In today’s episode, Variety’s Gene Maddaus details a recent effort to test AI-powered software against professional script readers. The results only raise more questions. Plus, we’ll be hosting a roundtable with variety veterans Elsa Keslassy, John Hopewell and Leo Barraclough about the business and topics of Cannes’ Mipcom content market.
Further in the future
Maddaus’ report, available in the October 15 print edition of Variety magazine and on Variety.com, reveals that the Editors Guild recently designed a human-versus-computer test of professional script readers against AI-powered software designed to sift through dozens of scripts to find the most promising works and most talented screenwriters. There is a growing understanding that many industry professionals are likely already using software to control their heavy workloads.
In a nutshell, tests conducted by the Cutter Guild demonstrated that AI tools excel at organizing, classifying, and summarizing. It is not too often that they provide useful notes with observations on the benefits of storytelling and storytellers.
“They compared human script readers to all these AI programs, matched them across all these different dimensions, and found that the one place where humans still thoroughly beat AI is memo,” Maddaus says.
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“When[AI software]is tasked with just extracting content, it works very well. AI can write loglines as well or better than humans can, and it probably doesn’t have the same unique problems that humans do,” Maddaus says. “You can create a pretty good summary, but maybe not as good as a professional script reader would do. But it’s passable. Once you get to the notes, the real problem begins. Evaluate it critically. Is this a good script? Is there something new in this? Isn’t it just repeating something you’ve already seen a thousand times? That’s where it doesn’t work. That’s what they found.”
We are sure to see more industry battles between studios, guilds, lawyers, and judges over the parameters of how AI is used in professional contexts. However, as time passes, Maddaus observes that public thinking about AI could soon change.
“If you talk to the top people who do story analysis at studios, they’ll tell you that the executives really trust them, value their input, and think it’s an important and essential part of their process. They’re going to be very unhappy about that person being replaced by a computer,” Madaus says. “The concern that people have is: How normal is this going to become over time? And when you get a younger generation that has spent their school years studying with AI and writing their college essays and stuff, will they become more comfortable with this kind of thing? And the way they’re doing things now will become completely obsolete. That’s the real fear.”
This episode also features a roundtable session summarizing the Variety team’s coverage of Mipcom’s global content market. Keslassy, Variety International Editor living in Paris. John Hopewell, intrepid correspondent and editor of a digital daily newspaper franchise based in Madrid. and Leo Barraclough, an international feature director based in London.
The group concludes four days of intensive discussions about Croisette business and international distribution, and will exchange rapid-fire questions about what stood out and what’s next. It was evident at this year’s Palais des Festivals that the industry’s energy is shifting towards new forms of content from creators, YouTube, microdramas and more.
“The biggest surprise was hearing the voice of Marco Bassetti of Banijay, best known for unscripted formats like MasterChef,” Keslassy said of sitting on stage with the French production group’s CEO. “In fact, they are trying to invest more in movies because Marco thinks people will get tired of repeating series with the same plot. So he thinks the appetite for movies will increase and he wants to invest more.”
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