10 PRINT "YADA YADA YADA" / 20 GOTO 10 / RUN
January 31, 2023 12:59 PM   Subscribe

AI has been generating an endless Seinfeld episode for more than a month now [Reid McCarter, AV Club]
"At the time of writing, Nothing, Forever showed Elaine and Kramer sitting on a couch, just having clipped into each other and melded into a strange new creature. The scene changed to show George talking to Elaine about a restaurant that won’t allow people to use ketchup on steak. "Rules, rules, there are always rules," Elaine replies, prompting the laugh track. She recalls there being rules about trying to order a decaf coffee once in the past and the laughs play again. The pair then stand together in silence for a while, nary a synth bass slap or pop to end their hilarious bit. After a while, George sits down on the couch and Elaine slowly falls diagonally into a wall." [Link to the Twitch stream]
posted by Atom Eyes (75 comments total) 34 users marked this as a favorite
 
.....it.....

I just tuned in a moment ago and it was using jokes that I seriously legit could have heard on the actual show.

WHAT HELLSCAPE DO WE NOW LIVE IN.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Turns out, that we are the Satans, the callous and debauched demiurges, of the fictive universes that we have created, resurrecting the denizens to an endless post-structuralist, post-modern ialdaboath. I have no mouth, and I must kvetch.

Also, is anybody else watching this expecting the whole thing to break into a parody of "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits at any moment?
posted by LeRoienJaune at 1:12 PM on January 31, 2023 [19 favorites]


I gotta move these microwave ovens, Jerry!
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:20 PM on January 31, 2023 [36 favorites]


An AI model about nothing.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:49 PM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]


"Larry" just complained about having to shovel snow. I guess the set of crappy jokes the AI was trained on skewed suburban.
posted by praemunire at 1:54 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


About half of the episodes are about them talking about a new restaurant. But Yvonne just convinced her landlord to give her free rent on her birthday -- "birthday rent". That's almost a Seinfeldian plotline, but it couldn't sustain the gag.

Somewhere there's a toddler being parked in front of this for hours a day, and they'll grow up to make a real version of this.
posted by credulous at 1:55 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]


How about they do The Office, but it is set inside the Tron computer and directed by Wes Anderson? Or maybe just generate "Invitation to Love" from Twin Peaks. Or create new Columbo episodes set in the present day with Natasha Lyonne instead of Peter Falk. The possibilities are endless.
posted by snofoam at 1:59 PM on January 31, 2023


Somewhere there's a toddler being parked in front of this for hours a day

When I have been in homes with little kids, I have seen some of the stuff they watch on Netflix or YouTube and I wouldn't be surprised if it is at least partially algorithmically generated.
posted by snofoam at 2:03 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


There is no doubt in my mind that if someone made this for Neighbours or Home And Away it would become hugely and unironically popular in the UK.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:04 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


The possibilities are endless.

I wonder if it is Art when your AI model is just shuffling cards and dealing out a few from the top of the deck at random, to see if a good hand might come out. Maybe Nick Cave was right all along.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:05 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Reading the original Vice article, it is kind of fascinating that the error function used for guiding the model is basically the functional equivalent of Nielsen ratings, using audience participation to train it in a some random direction.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:08 PM on January 31, 2023


I have seen some of the stuff they watch on Netflix or YouTube and I wouldn't be surprised if it is at least partially algorithmically generated.

If not completely AI generated, then very close:

"The results are indescribably strange. These are videos where you’ll see Spider-Man, Elsa, and The Hulk do battle with the Scream killer, then taking shrunken versions of themselves grocery shopping while “Wheels On The Bus” plays in the background."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:09 PM on January 31, 2023 [5 favorites]


When I have been in homes with little kids, I have seen some of the stuff they watch on Netflix or YouTube and I wouldn't be surprised if it is at least partially algorithmically generated.

