Netflix’s U.K. Unscripted Chief Warns of Dangers of Using AI in Reality Shows: ‘It’s Hard Now to Tell What Is Fake and What Is Real’

Syeda Irtizaali, Netflix’s recently appointed U.K. director of unscripted, told an audience at SXSW London on Tuesday she doesn’t want to use AI in unscripted television.

Describing Netflix as a “tech-forward company,” she said that she was “very relaxed about people using AI as a tool to bring ideas in,” describing AI as a “really brilliant tool,” adding “we should be using it.”

Related Stories

Imax Is the Hottest Brand in Movies. Why Is It for Sale?

Mahesh Babu's AMB Cinemas to Host Imax's Hyderabad Return Ahead of 'Varanasi' Release (EXCLUSIVE)

However, she sounded a note of caution. “I think where we have to be careful is where we use it on camera and in show. I’ll never say never, but I don’t really want to use AI in unscripted television.”

She continued, “There’s one particularly interesting thing I think about the landscape now as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal, which is it’s hard now to tell what is fake and what is real, and it will become harder. I therefore think that unscripted television, which is all about real people in real situations going through real journeys, suddenly becomes even more important, because this is content that you can trust is real, and these are real people going through these real reactions, or whatever the journeys are. I think that makes us more potent in an AI world than less.

“I think being real has always been our watchword, and those real people in your stories become really, really interesting when you’re in a sort of a mishmash of a multimedia world where you can’t tell what’s going on, and perhaps there is less rigor in other platforms, where things are happening and you don’t know what is real and what isn’t.”

Irtizaali, who was speaking at Deadline’s Reality TV Summit U.K., said she’s been “very busy” since she joined the streamer three months ago, having previously worked at the BBC as interim director of unscripted, where she shepherded the British version of “The Traitors.”

“I can’t talk about the stuff that’s coming, but there is some really big, exciting, audacious stuff coming, and I’m genuinely excited for you to go there, but I want more,” she said.

Speaking about her priorities, she said, “I think that the important thing is to ensure that you are continuing to surprise and delight series by series.”

Acknowledging the achievements of Netflix scripted shows like “Adolescence” and “Baby Reindeer,” she said, “I think my job is to make unscripted that feels as compelling as scripted.” She added, “When I look at what’s working on Netflix and look at how well scripted and documentary is working, it’s all about people and stories.

“If you think about what scripted is, in scripted you create a world, you realize a world, you pack it full of actors who are characters who are going through some sort of obstacles or transformation, or some sort of storyline. There’s a big, irresistible [plot] that pulls you in. You’re implicated in the narrative. You’re following the story beats, and you watch that and get emotionally fulfilled by it.

“That’s what scripted is. What’s unscripted for me is exactly the same, but instead of actors trying to be real, you have real people, and I think that is our big creative magic lever in unscripted. So I want prestige reality formats that feel like scripted drama. So you build the world, you really realize that world. The world requires a lot of producing, the structure of that world requires a lot of producing, you put real people at the heart of it, you ensure that you’ve got a really good, hooky sort of starting point, you let the narrative evolve, and you let the vagaries and varieties of human nature take you to places that you didn’t know you wanted to go. That’s what I’m looking for.”