Exciting news for TV show lovers! Fable, a company, recently introduced a groundbreaking tool called AI Showrunner. This incredible innovation allows users to create never-ending episodes of their favorite show.
Although initially deemed too risky for public release, Fable decided to showcase its capabilities through a demonstration featuring an episode of South Park.
The demonstration called “Westland Chronicles” is a full 22-minute AI-generated South Park episode. It revolves around an ongoing protest by actors and writers concerned about the threat that AI poses to the industry.
Announcing our paper on Generative TV & Showrunner Agents!
— The Simulation (@fablesimulation) July 18, 2023
Create episodes of TV shows with a prompt – SHOW-1 will write, animate, direct, voice, edit for you.
We used South Park FOR RESEARCH ONLY – we won't be releasing ability to make your own South Park episodes -not our IP! pic.twitter.com/6P2WQd8SvY
This episode acts as an example of generative TV and serves as research for Fable. However, it’s important to note that Fable does not plan to profit from this specific episode or release a way for others to create similar episodes.
What sets AI Showrunner apart is its ability to not only generate episodes but also allow users to become a part of the TV show.
By providing the software with a brief one or two-sentence prompt, users can witness the entire episode unfold while even having a character designed to resemble them in both appearance and voice.
Edward Saatchi, the CEO of Fable, shared with GamesBeat that AI Showrunner tackles various aspects of TV production. This includes dialogue, animation, voiceovers, and editing.
He clarifies that the demonstration episode featuring South Park was solely for research purposes, and his team did not seek copyright permission from the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Tech Crunch criticized this demonstration, viewing it as inappropriate to showcase an AI-generated episode during an ongoing writers’ strike. However, Saatchi believes the timing is perfect.
He hopes that by sharing their research (without providing the ability for users to create episodes of copyrighted content), it will prompt Hollywood’s guilds to negotiate strong protections against producers using AI tools without the explicit permission of artists.
Additionally, Saatchi emphasizes that intellectual property holders need to find ways to negotiate with AI chatbot companies profiting from their work.
Interestingly, even Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, also experimented with AI. They released an episode called “Deep Learning,” partially written by a AI language model called ChatGPT and featuring AI-generated voices.
The issue of copyright arises when it comes to AI. Programs like Midjourney and DALL-E utilized millions of copyrighted photos without permission to train their AI systems.
Determining whether specific AI-generated images infringe upon original sources becomes difficult with copyright holders affected on a large scale. However, when it comes to reproducing specific TV shows like South Park or Friends, the violation becomes much clearer.
The resolution of these copyright concerns in the context of AI development remains uncertain, becoming an intriguing area to watch closely in the months and years to come.