Conversations about artificial intelligence abound at the SXSW conference, with ChatGPT being the subject of many discussions and execs like Buzzfeed’s Jonah Peretti debuting their company’s planned uses for the tech. So, the annual fest was the logical place for Mrs. Davis, the Peacock series from Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof where Betty Gilpin stars as a Catholic nun who takes it upon herself to confront the evils of AI.

In conversation with The Hollywood Reporter‘s James Hibberd during the panel “Mrs. Davis: The Future of Tech & Entertainment” presented by Canon AMLOS at SXSW, the creatives talked about the origins of the series, which they started working on more than two years ago.

“The inspiration was the feeling that we all had about the future and where we were all moving with AI,” said Hernandez, who notes the project came about before ChatGPT and Open AI made artificial intelligence a subject of everyday conversations. When originating Mrs. Davis, the duo were thinking about the moral quandaries brought about by everyday social media use across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

“The idea [came from] taking something that was really worrying us. [We were] saying, ‘Oh my God, I am too reliant on technology. But at the same time, I really like it and need it and it is sort of connecting me to people.’” added Lindelof. “How do we start to reconcile this anxiety through a fun lens?”

Hernandez talked about writing for an AI character, the eponymous Mrs. Davis. The character would be the antithesis of HAL, cinema’s best-known AI, as seen in 2001 Space Odyssey when portrayed as a sinister red light. Says Hernandez, “We wanted to take a lighter touch.” Lindeloff adds that AI is now familiar to audiences, “We keep anthropomorphizing AI — we are calling it Alexa and Siri.”

The panel discussion turned toward AI’s potential application in Hollywood. When asked if they could see if AI could be incorporated in the writers room, Lindelof responded, “For sure. My guess is, it starts as a lark. Fundamentally, no writer that I am aware of wants to be replaced by generative artificial intelligence. But at the same time, if you think of it more as a tool, you can have a lot of fun with it if it bolsters the process.” Hernandez guessed that Hollywood isn’t far away from an AI-generated feature.

In a THR story from January that looked into AI’s advances in Hollywood, the Writers Guild of America West said in a statement, “We’re monitoring the development of ChatGPT and similar technologies in the event they require additional protections for writers.”

The Mrs. Davis writers room incorporated AI into their own process, building an AI to title their episodes — to varying degrees of success. Said Hernandez, “This is why episode seven is Great Gatsby: 2001: A Space Odyssey. It really latched onto the idea that a colon makes a title.”

Ultimately, Lindelof noted, Mrs. Davis is a comedy and while it does tackle larger moral and ethical quandaries surrounding the tech, “the show is fundamentally hopeful. It asks, ‘What do we do with this tool?’”

Mrs. Davis premieres April 20 on Peacock.