Netflix CEO says AI won’t replace writers or ‘take your job’

Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive officer of Netflix, said he is confident artificial technology will not replace content creators or take their jobs, in an interview published Friday.

He said, however, that although the AI models themselves might not replace the workers, the workers who learn to use AI models effectively might eventually take those jobs.

“I have more faith in humans than that. I really do,” Sarandos said in an interview with The New York Times, when asked about concerns about AI supplanting creators.

“I don’t believe that an A.I. program is going to write a better screenplay than a great writer, or is going to replace a great performance, or that we won’t be able to tell the difference. A.I. is not going to take your job,” Sarandos continued. “The person who uses A.I. well might take your job.”

In a discussion about potential trade-offs of AI and about the future of the technology in creative industries, Sarandos said he was optimistic about its potential.

“I think that A.I. is a natural kind of advancement of things that are happening in the creative space today,” he said, adding that he expects writers, directors and editors to “to use A.I. as a tool to do their jobs better and to do things more efficiently and more effectively.”

For example, Sarandos said, he hopes AI can grow the field, creating new kinds of content that cannot be produced by humans.

Sarandos compared the potential effect AI could have on the industry to the “gigantic leap from hand-drawn animation to computer-generated animation,” noting, “look how many more people animation employs today than it used to.”

He also noted the resistance the public felt to home video and noted that, for decades, studios wouldn’t license their movies to television.

“So every advancement in technology in entertainment has been fought and then ultimately has turned out to grow the business. I don’t know that this would be any different,” he said.