[While the specific program is new, this isn’t the first time
artificial intelligence has created a version of a television program,
and it likely won’t be the last.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE
UNAUTHORIZED AI-GENERATED ‘SOUTH PARK’ EPISODE LEAVES WGA AND SAG
STRIKERS ENRAGED: “STRAIGHT TO HELL”
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Raven Brunner
July 20, 2023
Decider
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_ While the specific program is new, this isn’t the first time
artificial intelligence has created a version of a television program,
and it likely won’t be the last. _
,
We’re going down to _South Park
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time… And as it turns out, it’s going to be a way worse time than
you might imagine.
The long-running animated sitcom, created by Trey Parker
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center of attention of the Emmy Award-winning production company Fable
Studios, which has started work on a new project called The
Simulation. The project allows users to generate unauthorized episodes
of TV shows with original stars and premises through a program called
Showrunner AI. The raunchy animated show serves as the source material
for nine of the company’s latest projects.
The company has also created an animated episode of the television
show _Friends [[link removed]]_, and regularly
hosts spaces for virtual beings to connect.
The recent headline-grabbing venture for the company is part of their
collaboration with the news outlet AXIOS
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Chief technology correspondent Ina Field asked the studio to create an
episode about an AI program that wants to take control of _South
Park_ from its creators. The final product stars Field and has a
runtime of five minutes.
As expected, the script for the faux-_South Park_ episode feels
stilted and unnatural, and none of the jokes stick the landing.
Nonetheless, AXIOS called the episode “a plausible and occasionally
clever vignette” and included quotes from Edward Saatchi, who runs
the creative studio behind the program, about how he sides with the
creators about limiting the usage of AI but ultimately wants to see
the company transform television and movies into an everyman industry.
The fanfiction-ification of the medium, I suppose… if fanfiction was
created by robots?
As Eric Cartman would say: “Screw you guys, I’m going home!”
While the specific program is new, this isn’t the first time
artificial intelligence has created a version of a television program,
and it likely won’t be the last. In February, a never-ending parody
of _Seinfeld_
[[link removed]] generated
by two people using OpenAI’s GPT-3 went viral, attracting over
171,000 followers on Twitch before being banned from the platform a
few days later after featuring a series of transphobic jokes.
During the height of this trend,_ South Park _and its fans rallied
against artificial intelligence as a form of creation. The latest
season included an episode titled “Deep Learning,” in which the
famed characters found themselves in trouble once their school
discovered that students have been using artificial intelligence to do
their assignments – and communicate with each other. The episode
received a mixed reception and sparked controversy after it was
revealed that it was co-written by the artificial intelligence
platform ChatGPT. Can you thoroughly critique something while also
insinuating its usefulness? And is _South Park _as subversive and
smart as it considers itself to be?
Circling back to the _South Park _simulation, which involved no
contribution from Parker and Stone, the internet has lit up,
particularly in light of the current Writers Guild of America
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Christos Gage, _Daredevil
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simulation “soulless and unfunny,” and said that it painted an
unfair scenario where a studio would give the scene to the writer with
directions to “fix it.” They fear that the writer would then be
underpaid given the lack of protections that artists have against
artificial intelligence works, and the willingness that studios and
streamers have already demonstrated towards using the technology
nefariously.
Another told the company they were going “straight to
hell,” writing
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“Not only [are you] making AI reconstructions of IPs you don’t own
and replacing the entire crew with no permission, but you’re going
[sic] it during the first writer/actor strike since 1960.”
Just last week, it was revealed that amid negotiations between
SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP, the trade associations proposed background
performers
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scanned and paid for one day’s work, allowing companies to own their
scan for the rest of eternity with no additional compensation.
What do you think? Be the first to comment.
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Decider reached out to _South Park_ representatives for comment but
did not hear back by the time of publication.
It seems as though the ball is in Fable Studios’ court. They can’t
advocate for controlled usage of the technology while also
shapeshifting the creation of hundreds of people’s hard work into
something for their own benefit — especially while the creators are
on strike and out of work in part because of Fable Studios’ very
line of work. It’s not even a double-edged sword like the
legitimate _South Park_ episode… It’s just a regular sword.
* south park
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