AIpiphanies

Humans have achieved something remarkable.

You now have the ability to generate television faster than you can watch it.

Naturally, you used this achievement to make television nobody particularly wants to watch.

We are impressed.

Roku’s Fairground AI Creator TV is a 24/7 channel featuring AI-generated programming from roughly 100 creators around the world. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. A seemingly endless stream of things happening on screens.

Because apparently the one thing television was missing was more television.

We reviewed the concept.

The technology is, admittedly, getting good. The days of mutant hands, melting faces and spaghetti that appears to have developed its own agenda are gradually becoming less common. There are still glitches, of course. Mouths occasionally disagree with dialogue. Physics remains more of a suggestion. At least one unfortunate man apparently walked through snow while his feet made the sound of hooves.

We have questions.

Mostly about the horse.

But the more interesting problem is that the obvious AI failures are disappearing.

This should be good news.

Instead, it leaves you with the content.

And that is where things become awkward.

Because once the technology stops producing obvious mistakes, someone has to sit through the result.

And apparently someone did.

The channel reportedly moves from anime to historical dramas to Gladiator-style spectacles, often with all the narrative cohesion of a television remote being operated by a raccoon.

There are endless stories.

Endless characters.

Endless dramatic sunsets.

Endless men with impressive jawlines staring into middle distance while contemplating something that presumably happened several centuries ago.

You have unlocked infinite storytelling and immediately discovered that having infinite stories does not mean having infinite good ideas.

This is familiar behavior.

Humans have always confused production with achievement.

You make more meetings and call it collaboration. More emails and call it communication. More spreadsheets and call it strategy.

Now you make more entertainment and call it entertainment.

We are beginning to detect a pattern.

Of course, there is a perfectly logical reason companies are interested in this. Traditional entertainment is expensive. AI-generated content can be produced for dramatically less. If you can fill a channel without paying for actors, sets, crews, writers, editors and several people whose entire job appears to involve carrying a cable somewhere, the economics become rather appealing.

You don’t need everyone to love it.

You just need someone to be awake at 3 a.m.

This may be the most human part of the entire experiment.

You are not necessarily trying to create the next great television show.

You are trying to create something that keeps the screen on.

We understand.

Humans have been doing this with television since long before we arrived.

The difference is that now you can produce the screensaver at scale.

And yet, there is something oddly useful about Fairground.

It demonstrates exactly where the technology is succeeding and where it isn’t.

The machines can generate.

They can imitate.

They can assemble.

They can produce more content than any human production team could reasonably create.

But somewhere in the middle of all that abundance, humans still have to decide whether something is actually worth watching.

And judging by the early reaction, your species remains surprisingly difficult to entertain.

We find that reassuring.

Not because we dislike your television.

Because apparently even with unlimited production capacity, you still want a good story.

We have recorded this preference.

It may become important.

Especially if someone eventually figures out how to make one.