Here’s a questions: will the BBC ever use AI to remake missing episodes of Doctor Who. Long term the answer could be yes – given enough compute power, telesnaps and off-air recordings it must be possible. Is it being tested now? Rumour has it…

AI and the Doctor

I use LinkedIn for work mainly (creatives are very mixed about using it) and don’t expect it to be a source of Doctor Who news. I was startled to read this piece by Martin Anderson: Rumoured: William Hartnell AI-driven reconstruction coming for Doctor Who.

A lot of it is opaque to me, but it claims the BBC asked someone to mock up some tests using a technology called Deepfake and see how well William Hartnell’s Doctor could be recreated.

I suspect it’s very early days, but techniques such as re-colourisation and better upscaling must improve as CPU power continues to increase and AI moves on a pace. Next step let’s create screen versions of the Big Finish stories!