UK indie behind ‘world’s first’ 100% AI reality show seeks traditional buyers

A UK producer is behind what it has billed the “world’s first” completely AI-generated reality show.

Coventry-based AiMation Studios has produced four-part Non Player Combat, a reality entertainment format described as a cross between The Hunger Games, Fortnite and The Traitors.

The show sees contestants battle polar bears, venomous snakes and each other to the death for only one to win the 500,000 ‘coin’ prize.

It has been devised so that all characters on screen, from the six contestants to the host and deadly animals, are all entirely made using AI.

The AI contestants were each trained on hundreds of pages of detailed backstories and have built personalities that know which school they attended, who they ‘fell in love with’, their favourite food, the challenges they’ve faced, the crimes they’ve committed and what killing and dying means to them.

To give the show as much authenticity as possible, they have been machine taught to be susceptible to the same vulnerabilities as a human would be, from disease to wild animals and the need to eat and drink to stay alive. They also make autonomous choices on hiding, collaborating, survival and how to kill.

The first episode of Non Player Combat launch on YouTube today (8 December) and Tom Paton, founder and chief exec of AiMation, said he is in talks with global broadcasters interested in acquiring the show, which is expected to attract 18-35s and those interested in gaming.

AiMation Studios was also behind 2024’s Where the Robots Grow, one of the first AI-generated feature films.

Paton said: “It all means nothing unless you care about the players. If the audience doesn’t fall in love with the characters, then it’s pointless.

“The future lies where the characters from the shows and films we watch, are living their stories in real time, and it’s those stories we are seeing edited down.

“Non Player Combat contestants aren’t performing for the camera, so in many ways they feel more genuine than your average human reality TV contestant.”

Non Player Combat was created using advanced AI technology alongside AiMation’s specially developed in-house tool Omnigen-01 and the company has launched an app, dubbed ‘the Uber of AI content’, which allows users to view content in its new GVOD format, and another for creating long-form AI productions.

Episodes of Non Player Combat will drop weekly on YouTube and AiMation’s app.

Paton said audiences are much more accepting of the tech’s use in entertainment than before and suggested those makeing anti-AI statements are stymieing innovation. 

“This particular audience is already okay with characters not being real. When they see the show and someone explains it’s not real, it’s AI, they’ll say ‘who cares? The question is, do you actually care that it’s AI if you’re entertained? I doubt it, and that’s all that counts,” he said.

“I think someone like Guillermo Del Toro yelling ‘F*** AI’ is not only eye-rolling, it’s gatekeeping. How is that not just the long way round of telling a young person experimenting with AI that their voice doesn’t count because it’s not the ‘approved’ method?

“Media has always diversified. Cinema didn’t kill TV TV didn’t kill home video, streaming didn’t kill cinema. Some people still swear vinyl sounds better, but that doesn’t mean Spotify shouldn’t exist.”