When HBO began creating groundbreaking programming it ushered in a new era of entertainment for the home viewer and their competitors at Showtime, Netflix, etc. soon followed suit. HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” paved the way for “Homeland”, “The Handmaids Tale”, “The White Lotus” and many others in between. They were free of censor…
When HBO began creating groundbreaking programming it ushered in a new era of entertainment for the home viewer and their competitors at Showtime, Netflix, etc. soon followed suit. HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” paved the way for “Homeland”, “The Handmaids Tale”, “The White Lotus” and many others in between. They were free of censorship and other strictures that Networks had in place. We were presented with shows chock full of murderers, morally corrupt assholes, loathsome hypocrites and mentally/emotionally deranged characters taking us to dark places that actually exist in the real world. And who’d have thought they’d be so damn popular? They also allowed us access to comedians like Dave Chappelle who wasn’t forced to clean up his act to please the Networks and their family values friendly sponsors. But there was a trade off; you had to pay for it, though most would agree it was well worth it.
Cable networks, seeing the success of this not-made-for-TV model, moved to fill the gap in between. AMC brought us “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad” and its spinoff “Better Call Saul” that pushed the envelope. FX and others had popular successes as well. The departure from safe, formulaic, happy-ending network shows made the network offerings nearly unwatchable (for me at least) albeit their writers were much better paid--a good gig if you could get it. Unfortunately it’s sorely lacking in entertainment value.
AI is well suited for writing scripts for the robotic characters and predictable stories the networks churn out. I don’t see it happening anytime soon for the others. There would be no “Succession”, “The Wire” or “Breaking Bad” emerging from AI world in my opinion. Some things are simply unachievable. It requires human emotion, nuance, intellectual courage and creativity that I believe can’t ever be programmed into a machine. Mike White’s mind is impossible to replicate. I hope I’m not wrong on that.
I think that's largely correct. While I can't see AI ever having the ability to get the nuance of the Succession/Mad Men/Breaking Bad sorts of scripts, I'm sure that even now it could crank out the next hundred episodes of Law and Order.
When HBO began creating groundbreaking programming it ushered in a new era of entertainment for the home viewer and their competitors at Showtime, Netflix, etc. soon followed suit. HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Sopranos” paved the way for “Homeland”, “The Handmaids Tale”, “The White Lotus” and many others in between. They were free of censorship and other strictures that Networks had in place. We were presented with shows chock full of murderers, morally corrupt assholes, loathsome hypocrites and mentally/emotionally deranged characters taking us to dark places that actually exist in the real world. And who’d have thought they’d be so damn popular? They also allowed us access to comedians like Dave Chappelle who wasn’t forced to clean up his act to please the Networks and their family values friendly sponsors. But there was a trade off; you had to pay for it, though most would agree it was well worth it.
Cable networks, seeing the success of this not-made-for-TV model, moved to fill the gap in between. AMC brought us “Mad Men”, “Breaking Bad” and its spinoff “Better Call Saul” that pushed the envelope. FX and others had popular successes as well. The departure from safe, formulaic, happy-ending network shows made the network offerings nearly unwatchable (for me at least) albeit their writers were much better paid--a good gig if you could get it. Unfortunately it’s sorely lacking in entertainment value.
AI is well suited for writing scripts for the robotic characters and predictable stories the networks churn out. I don’t see it happening anytime soon for the others. There would be no “Succession”, “The Wire” or “Breaking Bad” emerging from AI world in my opinion. Some things are simply unachievable. It requires human emotion, nuance, intellectual courage and creativity that I believe can’t ever be programmed into a machine. Mike White’s mind is impossible to replicate. I hope I’m not wrong on that.
I think that's largely correct. While I can't see AI ever having the ability to get the nuance of the Succession/Mad Men/Breaking Bad sorts of scripts, I'm sure that even now it could crank out the next hundred episodes of Law and Order.