back to article Generative AI is out of control: Nothing, Forever is a Seinfeld spoof about nothing... forever

When plague winds howl across the surface of cadaver world Earth, humanity long dead by its own hand, imperial archaeologists picking through the remnants will excavate a bunker. Inside they will find a primitive computer. The computer broadcasts AI-generated spoof Seinfeld episodes for eternity. This is the haunting promise …

  1. Manolo
    Meh

    Always new?

    "Everything you see, hear, or experience (with the exception of the artwork and laugh track) is always brand new content"

    Nope. Just got the chicken and slide joke again.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Always new?

      Not surprised that GPT starts repeating itelf after a while.

      There's only a certain amount of bits encoded in the model for it to spew out, and it's not getting any new data.

      1. mpi Silver badge

        I don't think that's the reason for the limitation of current LLMs.

        After all, there is only a certain number of Neurons and synaptic connections in the human brain. It's an impressive number, but also a finite one.

        And humanity as a whole doesn't seem to run out of new ideas any time soon.

        1. ravenviz Silver badge

          Or at least we think we haven’t!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          That's what people always say.

        3. that one in the corner Silver badge

          > It's an impressive number, but also a finite one.

          It is also one that changes *all* the time, unlike current LLMs.

          In your early life, you were pruning connections/weightings to get rid of the junk, in your prime you were absorbing new material faster than ever and even in your final days you'll be learning new behaviours, even if that is just how to shuffle slowly to ease the aches in your bones.

          And all of those updates occur without shutting down and restarting the learning process from scratch again.

        4. Richard 12 Silver badge

          You're getting new data all the time

          There have been quite a few unsupervised and unethical "experiments" into what happens if a human receives very little new data for an extended period of time.

          Mostly in cults, some prison systems, and Victorian-era asylums.

          Simply put, it's very, very bad.

        5. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

          The neurons of the human brain have impressive plasticity and are constantly changing, and, vitally, are constantly integrating new data from a surprisingly large number of inputs (we have far more than five senses, including things like proprioception)

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Re: Generative AI is out of control

    Out of control, Richard Currie?

    Oh please, you cannot be serious ...... although admittedly it is way beyond conventional and traditional human output command and thus humanised input control.

    However, otherworldly works a dream-like treat ..... although discombobulated natives do seem to imagine such a novel possibility much more as a threat to be dreaded rather than an AID to be employed and deployed and enjoyed, which is very odd but something which a great many are systemically prone to suffer from. An illness/disease/learning difficulty ??????

    1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Generative AI is out of control

      So then, aMfM, when are you being upgraded to run on ChatGPT?

      1. Youngone

        Re: Generative AI is out of control

        That particular run from amanfrommars1 was actually grammatical, and made a point. He's improving.

        1. phuzz Silver badge

          Re: Generative AI is out of control

          It's kind of telling that the current AI chatbots are only a bit better than amanfrommars1, who's been around for years (at least a decade?)

          Edit, since 2009 according to their post history.

  3. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Devil

    Very little TV today is about anything.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Joke

      I'm so looking forward to AI-scripted sitcoms becoming generalised, it looks they could be an improvement on Big Bang.

      (canned laughter, outside view of building for 5 seconds with interlude music)

      1. zuckzuckgo

        > it looks they could be an improvement on Big Bang

        In keeping with the sciencey title theme they could call it "The Singularity". A sitcom about single AI's all trying to get along in the same process.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The main process should be named "shell-done". Unscripted of course.

      2. MrBanana

        BIg Bang Theory

        The canned laughter track is different depending on where you see it. The DVDs and UK played versions are OK. I've seen it elsewhere, and had to switch it off because the loud and random laughter was unbearable. I've also never experienced interlude music.

        1. ThomH

          Re: BIg Bang Theory

          MASH is the worst to try to watch here in my US sojourn; a huge laugh track over almost everything. I'm pretty sure it showed in the UK without a laugh track.

          1. MrBanana

            Re: BIg Bang Theory

            MASH was fatally wounded when Alan Alda got control of production, and turned it into a terrible schmaltz fest. By far the best is Altman's original film.

          2. Bongwater

            Re: BIg Bang Theory

            and yet still not as bad as Married with Children. When they had an actual funny joke it got lost in the fake laughter. I did like the babes though they brought on that show! Damn misdirection always worked on me during those years.

  4. zuckzuckgo
    Gimp

    Forget the Matrix

    When the AIs finally do put us all in pods, they won't have fill our minds with a full blown simulated world just show us a forever sitcom or maybe a never ending simulated tiktok stream.

    We are only safe until they finally perfect these experiments.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing, Forever is always-on, runs 365 days of the year, and delivers new content every minute

    And at last we maybe can explain how Buster Friendly managed the similar trick of producing more content than hours in the day...

    1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

      Re: Nothing, Forever is always-on, runs 365 days of the year, and delivers new content every minute

      I don't have time to watch now. I'll catch up by binge-watching the re-run later. :)

      There was an episode of _Married with Children_ where Al is watching TV and changing channels with the remote, but every station is airing a repeat of _Wings_: click, "Wings", click, "Wings", click. Don't ask me why I was watching _Married with Children_. I think my brother had the remote.

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: Nothing, Forever is always-on, runs 365 days of the year, and delivers new content every minute

        an episode of _Married with Children_ where Al is watching TV

        I read that as AI (ai) instead of Al (AL). Bloody sans-serif :(

  6. Lucy in the Sky (with Diamonds)

    There Will Come Soft Rains

    When I think of AI, I remember Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, near the end, reciting Sara Teasdale's poem "There Will Come Soft Rains":

    There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

    And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

    And frogs in the pools singing at night,

    And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

    Robins will wear their feathery fire

    Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

    And not one will know of the war, not one

    Will care at last when it is done.

    Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

    If mankind perished utterly;

    And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

    Would scarcely know that we were gone.

  7. TeeCee Gold badge
    Meh

    "It's... actually kind of funny, though"

    So, better than the original then?

    1. Tams

      Re: "It's... actually kind of funny, though"

      Remarkedly so.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: "It's... actually kind of funny, though"

      I always thought someone was having a laugh when they called Seinfeld comedy. They'll be saying the same about Friends next!

  8. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    It doesn't know how to make people sit down on sofas and chairs, does it? It uses the same exterior establishing shot, no matter the interior. People are holding phones for no reason. But it's quite mesmeric and occasionally unintentionally funny. ("I got a job as an actor playing a cartoon character come to life...")

    1. ravenviz Silver badge

      Early days, this is an excellent demonstrator. After all, how do we define entertainment? Maybe after 100 years of the moving image we have enough data for any story we may ever be likely to tell. It of course does not preclude human storytelling, but think of being able to ask for “a funny road trip movie set in Peru starring Harpo Marx and Jenny Agutter”.

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        There's one prediction about technology that has never come true, and that's: "it won't get any better than this."

  9. Exact Circus
    Pint

    The only reason to watch Seinfeld was/is the shots of New York that sporadically appear in the epsiodes.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    big question

    The big question is: could it whip up an episode of Single Female Lawyer? The fate of the planet could hang in the balance.

  11. gbchew

    "I would like to add that nothing that has been said reflects the opinion of the developers (or anyone else on the staff team)."

    Except that it does, quite explicitly, reflect the opinion of the developers and the staff team that the known risk of their pet AI doing something hideously offensive or dangerous at any given moment is more than offset by their ability to benefit from accepting that risk.

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