In the last year or so, we’ve all been amazed by the rapid progress of generative AI. Just last year, generative AI could only manage somewhat impressionistic and messy images and repetitive text. Today, it’s possible to have a conversation with an AI that’s so realistic you could go an hour without realizing it’s not a person. AI has also created images that easily pass for reality, so much so that it’s becoming a problem.
Can generative AI fix the streaming problem?
The big problem with streaming is that there’s too much choice, and most of it isn’t appealing. AI is already being used on major streaming apps to help serve a selection of programs you might like. I don’t know about you, but that AI never gets it right for me.
I think that today’s AIs could be trained using the set of what you actually watch across different apps to help it make better suggestions. It could also use secondary triggers like the way the remote is used, and the time of day, to figure out who is watching. (Nielsen uses this technology already.) While you’d have to give up some privacy, you’d get a lot better results. I’m not 100% sure it’s worth it but I think some people would like it.
I think that generative AI could do more, though, and they could come up with something simultaneously more scary and cooler. Generative AI could create the content you want to see.
Follow me for a second
We know that ChatGPT can create scripts. We know that Midjourney can create static images, and it’s not a stretch to think that it could eventually create moving ones. There’s tech that create convincing character voices with enough of a sample. Add those up and you have an AI that can create new content.
Even more, it could create new content that you, specifically, like. Are you a big fan of Alyssa Milano? Have you ever wondered if she would do great in a sitcom with Orlando Jones? Generative AI could be trained to make that happen. Working in the background, generative AI could learn your preferences and just crank out content that you want to watch. Imagine an endless stream of computer-generated house hunting shows, movies pairing classic Hollywood icons with today’s influencers, that sort of thing. I’m willing to be that it will be possible in just a few years.
They didn’t stop to think if they should
Jurassic Park, the original one, is an endless trove of quotes about the dangers of science without ethics. This quote comes to mind:
Dr. Ian Malcolm : Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Jurassic Park (1993), courtesy IMDB
I really, really hope that we consider the ethics of this pretty soon. Because it’s going to be very possible pretty soon. There are issues of copyright, of the rights of the people being portrayed, and possible ramifications for all of society. If the AIs get good at predicting what we really want, and there are no limits, how long before every craven impulse is just a click away? What will that mean for the creativity of actual people doing actual work?
Will it lead to the end of culture?
When you have the entire 30,000 years of human culture to choose from, the entire 150 years of recorded images, sounds, and video to sample, will there ever be anything new? How can a new actor really ever rise up if they have to compete with Sir Lawrence Olivier, Tom Cruise, and Tilda Swinton for the same role? I think it’s a very valid concern. After all, look at sitcoms. There are precious few new sitcoms, and why is that? I think it’s because every new sitcom has to compete not only with network shows at the same time but also with Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That’s gotta be a rough thing to do.
Folks, there are a lot of heavy questions here. I am incredibly glad that I don’t have to be the one answering them.
