My Showrunner AI post on Facebook

I've been looking into the new Showrunner AI and some similar apps.  They are within striking range of producing adequate entertainment.

Let me expound on what I meant by "adequate."  It's acceptable mediocrity, like songs that bubble just below the top 100, or TV shows that lasted four or five seasons but nobody remembers them now, or your average comic book or genre novel.

I hesitate to call 'em guilty pleasures but that's a term people can wrap their minds around so let's use it.  Stuff you can turn your brain off while enjoying, pleasant background noise. 

Popcorn entertainment.  Satisfying while indulging, but not nutritious and you're still hungry afterwards.

And it's okay to enjoy it, every meal needn't be a feast.  I get it, sometimes you just want to watch the Three Stooges try to paint a house.

But all that is changing -- no, make that >already has changed< -- now that AI can generate acceptable mediocrity.  Make a few choices, type in a short prompt, and Showrunner AI can generate a whole episode for you.

It's limited now, but it's getting better and better, faster and faster. 

In an odd way, it reminds me of working at Filmation back in the day.  They used to hand writers and storyboard artists notebooks filled with stock animation shots and tell us whenever possible to call for specific stock shots in order to save money.

Right now Showrunner gives you a variety of characters you can choose from and to a limited degree customize (the possibility of turning yourself into a cartoon character to join in is on the horizon).  They have predesigned locations, a limited number of actions, and I'm sure they used the same basic tech and character motion control programs used by many video game makers.

Music / voices / spfx / filters all generated by the AI.  Their large language models can generate acceptable dialog (i.e., it makes sense and links up to what has already been said) but human users can edit the AI generated dialog if they wish.

What could I do with those tools?  I dunno, but other than being entirely digital they're not significantly different from the old Filmation stock books and their limited range of voices and sound effects.

You don't need writers / artists / actors / musicians for any of this.  Type in "The Three Stooges paint the Playboy Mansion, PG-13 version" and sit back and enjoy the fun.

This is going to wipe out studios and production companies.  They're not up to photo realism yet, but they'll get those bugs worked out soon enough.  Media will no longer be broadcast, they'll be tailored for individual users.

Sure, a few will be generated by trademark holders, but those will be only to provide fodder for users to create their own fan fic videos.

AI will be tracking our likes and dislikes enough that it will know what we want to see in a particular show and provide them.

My Three Stooges painting the Playboy Mansion may feature Curly and Miss July 1972, yours might feature Shemp and Miss October 1957.

It's going to destroy the business model for video entertainment.  I doubt the rights holders will share much of their pie with anyone -- they'll be happy to give you a small taste if your video hits 100K views but they'll rake in most of the streaming and ad generated revenue.

Creators -- serious creators -- may need to give up hopes of earning a living as creators and find day jobs to support their AI habits.

The creative atmosphere is going to become far more rarified.  There will still be innovative creators and breakout artists, but they will be the ones who devote a lifetime to mastering their craft.

There will be the equivalent of the influencer class, a group of users who know just enough to make slightly better content than what the AI will spit out on its own and they will make money off views of their videos -- but only after paying a fierce dane geld to the rights holders.

The vast majority of users may try it a few times then just let the AI make all the decisions for them.

It's easier that way.

I'll be honest, I'm sorely tempted by this new tech.

I have stories I want to tell visually or on video that I haven't been able to because I'm not able to afford the artist and voice talent needed.

I saw a program that touts itself as being a tool for making web comics.  It has customizable bodies / faces / hair / clothes that can be dragged and dropped and mixed and matched to create thousands of different characters, a number of backgrounds, plus preprogrammed expressions and poses.

I'm sure it's overselling itself, but I still thought I could probably teach myself how to use it adequately enough to produce visually acceptable strips that I would dialog personally.

Now Showrunner and other AI programs in development offer me that chance in video.

But...that means freezing out artists and voice actors and musicians (and yeah, I realize that if they want to play with these tools, they'll be freezing me out as a writer).

Even an average creative person has spent a lifetime learning their craft, constantly working at it and honing it.  Old fashion acceptable mediocrity -- pulp fiction, open mike nights, late night basement club jam sessions -- all taught us our craft, and gave us the ability to express something worthwhile with our creativity.

The Beatles played in rat holes in Liverpool and Hamburg to hone their skill set.  They were ready for the big time when the opportunity arose.

AI "creativity" isn't going to provide the same learning experience for its users.  Already we see a lot of burnouts, people who embraced AI to generate thousands of images and songs only to become bored with the process when they faced no personal challenges to drive them on.

(Not all is gloom and doom.  I can see a rise in live music, live theatre -- especially with amazing new technologies for the stage -- and other venues.  But it's going to be an underground movement, something for aficionados and connoisseurs, not the hoi polloi who are satisfied watching AI generated Stooges paint the Playboy Mansion.)

© Buzz Dixon