In my corner of West London, there’s not a month, no a week, that doesn't go by without a film crew turning up. This week it was my street.

Most of the time its for film/TV, but on this occasion it was to take photos of this house for an ad.

A simple “photo of a house festooned in Xmas lights” turned into a full production: 20+ crew, multiple trucks swallowing residents’ parking, road closures, craftsmen, lighting rigs - they even repainted the side of the house from white to brick red to hang signage and Christmas lights.

And all I could think was: AI should already be doing this.

We worry about AI replacing creatives, but this wasn’t creativity - it was costly, disruptive logistics. I appreciate the challenges of AI producing TV-quality video and the need for IRL work, but surely you could generate a photorealistic image of that same house, lights, signage and all, in minutes.

No trucks.

No repainting.

No three-day shoot.

AI won’t replace imagination, but it will replace the unnecessary production machinery around it. I feel somewhat torn about the disruption AI is causing. But I can't feel that jobs like this just don't make sense any more. The shift feels inevitable.