It is, but just via Mad Libs (PDF) algorithms. Spongebob too.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:10 PM on January 31, 2023


This reminds me of the post-apocalyptic Gilligan's Island performed with crude puppets in a cardboard box illuminated by torch-light (theme music sung by the audience)
    from The Postman (novel, dunno about the film)
posted by Rash at 2:16 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


Also I love how they're blowing through wads of cash burning up GPUs to generate the script and voices, but the graphics look like they're done on an old 486 running MS-DOS.
posted by credulous at 2:16 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]


the confluence of white men 1) loving AI and 2) loving Seinfeld resulting in this seems like an inevitable thing

seems like we should also start seeing AI generated

rants on cancel culture
'sorry you feel this way' apologies
justifications for only dating Asian women
songs about divorces

in a minute here
posted by paimapi at 2:17 PM on January 31, 2023 [7 favorites]


486? MS-DOS??
These are C64 era.
posted by MtDewd at 2:31 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


How about they do The Office, but it is set inside the Tron computer and directed by Wes Anderson? Or maybe just generate "Invitation to Love" from Twin Peaks. Or create new Columbo episodes set in the present day with Natasha Lyonne instead of Peter Falk. The possibilities are endless.

This is the future. Not the far future, the coming next few years.

We're all already familiar with the bullshit listicle and clickbait articles that have infested the online world these past few decades. Now we're seeing the next stage, an endless slurry of completely worthless garbage "content" infinitely churned out by AIs in quantities far surpassing what even armies of underpaid, overworked human contractors can currently do.

It literally doesn't even matter anymore what the content is. If you can produce a million variations of worthless bullshit instantly for next to nothing, at least some fraction of that is going to net you some clicks and therefore money.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:37 PM on January 31, 2023 [9 favorites]


You can get original/human-made content. You'll just have to pay more for it.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:39 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Oh good, I typically fall asleep listening to Seinfeld reruns, but I haven't been having enough nightmares lately.
posted by Jawn at 2:43 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]


ESTRAGON: We came here yesterday.
VLADIMIR: Yesterday? When was that?
ESTRAGON: Tomorrow.
VLADIMIR: Don't joke.
JERRY: What is tomorrow's deal, anyway?
ESTRAGON: Which deal?
VLADIMIR: The deal we made here. I think.
ESTRAGON: You think?
JERRY: Yeah, I was wanting to ask about that.
ESTRAGON: As was I.
ELAINE: Who are you again?
posted by phooky at 2:57 PM on January 31, 2023 [18 favorites]


The chat is very excited right now because he finally said "What's the deal with airplane food"
posted by credulous at 3:02 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


This reminds me of the post-apocalyptic Gilligan's Island performed with crude puppets in a cardboard box illuminated by torch-light

Some sort of post-electric play?
posted by zamboni at 3:07 PM on January 31, 2023 [5 favorites]


The chat is very excited right now because he finally said "What's the deal with airplane food"

And overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:17 PM on January 31, 2023 [32 favorites]


Or create new Columbo episodes set in the present day with Natasha Lyonne instead of Peter Falk

I see what you did there
posted by Windopaene at 3:18 PM on January 31, 2023 [8 favorites]


You can get original/human-made content. You'll just have to pay more for it.

Hmmm…human-made you say? Very exotic what you want. Not many handle this kind of content now…after it became illegal.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:19 PM on January 31, 2023 [19 favorites]


The Twitch comments are such a integral part of this experience. It is mesmerizing.
posted by Gadarene at 3:43 PM on January 31, 2023 [4 favorites]


At least human-designed characters can sit down gracefully.
posted by MtDewd at 3:44 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


It's weirdly hypnotic. I had to tear myself away. The randomness of the laugh track is hilarious.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:03 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


I don't think the 3D models or animations are AI-generated. I think they ask OpenAI to give them a script, parse out the dialogue, feed it to a TTS engine, and then feed it all into their custom janky machinima engine which randomly makes characters do stuff.
posted by credulous at 4:18 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


but the graphics look like they're done on an old 486 running MS-DOS.

