BBC's new boss samples 50-minute AI Doctor Who, calls it "pretty good" — Time Lords meet Tensor Lords 🤖

The BBC's new director-general, Matt Brittin, told an audience at the Royal Television Society conference that he was recently sent a 50-minute AI-generated episode of "Doctor Who" and judged it "pretty good," according to a report in trade paper Variety. Brittin, who took on the top job at the British national broadcaster after an 18-year stint at Google, said AI is "not going to replace humans, and we'll come on to that," and added that "everyone's a creator. Not all the creativity is bad." He did not reveal further details about the episode, including whether it was generated by the BBC itself or sent in by an external party, and the BBC declined to comment.

The disclosure comes as the long-running sci-fi series, which first aired in 1963, has been put out to tender after going on hiatus following the conclusion of a $220 million deal with Disney. Days earlier, in a separate interview, Brittin said he would consider allowing a BBC programme to be made and presented with AI, "within guardrails."

The broadcaster's previous attempt to bring together "Doctor Who" and generative AI ended after a sweeping backlash from the show's audience. In 2024, the BBC announced it had begun using generative AI to create marketing materials for its flagship shows, starting with "Doctor Who," but within weeks the corporation abandoned its plans, citing that it had "received complaints" about its use of generative AI to promote the show and casting its previous efforts as a "small trial." The episode arrived just a few months after the BBC had set out its "core principles" for the use of generative AI, calling the technology a "significant opportunity" while pledging to a code of public interest, prioritizing talent and "human creativity," and transparency.

Since then, the BBC has launched a series of "pilot projects" using generative AI, including an AI-generated synthetic voice for weather reports and image enhancement.