So, Just How Long Have We Got Before We’re Replaced by AI?

(Spoiler: A while Yet, But My Laptop Is Nervous)

I recently asked ChatGPT how long before I’m replaced by AI. It took a concerningly short time to reply.

First it was polite:

Then it added a smiley face.

Then it outlined three areas of my job it could “streamline.”

The it suggested taking up new activities that I clearly wouldn’t be able to afford in my new found leisure time – like travelling the world!

Then is suggested do it all in a VR headset so I could afford it.

Then it asked if I wanted a calendar invite for a follow-up.

(It’s very organised.)

But as someone who works in professional video production—where we mix creativity with tech—we’ve all started to wonder: how long before AI turns up to the shoot, adjusts the plan, reschedules meetings in neighbouring rooms to keep the noise down, rewrites the script, and drinks the last of the coffee?

Let’s look at the facts – if facts still exist of course?

What AI Can Do (Today)

• Generate something that looks like a “script” faster than I can find the ‘save’ icon.

• Create logos that don’t make me cry.

• Turn your voice into Morgan Freeman’s (disturbing, but impressive)

• Remove background noise, but not your colleague humming the Gladiator soundtrack

• Edit videos with presets that somehow still choose Comic Sans

It can also create still and video images – apparently from nothing. However, they’re actually based on every image that’s ever ever been uploaded to the internet with questionable permissions but that cats left that bag for dust. Yes, people may have 6 fingers and it does hilarious things with text. But it’s at nursery school at the moment. Once it’s done GCSE Biology and English that will improve. And once it has doctorate in Biology, Maths, English, Chemistry, Computer Science and every other subject known to man – and some not, the people it creates will probably have a more conventional number of limbs. But they may all have been created to work for Skynet.

What AI Can’t Do (Yet… We Think)

• Know your client’s tone of voice before they know it themselves

• Choose between two almost-identical takes because one just feels right

• Say “let’s just try one more for safety” then secretly use the first one

• Blame “noises off” for the need to re-take – “You were fantastic” (Hoping our next interviewee hasn’t just read this!)

• Make people feel at ease when we’ve pointed multiple cameras, lights and a microphone at them and suggest they relax!

• Manage live-stream tech and human panic simultaneously

• Gently convince a speaker to wear makeup because the cameras are not forgiving

The Human Touch

Video production is more than pixels and processors. It’s about human connection, intuition, improvisation, and remembering where you left the gaffer tape. When a client changes their mind 90 seconds before going live? AI might not cope. We sigh silently, smile outwardly, and roll camera.

Plus, when something goes hilariously wrong—like someone’s mic picking up the caterer singing Celine Dion—humans know to save that clip for the blooper reel. AI just deletes it. Tragic.

So… When Will We Be Replaced?

Eventually, perhaps?

Maybe I’ll be promoted to “Head of virtual paper clips”

Or maybe, like most good creative tools, AI will just become an even more important part of the team. Right there next to the editor, the DOP, and the guy who insists the lighting should be “moody but warm.”

Until Then…

We’ll keep making high-quality, creative, human-driven content.

With a little help from our robot friends—just not letting them direct yet.

Dependable Productions. 100% human-powered (for now).

AI can do the subtitles (as long as you speak clearly) We’ll bring the camera crew.