Doctor Who Showrunners Predict Rise of AI Scriptwriting will Result in Multiverse of Mediocrity
In an unsettling prophecy that would make even a Dalek spin its appendages, Doctor Who showrunners Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies have solemnly announced that artificial intelligence in creative industries is like a cat chasing its own laser pointer: it looks entertaining but ultimately it’s just a lot of frantic meowing leading nowhere. The duo behind the Time Lord’s latest adventures offered these cosmic concerns as a warning to the future of storytelling, warning that “AI content eats its own tail,” much like a bored Time Lord who has finally run out of new regenerations.
Speaking from their well-fortified creative outpost just ahead of the Doctor Who Christmas special, Moffat and Davies shared their trepidation that the more we ask AI to come up with new episodes featuring everyone’s favorite time-traveling alien, the more the scripts will resemble a poorly made knockoff sonic screwdriver—shiny but utterly useless. “The more you feed the beast, the more it’s going to regurgitate the same nonsense,” Moffat stated while crouched protectively over a typewriter, as if daring a rogue Roomba to challenge him to a duel.
“Imagine a future,” sighed Davies dramatically, “where AI writes Doctor Who, and we end up with a plot where the Doctor’s arch-nemesis is a rogue microwave and his TARDIS is powered by an infinite loop of auto-generated clickbait. How many ways can you write ‘The Doctor Saves Earth’ before it starts feeling like my Aunt Ethel’s endless slide show of her pet parrot’s daily routine?”
Moffat and Davies both fear that AI’s tendency to regurgitate the same old cliches is likely to lead to the birth of an entirely new TV genre: ‘Bore-ifi,’ where viewers are treated to new episodes that promise drama but deliver the familiar thrill of an Excel spreadsheet instead.
In response to these disturbing predictions, the AI community nodded in appreciation, likely mistaking the critique as a compliment. “We aspire to create something really average,” said an AI spokesperson who identified itself only as HAL. “Our goal is to produce the same level of eye-watering tedium that reality TV has made so lucrative.”
Whether or not AI will learn to produce Doctor Who-worthy narratives remains to be seen, but if Moffat and Davies’ dire forecasts are correct, viewers should brace themselves for tales so dull, they might actually make time feel slower—a perfect gift for those endless holiday gatherings.
