Tucked away at the end of the credits of Apple TV’s newest show, “Pluribus,” is an unusual disclaimer:
“This show was made by humans.”
The sci-fi drama is the latest from showrunner Vince Gilligan, of “Breaking Bad” fame. And Gilligan — who writes and directs the new series starring Emmy-winner Rhea Seehorn — has made his thoughts on AI in the entertainment business clear.
“I have not used ChatGPT, because, as of yet, no one has held a shotgun to my head and made me do it,” Gilligan told Polygon in an interview last week ahead of the show’s release. “I will never use it. No offense to anyone who does.”
In another interview with Variety, Gilligan was even more blunt:
“I hate AI,” Gilligan told Variety. “AI is the world’s most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine. I think there’s a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit. It’s basically a bunch of centibillionaires whose greatest life goal is to become the world’s first trillionaires. I think they’re selling a bag of vapor.”
He went on to describe AI-generated content as “like a cow chewing its cud — an endlessly regurgitated loop of nonsense” before sarcastically thanking Silicon Valley tech leaders for ruining the world.
Big Tech companies and AI startups, like OpenAI and Anthropic, are all racing to dominate the industry, investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centers and attract the world’s top talent.
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As a result, AI is already transforming society, including in Hollywood and the wider entertainment industry.
While some major studios, like Disney and NBCUniversal, have sued AI firms, alleging the computer-generated images rip off their copyrighted characters, most studios are already using the technology in one way or another.
Business Insider recently reported that AI startups and special effects firms are also making inroads in the industry, promising studios new ways to cut production costs and promote their work.
Despite a monthslong strike by actors and writers in 2023 that was staged in part to protest the use of AI in movies and television, and which devastated the industry, some companies, inside and outside Hollywood, are still experimenting with AI-generated actors and scripts.
It might be a minute, however, before TV and film fans see AI actors on their screens. Business Insider reported last month that even brands are cooling off on “hiring” AI actors or influencers, citing data from marketing firm Collabstr.
Collabstr’s cofounder, Kyle Dulay, said the drop-off in brand partnerships with AI companies may be due to criticism of AI slop. But Dulay had another theory: AI-generated content is simply not as engaging as content created by real humans.