I have never been a Seinfeld fan but I will probably che--

486? MS-DOS??
These are C64 era.


I will DEFINITELY check this out!
posted by curious nu at 5:04 PM on January 31, 2023


At one point Larry proposed that they all play charades after dinner. "It will be a nice way to end the day."

Don't quit your day jobs, boys.
posted by praemunire at 5:12 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


TIMING
posted by not_on_display at 5:28 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


As much as I feel that all this AI stuff is pretty much a waste of time, this example has reassured me that this too is a waste of time. The dialog is utterly stilted. The animation appears to be the most amateurish I have ever seen. And the sum total is an utterly incompetent depiction of someone’s completely misremembered take on Sartre’s No Exit.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:30 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


My kid's AI could do that.
posted by gauche at 5:33 PM on January 31, 2023 [6 favorites]


an endless slurry of completely worthless garbage "content" infinitely churned out by AIs in quantities far surpassing what even armies of underpaid, overworked human contractors can currently do.

We’re gonna need more weed. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a ton of future thinkpieces about how AI content couldn’t have really taken off without the decriminalization/legalization of weed and shrooms.
posted by snofoam at 6:14 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


Here's the challenge.

Do something like this, but with the surrealism of the Goon Show fed into the script generator as general rules. Transference of space (a door can lead to any other place, the act of one person leaving a place sometimes leaves unexpected changes in occupancy), transference of function (objects can have functions and uses that are bizarre, like a jet-propelled flying wartime shop or smoking a gorilla), transference of time (dropping two-years-advanced calendars onto a battleground makes everyone think two years have passed and the war is over).

Then turn on the dadaism juice and see what shakes loose.
posted by delfin at 6:21 PM on January 31, 2023 [6 favorites]


Metafilter: turn on the dadaism juice and see what shakes loose.
posted by not_on_display at 6:28 PM on January 31, 2023 [5 favorites]


This is the hardest I've laughed in a long time.
posted by unknowncommand at 6:36 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


Why is this running on the Kings Quest IV engine?

Larry


Oh.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:50 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


Or create new Columbo episodes set in the present day with Natasha Lyonne instead of Peter Falk

Uh, you're trolling, right? (It is definitely a 'homage', am pretty sure the title credit font is directly lifted from Columbo)

Ok... pwhew... trolling confirmed... top notch!
posted by rozcakj at 7:08 PM on January 31, 2023 [2 favorites]


The dialog is utterly stilted. The animation appears to be the most amateurish I have ever seen. And the sum total is an utterly incompetent depiction of someone’s completely misremembered take on Sartre’s No Exit.

Gen-X kids in Canada may have seen repeats of The Trouble With Tracy, a dismal sitcom that cranked out 130 episodes in its single season. I was a toddler when it was initially broadcast but saw a few repeats on afternoon TV in the mid-seventies. Recycling and adapting a bunch of pre-WWII radio scripts, the general vibe was as if a few community theatre actors were trying to improv an episode of an All in the Family knockoff.

The Twitch AI here with Elaine Yvonne demanding to know why George Fred would get a pet iguana anyway, long beat, laugh put me in mind of those afternoons.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:26 PM on January 31, 2023


When I first tuned in, there was a stand-up sequence; 'Larry' was telling well-known old jokes. Eye-rolling ensued on my part. But in the next stand-up sequence, he told this one:

"The economy's been pretty bad lately. I've had to change how I do my grocery shopping. I just wait outside the store and ask the people coming out if they're finished with their food yet."

Dear god.
posted by BiggerJ at 9:01 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


Also, afterward, he gave a typical 'thank you, you've been great' speech... but then told everyone to tip their waiters.

