According to Roku, the future of entertainment is a constant stream of content created by completely random people and available 24/7. Welcome to the new "AI Creator TV" channel, now available on the app's streaming service, featuring exclusively movies and shows created by the app itself, along with commercials featuring "synthetic performers." This "eerie landscape" is available to stream for free as channel number 300 in the Roku Channel Guide.
Replicating the worst of the content overload that has plagued YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram—sorry, «Instagzam»—is one thing, but what’s far more unusual is that Roku is positioning this first-of-its-kind channel as a testament to talent. alive artists, a way to attract more digital creators to its network. The content featured here, as just a portion of the Roku Channel's extensive FAST (free, ad-supported streaming TV) lineup, is provided by Fairground, a year-old studio that distributes the work of AI-powered content creators who have signed with specific studios or registered for Fairground's internal competitions. (The word is highlighted in the logo.) «AI» in the title Fairground , (In case you missed it.) AI Creator TV, which launched on Roku and several other FAST providers earlier this month, claims to feature "over 100 of the best AI-powered filmmakers from around the world." In an interview, Fairground CEO Colin Petrie-Norris promised that "we're looking for high-quality entertainment" and that the channel will feature "great stuff" curated by Fairground staff that might otherwise be blocked due to "gatekeepers and the like.".
Last week, I watched a ton of Fairground's AI Creator TV shows to get a sense of what quality entertainment they had to offer. After being overwhelmed by hours of robotic voiceovers, disturbing animated montages, and "documentaries" that could never pass for original, I desperately hope that future AI projects will feature more "controllers and other intermediaries"—if only for the sake of taste.
One thing to understand about the channel lineup right away: only a few of them feature "original" stories. Petrie-Morris announced that Fairground's initial productions will be based on beloved public domain characters—Robin Hood, etc.—and are then expected to gain access to existing intellectual property through partnerships with studios. AI Creator TV regularly airs a series called «Rethinking» , which shows how AI enthusiasts (and the models they use) imagine fictional characters like Cinderella and Sherlock Holmes, among many others. There's the short film "Dracula Meets the Walking Dead" by YouTuber DJ Marcelll, in which the famous vampire lives with a family of zombies in a modern sitcom setting, replete with corny jokes ("a warm glass of plasma?") and visual gags involving kids with their damn selfies and smartphones. There's "Pinok IO," a take on Pinocchio, in which the classic character (pronounced PIN-nock) finds himself embroiled in a Pinocchio-esque storyline. «Minecraft Movie"» — a confrontation between the real world and the game universe, culminating in a «plot twist» revealing that Pinoc’s name is not the popular tech abbreviation IO, but a number 10 , which somehow makes him believe he's "real." (Forgive the vague plot description, but it was difficult to follow. A Fairground panel had previously praised the film for its "seamless coherence of characters across two different animation styles," which certainly didn't match my impression.) The end credits feature nothing but a list of apps used to create this "movie," including the Runway video generator and the Suno music simulator.
But if you don't like the plethora of reimagined fairy tales, from the short film "Alice: Sounds of Wonderland," based on «"Demon Hunters K-Pop"» , to Foxbridge Media's Brothers Grimm tribute, which depicts Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf as a couple—don't worry! There's also "True Crime Stories: Wild West," a series of historical "reports" that I confess I tuned out after just two minutes due to how awful the 3D figures looked and sounded, with their synthesized dialogue and all. (Harry McClintock fans, don't read this: In another video based on the story and featuring the 1894 Coxey's Army march, Suno "reimagines" the classic folk anthem "Hallelujah, I'm a Tramp.") There's a seven-minute spot called "Rush," the story of a mountain biker who rushes straight from a race to support his wife, who is having a baby, but is killed by the ambulance transporting her—all told from the perspective of his bike, which is then picked up by a pizza delivery guy who also happens to be racing and, guess what, accidentally ends his race. и getting to the hospital in time for his wife to give birth.
Eat more one episode, titled «Best of AI: Animation »", which calls her work "human in spirit" and proclaims that "a new cinematic language is being written right now." The first thing I saw was a vertical anime-style video, with the characters barely moving their lips, and it ended with the verbatim caption, "To be continued..." (No, they didn't even add a third period to the ellipsis.) And after all that, you can dive into Roku commercials, which, in at least one case, feature a mad scientist from Roku City who murders the team that developed a complex TV remote control because the Roku controller has fewer buttons and "Simple is better.".
Consider: many of the most famous artists of the past who used new technologies in their work—Douglas Adams, Wendy Carlos, Ferdinand Zecca—certainly encountered some creative challenges in their experiments, but ultimately they understood that innovation doesn't preclude taste, and that good work requires diligence. Fairground talks a lot about how it curates and supports undervalued, techno-optimistic "creators" today, but when you look at what the company is willing to promote, one of the most glaring problems with AI proponents becomes apparent. Namely, they have all the money, but no taste, and they have little understanding of why people prefer one art form over another. (Elon Musk and Sam Altman, among others, have said as much over the years.) If Roku and Fairground are hoping that this channel will encourage more people to experiment with AI and unlock its potential for storytelling, I think they have a hugely difficult task ahead of them, because nothing I saw on "AI Creator TV" is something I'd ever want to see again.
In my feeds I saw genuinely funny and witty short films created with AI, many of which were likely produced using far less computing power and applications than what was available at the fairgrounds. I know that entertainment industry giants whose work I admire, from Martin Scorsese to Natasha Lyonne, are genuinely interested in the cinematic possibilities of AI. There is a world where short films created with AI, could improve in quality and, perhaps, inspire lesser-known creatives to realize their ambitions. This world won't be realized at a fairground.