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AI slop now has its own TV channel.
Roku just announced "Fairground AI Creator TV," a new ad-supported, AI-all-the-time channel ... so I had to check it out.
The new channel is described as "all-new original series, films, and shorts from the world's best AI storytellers. Sci-fi, drama, animation, true crime, docs, comedy, and more — streaming 24/7."
I turned it on and was barraged with a mass of mutant rats flooding a subway platform like a tidal wave and a plastic bag with eyeballs. Later, I saw a The Office-like show with fake people who were acting very cringe. It was uncanny valley to the max.
I also noticed that before and after each short, there are credits for the AI prompters ("creators"). Doing some digging, I learned that the content is prompted by an in-house network of about 100 digital creators, according to mediaplaynews.com.
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Fairground AI Creator TV was created by Colin Petrie-Norris, founder of Xumo, who sold to Comcast/Charter for $100 million.
“Cable and linear TV was the realm of the very well-financed,” he said. “Free ad-supported streaming television [FAST] disrupted that by doing away with retransmission fees and making it easier for smaller digital brands to launch their own 24/7 network. Generative AI offers that same democratization for storytellers.”
In July, Petrie-Norris told Variety that the channel will give "independent AI filmmakers" a way to get their "gorgeous" creations to audiences. "These are the folks in one, two, three years’ time are going to be the Mr. Beasts of entertainment," he said.
The Atlantic recently called the new channel the "Home Slopping Network." Unfortunately, what I watched was mostly nonsense and pointless ... I wasn't sure what the AI prompter was trying to say.
On Reddit, people are saying that this kind of channel was bound to be made and that many advertisements on TV are made with AI already, so it's not too much of a stretch to have a whole channel of it. Others say we've all died and this is the bad place.
If you are curious, you can watch the channel here.