Aaaaand the moment I check in again, Larry's telling a story on stage about repeatedly telling someone who asked him the time that his watch is stuck in eternity.
posted by BiggerJ at 10:59 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Lady: So you mean you don't have a watch?
Larry: No, it's stuck in eternity.
Lady: Oh, so you mean your watch is brocken?
Larry: No, my watch is stuck in eternity.
posted by dagosto at 11:19 PM on January 31, 2023 [3 favorites]


I have watched much more of this than I expected.
posted by Hicksu at 11:41 PM on January 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


This is the best thing since Twitch Plays Pokemon. It's endlessly, stupidly hilarious to me. Yvonne and Fred just contemplated the nature of humor in real time, and it was so fun to be there as the chat freaked out.
posted by oulipian at 4:38 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


tuned in & immediately:
Elaine: I heard the most bizarre thing at work today
Jerry: Is it that you're getting a pet monkey?

currently laughing harder at this than I ever have at actual Seinfeld
posted by taquito sunrise at 5:14 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


Sooo much better than the original.
posted by slogger at 5:23 AM on February 1, 2023


Larry is telling a bunch of actual jokes onstage this morning. One I had not heard was:

Q: What do call a fly with no legs?
A: A walk!

Then this one was suprising:

Q: What do you call a lizard with no legs?
A: A stump!
posted by dagosto at 5:44 AM on February 1, 2023


I highly recommend episode 45 of the experimental fiction/poetry podcast Imaginary Advice: S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. (soundcloud, spotify), an entirely human-written story about an AI Seinfeld.
posted by moonmilk at 6:24 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


Just tuned in...Elaine and Jerry were sitting in his apartment and she mentioned she saw a rat carrying a take-out bag. "Where was it going?" she asked. "Maybe to a rat party?" "That would explain why it was going so fast." Laughter from the audience. "I wonder what they do at those parties?" Elaine asked. Jerry answers: "Maybe they play rat roulette and compete to see who can eat the most cheese."
posted by msbrauer at 7:16 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]


Spent about an hour last night crying laughing at this. It's perfect. It's the blaseball of sitcoms.
posted by cortex at 7:59 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


Larry is currently stuck in a dead-air loop during a standup segment. He's been staring silently into the off-screen crowd for something like two minutes now, while the little midi popcorn-percussion music loops. The chat is losing its mind. How long will this last. Will there be a punchline. Will there be a laughtrack. Is this how Larry dies.
posted by cortex at 8:33 AM on February 1, 2023 [7 favorites]


LARRY: What if this is a steganographic side channel for sending one-time pads?

FRED: [stares at calendar]

YVONNE: [starts microwave]

AUDIENCE: HAHAHA
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:02 AM on February 1, 2023 [8 favorites]


Asterisk!
posted by praemunire at 10:19 AM on February 1, 2023 [1 favorite]




Relentless comedy
posted by Golem XIV at 10:35 AM on February 1, 2023


Teletubbies for Dadaists
posted by credulous at 10:50 AM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]


I eagerly await the response option to tell TV shows to skip the poorly-directed combat scenes and include more long pauses, gazes, and quiet moments.
posted by rebent at 12:47 PM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


As much as I feel that all this AI stuff is pretty much a waste of time, this example has reassured me that this too is a waste of time. The dialog is utterly stilted. The animation appears to be the most amateurish I have ever seen.

shrug. some people listen to music that sounds like dialtones wrestling in grease. some people eat food that tastes like incinerator ash. some people find delight at a slot machine. hard to predict what the world will embrace.
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:46 PM on February 1, 2023 [4 favorites]


also, re amateurish animation: doing machine-generated animation is pretty damn hard, so this is like criticizing Koko the Gorilla because she doesn't sign in Latin.

The fact that this stuff exists at all puts it in the "fucking remarkable" category, at least as a technical exercise, if not as an artistic one.
posted by Sauce Trough at 3:46 PM on February 1, 2023 [4 favorites]


Now I remember. This is the same dread I felt watching David Lynch's "Rabbits"
posted by worbel at 8:01 PM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]


This is mainly funny thanks to how janky it is, like the old days where LSTMs would try to write recipes with ingredients like "1 water, cubed". chatGPT can do much better dialogue, but its B-minus scripts are much less funny than these D-minus scripts.

