The ‘Netflix of AI’ wants to upturn Hollywood but its shows are truly terrible

While AI video has advanced extremely fast in the past year, entirely AI-generated content is still so clunky that it’s hard to watch. That’s not putting off Fable Studio’s Showrunner, which is moving ahead with the launch of its ‘Netflix of AI’.

Fable Studio’s platform will allow users to create their own mini AI animations based on simulations. It’s convinced that this is the future of TV, and maybe it’s right. But the present is terribly cringey.

Showrunner teased its arrival on the scene over a year ago with AI-scripted knock-offs of South Park. Those efforts have now matured into Exit Valley, the first of a planned series of ‘Showrunner Originals’. Described as a “hilariously irreverent satire” (the irreverent part is true), episode one (which lasts five minutes including the credits), reimagines the bloody foundations of Silicon Valley. 

The animation is barely existent, it’s not clear where the jokes are and the robotic voices make it an ordeal to sit through. I had to force myself to stay with it for the full five minutes, and it’s not an experience I would want to repeat again.

Other shows apparently in the works include Pixels, which Showrunner describes as “Wings of Desire meets Toy Story!” but which appears to be a dull 3D animation of AI-powered machines making small talk. There’s also What We Leave Behind, a “family drama” about the Robson family and “what happens to them after two siblings use AI to cope with the grief of a family tragedy”. Gripping stuff.

But Showrunner is about more than its own team’s AI-generated drivel. It’s hoping that users might more imaginative and come up with something better themselves. Users can ‘free play’ agents in ‘Sim Francisco’ or ‘canon play’: building core memories for the AIs. Using text prompts, you can, for example, wake up Elon Musk and “send him out clubbing” and then watch the episode. It seems kind of like The SIMs computer game but less entertaining.

It’s easy to be dismissive of Fable Studio’s platform, whose only entertainment value for now appears to be allowing us to marvel at how bad it is. But there’s a chance big players could buy into it. Fable’s hoping to incorporate major IPs, claiming that “almost every studio in Hollywood reached out” after its South Park efforts. It says it’s exploring the idea of interactive TV shows, which would allow fans to make their own new episodes of their favourite shows, with revenue going back to the original creators. 

That’s the side of AI TV that sounds like it might have the most potential for now. It might not be of good enough quality to stand up in its own right, but could provide interactive add-ons to existing shows for the diehard fans that have the time for it. Users will apparently be able to share and potentially monetise their creations, although I suspect that anyone interested in the form may be too occupied making their own to watch anyone else’s.

CEO Edward Saatchi told The Hollywood Reporter the “vision is to be the Netflix of AI”. he also imagines “simulations powering 1000s of Truman Shows populated by interactive AI characters.” For now, it seems  more like a badly executed choose-your-own-adventure video game without the adventure than TV. There’s a waitlist for early access,and Showrunner  claims there are 50,000 people in the queue.

Showrunner isn’t entirely novel. Back in April, we reported on the launch of the first AI TV streaming channel TCLtv+, which announced its arrival with a glitchy trailer for an AI-generated romance movie.