Michael Parkinson AI podcast creator defends project

The creative behind a forthcoming podcast hosted by an AI-created Sir Michael Parkinson has defended using the technology to recreate the late broadcaster.

Benjamin Field, co-founder and exec producer at Deep Fusion Films, stressed the AI use in the podcast, which will see an unscripted conversation between the AI Parkinson and a guest, “wasn’t replacing a human job.”

“It would be very easy to look at the series and say we’ve created a virtual podcast that could have been given to a human presenter, but that’s something we wouldn’t do,” Field told delegates at the AI Creative Summit, organised by Broadcast and MBI siblings Broadcast Tech, MPTS & Screen International.

Field, who used his session to air a clip of the podcast, said the iconic presenter’s son had approached him and the Deep Fusion team with the idea of doing the podcast which became “a creative discussion”, but one that stopped over concerns of taking other people’s jobs.

However, Field said another project where he was asked to carry out the “frankly terrifying” task of creating an AI model of a commissioning editor did spark creative ideas over the use of AI, despite it leaving him feeling like “I’d been through the ringer”.

The “totally new” experience led the creative to reflect on what happens when one is interviewed by AI, and how one can respond, which restarted discussions with Parkinson’s son Mike.

“We didn’t want to pass [an AI recreation] as Sir Michael, but rather we embody it with the warmth, charisma and nostalgia that people associate with him” he said. “You couldn’t have this experience with a human host, so it is not [as though we are] taking someone’s job.”

He added that a podcast could normally take between three to seven people to produce, but the Parkinson project will require nine people, thus generating more jobs.

Elsewhere, the session explored the ethics of AI usage and returned to a theme that dominated the summit – that using AI could lead to the loss of jobs, particularly in lower-level positions.

However, Field also asserted “none of us got into the creative sector for menial tasks” and AI can allow for more time to be creative.

At a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch last week, Channel 4 content chief Ian Katz was quizzed on whether the broadcaster would consider a similar type of project as Deep Fusions, to which Katz responded: “We looked at that and I thought ‘no that’s not the way we are going’, we are not going to be cloning talent anytime soon.”