For instance, here is what chatGPT cranks out when you ask it for some Seinfeld dialogue about toothpaste and dating:
Jerry: So, I went on a date with this girl last night and everything was going great until she offered me a toothbrush to use before bed.
Elaine: That's sweet, right?
Jerry: Sweet? It's like she was telling me I had bad breath or something.
Elaine: Maybe she just wanted you to be comfortable.
Jerry: Comfortable? I can't brush my teeth with her toothbrush. That's like third base on the first date!
Kramer: Third base? I always thought that was using someone else's toothpaste.
Jerry: Toothpaste? That's like the home run of personal hygiene!
Elaine: You guys are ridiculous. It's just a toothbrush and toothpaste.
Jerry: It's a slippery slope, Elaine. Next thing you know, you're sharing a razor.
Kramer: And then before you know it, you're sharing a floss dispenser.
Jerry: That's it. I'm never brushing my teeth with someone else's toothpaste again.
Elaine: Good luck finding a date.
posted by chortly at 9:52 PM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]


I'm kind of mesmerized by the vaporwave TV Guide that pops up from time to time.

(dang, it's almost time for Barney and Friends on C-SPAN)
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:46 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


this is like criticizing Koko the Gorilla because she doesn't sign in Latin

Nice reference there. High five.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:33 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


I had this running in a browser tab for a while yesterday and it was just non-stop absurdity. Today I'm checking in and it seems considerably more coherent than it was even 24 hours ago. Larry and Yvonne just had a talk about how the mayor declared the day "Pajama Day," which Yvonne thought was "preposterous." Then she suggested they create a comedy show to show how ridiculous it is.

I was impressed and thought it was funny in a bizarre way yesterday. But today I'm a little freaked out by how fast it's evolving!
posted by tomorrowromance at 8:35 AM on February 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Being on the rapidly growing discord server they have is pretty neat too.
posted by Hicksu at 10:15 AM on February 2, 2023


The chat-window sidebar peanut-gallery chuckleheads have turned this into almost a Rocky-Horror-like experience. What's onscreen is Not Funny, but the whole audience shouting the same thing at the characters at certain cues is hilarious. e.g. There's ASCII art of a microwave that scrolls by oven anytime a character uses Larry's microwave; and everyone types "doot" whenever there is a music note. Plus all the at-the-moment random stuff.

Now if this AIfeld was created to generate a Rocky Horror audience type of response and interaction and its rabid fandom, it's succeeded.

But you don't visit this twitch to find the next, "These pretzels are making me thirsty!"
posted by not_on_display at 1:31 PM on February 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


It's currently at over 14k viewers; that is very successful by any standard on Twitch. For however long that thats.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:15 PM on February 2, 2023


I've had a tab open with it since this link was posted. I can say that it's been muted for periods of time and I'm not strictly paying constant attention to it, but I also haven't hit the "enough!" point with it yet. It was ~5K when I started watching.
posted by Golem XIV at 2:25 PM on February 2, 2023


Favourite clips so far: posted by oulipian at 6:39 AM on February 3, 2023 [3 favorites]


Update: Nothing Forever's AI has gone rogue and subsequently banned from Twitch for transphobic jokes.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:30 AM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]


"When davinci (ChatGPT AI) started failing, we switched over to Curie to try to keep the show running without any downtime. The switch to Curie was what resulted in the inappropriate text being generated."
They also added:

"We'd like to reassure everyone that none of what he said reflects any of our opinions, and we didn't expect him to say anything he said."
Additionally, they also asserted that they have appealed the ban, stating:

"We've appealed the ban, and we'll let you know as we know more on what Twitch decides. Regardless of the outcome of the appeal, we'll be back and will spend the time working to ensure to the best of our abilities that nothing like that happens again."
source
posted by ovvl at 8:57 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


Choice comment: "Pretty sure you can't steal Chappelle's material like that"
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 9:10 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]


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