent the spread of false information. So I think we need to appeal to people to listen to their inner reason and their inner goodness, to encourage them to be curious and use their judgment, ask the right questions and wonder if something makes sense when they come across a piece of news. But it’s a long haul, because right now we’re seeing a huge change in what reality is and how it’s broadcast to us. » Will AI be our savior or our doom? Like everywhere else, in the field of entertainment content creation, the question remains open-ended.
