{"id":655109,"date":"2026-10-15T03:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655109\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T03:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T03:16:17","slug":"davies-criticises-bbc-boss-for-ai-doctor-who-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655109\/","title":{"rendered":"Davies criticises BBC boss for AI Doctor Who comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russell T Davies has criticised BBC director-general Matt Brittin’s “clumsy” comments about an AI-generated episode of Doctor Who.<\/p>\n

Mr Brittin, while speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in September, said he had watched an unofficial episode of the sci-fi show entirely made by AI and thought it was “pretty good”.<\/p>\n

Davies served as showrunner and head writer for Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2023 to 2025.<\/p>\n

Speaking on BBC Radio 4\u2019s The Media Show about Mr Brittin\u2019s remarks, he said: “That\u2019s a clumsy thing to say in an industry where he\u2019s got writers and artists and it specifically affects people, they\u2019re the first to take the blow.<\/p>\n

\"Newly-appointed
\nMatt Brittin<\/p>\n

“I want to be really clear: Humans are leading, and I believe in human creativity, enhanced by whatever tools.”<\/p>\n

Mr Brittin, who was appointed as director-general in March 2026, was previously an executive at Google.<\/p>\n

Davies said Mr Brittin “hasn\u2019t worked in television for that long and might not be so fruity with an opinion in future.”<\/p>\n

He added: “My inbox went ping ping ping ping ping, so God knows what his was like.”<\/p>\n

Mr Brittin added during his interview at the Royal Television Society that AI is “not going to replace humans.”<\/p>\n

Along with his work on Doctor Who, Davies is also known for creating the shows Queer As Folk, It\u2019s A Sin, Years And Years and Doctor Who spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.<\/p>\n

Asked if writers should use AI when creating their scripts, Davies said: “I have heard stories of some writers using AI prompts to do a first draft which I find shocking because I think\u2026 What are you paid for otherwise? What are you there to do?”<\/p>\n

\"On
\n“You’ll start to see production with a brand-new doctor, a brand-new companion, summer next year.” – Davies.<\/p>\n

Davies said he does not use AI when writing his scripts but “very much” worried it might start to replace writers in the future.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere during the interview, Davies said he “used to dread going on a Doctor Who set” because of the special effects and “explosions going on, people pulling themselves in to prosthetics”.<\/p>\n

He added: “It\u2019s more difficult than any other set.”<\/p>\n

Davies also confirmed the future of the series, after it was announced the planned Christmas 2026 special would not be made.<\/p>\n

He said: “You\u2019ll start to see production with a brand-new doctor, a brand-new companion, summer next year.”<\/p>\n

Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell T Davies has criticised BBC director-general Matt Brittin’s “clumsy” comments about an AI-generated episode of Doctor Who.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-655109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}