No Big Deal, a new British sitcom written by a human but produced almost entirely using AI, has been released for free on YouTube. The show, set inside a chaotic venture capital firm where employees hunt for the next billion-pound idea, was written by Andrew Dickinson, who originally planned to make the pilot through traditional television production before deciding the process was too slow and expensive.
Instead of the usual behind-the-scenes process, the production used only a writer, a computer and a lot of prompting. The result runs for just under 25 minutes, roughly the length of a conventional sitcom, and has been watched by 25,744 people.
Unsettling details
At first glance, the show is surprisingly convincing. However, after just a few moments, everything begins to feel a tad unsettling. There is something strange about the characters' faces. Their eyes have that unmistakable AI sheen, the sort of vacant stare that makes you wonder whether they are listening to the conversation or waiting for someone to unplug them. There is no reaction from any character unless they are the ones speaking, and even then it is a hard watch.
Their movements are too smooth, their voices oddly flat, robotic, strained and somewhat monotone. The jokes seem to arrive and disappear before you have even had time to laugh, while at times the dialogue barely matches their mouths and even the cuts between scenes feel slightly disorienting. AI also has not yet mastered the art of a readable font.
Missing human details
Comedy depends on tiny human details, whether that is a cleverly timed pause before a punchline, a look across the room, or even the split second when an actor realises what another character has just said. That stuff is difficult to write down because it lives between the lines, and here, so much of it is missing.
Ofcom is already examining how AI could change broadcasting. The technology could make production cheaper, faster and more accessible. It could allow people without traditional television budgets to make things that would previously have been impossible.
Television safe for now
The remarkable thing is not that AI can make something that looks like television. It is that it can make something that looks enough like television for us to start asking whether we still need the people who make it.
Television is safe for now. This dystopian version of a workplace sitcom could probably work with real human intervention, but in its current state, it simply does not cut it. It does, however, both worry and intrigue that the lack of humanity within the arts and media is becoming far too common, and for that reason, the reviewer will not be tuning in for the rest of the series.
AI might be able to make a sitcom, but after watching No Big Deal, the reviewer is still not convinced it can make anyone care about one.
