Evgeny Almazov is the head of the product at Stream Labs, in the TKT1957 survey «The year 2030: AI or engineer?».

1. How will the broadcasting industry and broadcast technologies change in the next 5 years?
2. If we model the world of broadcasting and broadcast tech in 2030, what role will AI play?
3. How will AI change your business segment?
4. Which professions will AI displace in the broadcasting technology industry by 2030?

1. AI will find its place, become an assistant in production and improve the efficiency of content use. A balance will be achieved between the participation of AI and humans in production. There will be more AI-generated content in cinema and broadcasting, but then, I believe, we will want real content created by human mind, genius, and talent again. Many routine operations will be replaced by AI, but humans (actors, presenters, journalists, cameramen, archivists, etc.) will remain or even return when it becomes clear that content is not only a flow of information or entertainment, but also energy that can be created only by humans… But it is obvious that AI as an assistant is here to stay. And this is good news!

2. I would like the human to remain in the world of cinema — his ideas, his talent and their embodiment in the form of films. I think AI will occupy a significant share, including in generating film content, which is already difficult to distinguish from real, and sometimes it even surpasses in quality and originality the content created by humans. However, given that everything develops in this world in a spiral, I think that after the general craze for AI, we will come to a reasonable balance in the new round, where AI will help, rather than replace, the role of humans in creating films. As for broadcast, of course, AI will play an important role here, primarily in terms of enriching content with metadata (description), searching for and compiling fragments on a given topic. And I really hope that AI still won’t replace the host in front of the camera, but will remain a reliable assistant behind the scenes and help create better and higher-quality content.

3. We are engaged in the production of media content management systems and media production automation. In this segment, AI can have a significant impact and is already doing so: for many years, manufacturers of MAM systems and news production automation systems have been conducting various experiments with AI. We also conduct these experiments with various prototypes: face, object, graphics, scene recognition, etc. — all this finds a good response from potential consumers. AI can become a real assistant in enriching media materials with metadata, the number of which in one video can be up to several hundred tags in various categories. These tags (ready description) can be obtained in seconds, while a person will not only do this work for a long time, but he simply will not be able to describe the content with such a degree of detail. And given that there is a huge amount of non-digitized archives and undocumented archives, the future of AI in terms of MAM systems looks promising.

4. I would not like AI to replace professions. It is right if it becomes an assistant. My personal experience as a consumer shows that the level of AI we use now in various industries is still far from perfect.

4. Many issues are still easier and faster to solve with the help of a human. But here I rather consider myself an old-timer and someone who resists the introduction of AI as a replacement for humans. We should not forget that there are ordinary people behind this replacement, and people need jobs… But progress cannot be stopped. Once upon a time, people were against cars, trains, airplanes, etc. And AI will undoubtedly take its place and bring benefits by helping humans and simplifying many routine operations, such as enriching media data with descriptions (metadata). But it is unlikely to completely replace the role of an archivist responsible for maintaining the media archive. AI will take their work to a new, more technologically advanced level — yes, replace, most likely not… At least, I would like to believe so.

All the opinions of industry leaders can be seen in the survey “Year 2030: AI or Engineer?”