Without people there is no intelligence (or artificial) in broadcasting

In this forum, Iván López Olmos, director and creator of the Artificial Intelligence in media course at Proyecto Haz (RTVE), addresses the arrival of Artificial Intelligence to professional broadcast environments, deployments that go beyond generative AI to transcend processes and multiply creative and operational possibilities.

The IAFirst of all, it is a tool that we didn't have before to be able to tell things in a different way. It's a new audiovisual language in which, through a series of prompts (or descriptions), we get material according to what we want to do. And it is a solution that, rather than replacing other work techniques, expands the possibility of doing more things. To reach where we could not reach before: the broadcast quality.

On RTVE, we have used artificial intelligence to generate promotional pieces for our Orchestra and Choir.

Let's imagine that we want to create an image that represents music. If we wanted to do that, we would need great knowledge on the subject and a great work of study and analysis to discover what the author of that music wanted to express. Now, if you know how to frame the issue with the right parameters, we can do that analysis, generate a series of images and even animate them with AI. For example, in RTVE we have used artificial intelligence to generate promotional pieces for our Orchestra and Choir.

Broadcast providers face AI

This interest in AI applied to professional audiovisual creation has been internalized by thousands of companies. Everyone wants to implement it in their products, but they don't have enough strength to do it. In recent months, Google has taken an abysmal leap, and is possibly one of the companies that eat the vast majority of companies IA, given its gear as a company. Other companies, such as Adobe, they are depositing many resources and making very important advances.

Little by little we will see where each one reaches, as well as what tools are truly effective. As has happened historically, many companies First they sell a solution and then they develop it. However, in the field of AI, we find promises that are kept, so we have a very good product based on very powerful company marketing.

Transcending generative AI

In TVE, AI has been working since many fronts. Beyond the generation of audiovisual content, with the previously mentioned promotional pieces, we apply this language in numerous areas: recommendations on RTVE Play, metadata in our archive, and other areas such as transcripts, etc.

Beyond the generation of audiovisual content, we apply this language in numerous areas: recommendations on RTVE Play, metadata in our archive, and other areas such as transcripts, etc.

Another important area of implementation is the processes of automation. Before, these systems united some systems with others, in what they were “natural processes". Now, these functions add up to a AI middle layer that provides a power of decision.

I am passionate about studying AI. See how it allows us to go where it was impossible before. But this does not mean that it ruins the rest of the processes. News camera recording will still be necessary. Simply, this will be another branch of audiovisual, as well as the text, document or organization management.

AI: an implementation from the human side

Like everything in life, if we apply the coherence, it's going much better. Many people may criticize AI, saying: “No, it will be useful for committing crimes.” Indeed, it can be a tool for this because images can be generated that will become increasingly difficult to determine if they are true or false. But the knife was also invented for a purpose, and some people use it for others. Therefore, everything that is a crime, whether with AI or with the knife, must be persecuted and punished.

Let's use AI with a ethics that is consistent with the continuity of the rest of the work.

For the rest of the applications, the Artificial intelligence has come to stay. With an unstoppable evolution, in the end it will be the human being who applies it. Therefore, let's use it with a ethics that is consistent with the continuity of the rest of the work. We will be able to do great things that we could not have done otherwise and, everything, without replacing jobs.

Will you modify them? Of course. But without a doubt we will accompany and it will be a super powerful tool that will facilitate those who had no means to express yourself in a different way.