Roland Barthes was speaking metaphorically when he suggested in 1967 that "the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author". But as artificial intelligence takes its first steps in fiction writing, it seems technology may one day start to make Barthes' metaphor all too real. AI is still some way off writing a coherent novel, as surreal experiments with Harry Potter show, but the future isn't so far away in Hollywood. According to Nadira Azermai, whose company ScriptBook is developing a screenwriting AI: "Within five years we'll have scripts written by AI that you would think are better than human writing." Self-promotion aside, if there is the possibility of a decent screenplay from ScriptBook's AI within five years, then a novel composed by machines can't be far behind.

If Sunspring is anything to go by, artificial intelligence in film-making has some way to go. This short film, made as an entry to Sci-Fi London's 48-hour film-making competition in 2016, was written entirely by an AI. The director, Oscar Sharp, fed a few hundred sci-fi screenplays into a long short-term memory recurrent neural network (the type of software behind predictive text in a smartphone), then told it to write its own. The result was almost, but not quite, incoherent nonsense, riddled with cryptic nonsequiturs, bizarre turns of phrase and unfathomable stage directions such as "he is standing in the stars and sitting on the floor". All of which Sharp and his actors filmed with sincere commitment.

Hollywood-based film studios are increasingly using AI as part of the decision-making process when ... [ ] commissioning and producing new films. For anyone who's ever thought Hollywood's output is formulaic and tired, the movie industry may be about to get worse. Major studio Warner Bros. has signed a deal with Cinelytic, which has developed an AI-powered system that can predict the likelihood of a film's success based on such factors as actors, budget and brand. Predictably enough, Warner Bros. will be using Cinelytic's software as part of the research process it undergoes when deciding which movies to commission. While it obviously can't measure how good a film will be artistically, Warner Bros. will likely use it during early production phases to separate ideas likely to succeed from those that most likely aren't.

The film world is full of intriguing what-ifs. Will Smith famously turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix. Nicolas Cage was cast as the lead in Tim Burton's Superman Lives, but he only had time to try on the costume before the film was canned. Actors and directors are forever glancing off projects that never get made or that get made by someone else, and fans are left wondering what might have been. For the people who make money from movies, that isn't good enough.

When you go to the movies, how do you decide what you want to see? Maybe you're more likely to purchase a ticket if a movie is part of an established franchise in which you are already invested. Maybe a beloved actor or the buzz of awards-season brings you to the big screen. Or maybe a friend hasn't stopped raving about a recent release and you just have to check it out for yourself. Whichever reason brings you to the movies, the question has now become whether artificial intelligence (AI) can predict what you're most likely to see.

The next time you sit down to watch a movie, the algorithm behind your streaming service might recommend a blockbuster that was written by AI, performed by robots, and animated and rendered by a deep learning algorithm. An AI algorithm may have even read the script and suggested the studio buy the rights. It's easy to think that technology like algorithms and robots will make the film industry go the way of the factory worker and the customer service rep, and argue that artistic filmmaking is in its death throes. For the film industry, the same narrative doesn't apply -- artificial intelligence seems to have enhanced Hollywood's creativity, not squelched it. It's true that some jobs and tasks are being rendered obsolete now that computers can do them better.

LOS ANGELES: According to the founder of artificial intelligence outfit ScriptBook, Sony Pictures could have saved a fortune from 2015 to 2017 by using the company's algorithms instead of human beings to reject or greenlight movies. In a presentation at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, ScriptBook founder Nadira Azermai said that by analysing screenplays, ScriptBook retroactively identified as box-office failures 22 out of the 32 Sony movies that lost money in that period, during which Sony released a total of 62 movies. "If Sony had used our system they could have eliminated 22 movies that failed financially," said Azermai. Welcome to the brave new world of AI and machine learning as it applies to Hollywood. Many see in ScriptBook and similar AI systems the potential to destroy a major part of the film production and distribution ecosystem, displacing script readers and saving much of the money studios spend on test screenings, focus groups and market research. At its most basic, ScriptBook, founded in 2015 and based in Antwerp, Belgium, has created a tool that analyses the text of screenplays to produce financial forecasting, or as Azermai grandly puts it, "Our mission is to revolutionise the business of storytelling by using AI to help producers, distributors, sales agents and financiers assess their risk."

The Belgian artificial intelligence company ScriptBook is one such entity that could completely alter the industry. ScriptBook's technology works by analyzing the text of screenplays to produce box office forecasting for a film. In a presentation at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the company's founder, Nadira Azermai, outlined how ScriptBook's algorithms could have rejected scripts for Sony movies that were box office failures. Sony released 62 movies from 2015 to 2017, 32 of which lost money. By retroactively analyzing the screenplays, ScriptBook's system correctly identified 22 of the 32 films that ultimately lost money.

According to the founder of artificial intelligence outfit ScriptBook, Sony Pictures could have saved a fortune from 2015 to 2017 by using the company's algorithms instead of human beings to reject or greenlight movies. In a presentation at the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, ScriptBook founder Nadira Azermai said that by analyzing screenplays, ScriptBook retroactively identified as box-office failures 22 out of the 32 Sony movies that lost money in that period, during which Sony released a total of 62 movies. "If Sony had used our system they could have eliminated 22 movies that failed financially," said Azermai. Welcome to the brave new world of AI and machine learning as it applies to Hollywood. Many see in ScriptBook and similar AI systems the potential to destroy a major part of the film production and distribution ecosystem, displacing script readers and saving much of the money studios spend on test screenings, focus groups and market research.

Today (2017), we entrust all kinds of simple tasks to our virtual assistant, from setting our morning alarm call to timing how long it takes to boil an egg. Of course, this is little more than playing about. Even so, it is the start of the evolution in AI that will soon see companies offering significant added value to their customers. This will happen in six steps, each of which will result in ever-greater AI impact. The current Google interface was developed in the previous century.