Yvonne Whalley on the rise of AI actors. Plus a letter from Mike Peacock on Donald Sinden’s Othello
So, the TV director James Hawes has instructed parliament’s tradition, media, and sport committee that inside three to 5 years, soaps shall be created by synthetic intelligence (TV soaps could be made by AI within three years, director warns, 22 February). He’s, after all, not the primary to make this prediction. Alan Ayckbourn’s Comedian Potential, first carried out on the Stephen Joseph theatre in Scarborough in 1998, is a working example. He foresaw a time when soaps could be routinely carried out by robots, some so outdated and fault-ridden that performances hardly ever went easily, and even coherently. Ayckbourn revisited the robotic theme in his 2023 play Constant Companions, totally AI this time. The outlook for people in this isn’t vivid. Certainly, Ayckbourn’s crystal ball has a behavior of seeing potential future traits and points with alarming prescience. Hardly ever comforting.
Yvonne Whalley
Sherburn in Elmet, North Yorkshire
• Re Olivier’s Othello (Letters, 19 February), who can neglect Donald Sinden’s efficiency in 1979. I can nonetheless hear the laughter.
Mike Peacock
East Meon, Hampshire
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