By the time I sat down to watch Channel 4's latest Dispatches documentary, the twist had already been spoiled for me. I knew from the get-go that the woman presenting the show wasn't real. Instead, she was AI dressed in a smart suit with a pitch-perfect British television accent – serious, soft and southern.
UK broadcaster Channel 4 claims its use of an AI presenter was a first in TV history. (Russian state media may have a prior claim.) I'm not sure it's an experiment worth repeating. The deepfake technology used in the documentary generated a highly believable television presenter, who would have been entirely forgettable if it had not been for the novelty of the stunt.
That's not just me being defensive; the presenter herself acknowledged her own limitations on screen. She's not on location to interact with any of the documentary's subjects, she points out. She's not able to conduct searching interviews or reach any Louis Theroux-style conclusions about what's taking place. At most points, she's little more than a voiceover.
Her limitations reflect those of the wider experiment that took place in this episode of Dispatches, titled Will AI Take My Job? It saw four professionals – a doctor, a lawyer, a photographer and a composer – pitted against an AI rival in their line of work.
Perhaps predictably, given the current stage of AI development, the challenges doled out to the workers and their AI counterparts were fairly one-dimensional tasks that represented a specific element of their job, rather than being a true expression of the multifaceted nature of their work.
Only the photographer, who was tasked with a fashion photo shoot, "lost" the challenge – although it should be noted that her AI "rival" was in fact a piece of software operated and directed by two people who were making a steady stream of creative decisions.
Even when AI performed well, with ChatGPT reaching some diagnoses similar to those of the doctor, it's clear that its capabilities are ultimately limited. It could not, for example, examine the foot of the woman with plantar fasciitis to determine how much pain she was in and therefore what level of intervention might be appropriate.
Similarly, an AI presenter might be a suitable stand-in if you were making a one-note educational or instructional video, but it wouldn't be able to fulfill all of the duties of journalists who usually make documentaries. These include finding human case studies, persuading them to take part, making them feel comfortable enough to open up on camera and crafting what you find out from them into a compelling and cohesive narrative. (Channel 4 has said it doesn't plan to make a habit of using an AI presenter.)
Still, the Dispatches documentary did capture where we are with AI in the here and now. The professionals involved experienced the kind of discomfort and soul-searching that any of us might feel if we were confronted with a deepfake version of ourselves who challenged our money-making skill set or craft.
AI and the future of jobs
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