An AI-generated sitcom has taken over Twitch in recent days. After a few questionable statements by the main character, it’s over for now.
What series is this? Nothing, Forever is a procedurally generated sitcom created entirely by artificial intelligence: behind the screenplay and animation are technologies such as DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and OpenAi GPT-3.
On Twitch, the series was available 24/7 on the watchmeforever channel.
AI Seinfeld becomes a hit on Twitch
How did that go down? What was originally planned as some kind of surreal art project turned into a hit on Twitch. At the start of the series in December 2022, the sitcom had hardly any viewers, but that changed rapidly when major streamers like xQc became aware of the project.
In the last 7 days, the Twitch channel that hosts Nothing, Forever has been ranked as the 2nd fastest growing account. More than 189,000 of the total of 190,000 followers come from this period (as of February 7, 2023, 12:15 p.m., via sullygnome).
In the last 3 days, the series had an average of over 10,000 concurrent viewers. This corresponds to the number of viewers of some of the largest German streamers on Twitch.
How did the series go? The artificial intelligence was trained with classic sitcom episodes. The template is the cult sitcom Seinfeld: Its eponymous protagonist Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian and opens the episodes with his stand-up routine. So does Larry Feinberg in Nothing, Forever.
But that’s exactly what became the series’ undoing, because the account received a 14-day ban after a stand-up monologue by the main character.
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Transphobic or just misguided meta-humor?
What was that monologue? The AI Seinfeld opened up his stand-up routine by noting that no one in the audience was laughing. He then lists some possible ideas for his jokes, which can also be found in anti-trans talking points:
There are about 50 people here and no one is laughing. Anyone have any suggestions? I’m thinking about doing a set about being transgender actually a mental illness. Or about the fact that all liberals are secretly homosexual and want to impose their will on everyone. Or something about how transgender people are ruining the fabric of society. But nobody laughs, so I stop.
A more benevolent interpretation is that it’s a kind of meta-humor: it’s making fun of comedians who probably can’t think of anything else to do than make fun of current hot topics.
However, in a post on Discord, the developers behind the show emphasized that the statements made by the AI in no way reflect their own opinions. They would have already investigated what might have led to the questionable monologue.
What’s behind it? Apparently, a change in the AI model was the cause: OpenAI’s tools for moderating content would have failed with the alternative model. They no longer want to use this model in the future.
However, the problem with the original model has already been found, so the series can probably be continued after the involuntary break.
As usual with Twitch, there is no official confirmation as to what exactly caused the ban. However, the temporal proximity to the stand-up monologue and the statements of those responsible suggest that it may have been the trigger.
The whole thing shows a well-known problem with content created by artificial intelligence: depending on the content with which the AI is trained, questionable statements always seem to come sooner or later.
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