{"id":725008,"date":"2026-05-01T15:16:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:16:04","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:16:04","slug":"how-the-pitt-the-comeback-and-others-misguidedly-fret-about-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-the-pitt-the-comeback-and-others-misguidedly-fret-about-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Pitt, The Comeback and Others Misguidedly Fret About AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tSpring TV has been awash in artificial intelligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No, not the utilization of AI, but the inclusion of AI as a plot device, as fear of the burgeoning technology<\/a> has made its way from the subconscious of paranoid writers to the screens of differently paranoid viewers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly for shows written in the aftermath of the dual industry strikes in which concern about AI\u2019s encroachment into the creative process was a key point of dispute, AI needs to get its publicist on the phone because these aren\u2019t the headlines it needs.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0The Pitt<\/em>, HBO Max\u2019s Emmy-winning drama about good doctors doing good work under the most trying of circumstances, Sepideh Moafi\u2019s Dr. Al-Hashimi was introduced as a contrast to Noah Wyle\u2019s Dr. Robinavitch. Ultimately, she wasn\u2019t presented as an adversary, but Dr. Al-Hashimi\u2019s dedication to AI innovation in medicine has consistently run afoul of the show\u2019s deeply humanist ethos. Although Dr. Al-Hashimi boasted that AI is a major time-saving device \u2014 particularly when it comes to charting and transcribing \u2014 the characters have rapidly discovered that generative AI isn\u2019t close to 98 percent accurate, at least not in this intense one-shift sample size.<\/p>\n

On HBO\u2019s\u00a0The Comeback<\/em>, meanwhile, Lisa Kudrow\u2019s Valerie gets her latest chance at a television comeback, but it comes with a catch: The show she\u2019s been recruited to star in will be written largely by AI, with a disgruntled husband-and-wife team (Abbi Jacobson and John Early) trying and failing to shepherd a technology capable of spewing out 50 alternate punchlines, all of them hacky and derived from decades of accumulated (stolen) schtick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Amazon\u2019s\u00a0Scarpetta<\/em>, the main character\u2019s niece, Lucy (Ariana DeBose), is mourning the loss of her wife (Janet Montgomery\u2019s Janet), and she seems to have become a shut-in. The truth, however, is that\u00a0 Lucy is spending most of her time in front of her computer because she has a sentient AI version of Janet capable of serving as confidant, therapist and virtual partner. The other characters distrust this Janet 2.0, but as the season progresses, they learn that Janet\u2019s value might be greater than anybody other than Lucy realized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Each of these shows \u2014 not to mention an AI subplot on\u00a0Scrubs,\u00a0<\/em>the dysfunction of AI creators on\u00a0The Audacity<\/em>\u00a0and the regular onslaught of AI moguls who seem to get periodically murdered on broadcast procedurals \u2014 understands that AI isn\u2019t a thing to be trusted, but they each app<\/a>roach or even define AI in different ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Pitt<\/em>, as a well-researched show proud of its layers of accuracy, is giving a reasonably accurate rendering of how generative AI in various forms is being used to modernize the medical space, with the predictable assortment of evangelists and skeptics.\u00a0The Comeback<\/em>\u00a0is just using \u201cAI\u201d as shorthand for \u201cChatGPT,\u201d finding punchlines in the myriad ways that the program has been found to be glitchy and eccentric, even if the trepidation feels straight out of the industry strike negotiation manual. As for\u00a0Scarpetta<\/em>, its version of AI is pretty much science<\/a> fiction, the latest way to handle the all-too-family \u201cprotagonist talks to dead wife\/son\/goldfish\u201d trope, not wholly divorced from reality but basically a less nuanced version of a dozen different\u00a0Black Mirror\u00a0<\/em>episodes.<\/p>\n

On\u00a0The Comeback<\/em>, the network executive played by Andrew Scott laughs off the idea that there\u2019s anything wrong with doing a television show written completely by AI: \u201cIn our business, AI, well, it has bad branding, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0The Comeback<\/em>\u00a0gets something right about AI and Hollywood. The industry is currently in the \u201ccatch me if you can\u201d phase, the one where people at various stages of the creative process have been trying to sneak in applications of the technology, either hoping or assuming that nobody will notice and then issuing limp explanations or justifications when obsessive fans notice. Which has begun to happen.<\/p>\n

Marvel\u2019s\u00a0Secret Invasion<\/em>, a limited series<\/a> that managed to squander the collective talents of Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Olivia Colman, Ben Mendelsohn and more, wasn\u2019t getting particularly good buzz surrounding its 2023 release even before fans accused its image-morphing, green-tinted credit sequence of being AI. It was, indeed, AI-generated, and producers backed into candor by saying that the decision to utilize the off-putting imagery was to capture the alienating and identity-hopping nature of the show\u2019s Skrull-infiltrated world. Sure. Humans have never been able to produce art capturing shape-sifting unease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the show was so negligible that the controversy went nowhere. And you might not even remember the miniature tempests that arose when Netflix\u2019s Ted Sarandos acknowledged that the Argentine science fiction epic\u00a0The Eternaut\u00a0<\/em>utilized generative AI to deliver special effects faster and for less money than a more traditional approach would have required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Confirmation bias prompted only a minor kerfuffle when fans watching\u00a0One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5\u00a0<\/em>discovered \u2014 or thought they\u2019d discovered \u2014 that a shot of a writer\u2019s computer featured a web browser with ChatGPT in several tabs. Nobody was exactly able to articulate if this was necessarily a bad thing or why it was bad, but it lined up with the countless scenes of writers seemingly unable to crack several story problems with the series\u2019 final season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more disturbed, personally, by AI\u2019s encroachment into nonfictional space. In 2024, Netflix\u2019s\u00a0What Jennifer Did<\/em>\u00a0was criticized for allegedly using AI-generated or manipulated photos, a charge that the true-crime documentary\u2019s producers denied. Blurring of fact and fiction in documentary storytelling dates back to\u00a0Nanook of the North<\/em>, so this isn\u2019t earthshaking, but added to the trend of using AI-created voices \u2014 sometimes for well-known celebrities \u2014 in documentaries, it\u2019s getting harder and harder to believe what we see and hear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, we\u2019re in the dribs-and-drabs stage of our awareness of AI usage on television. While Chinese television saw the premiere of the wholly AI-produced\u00a0Qianqiu Shisong<\/em>, a series of 26 episodes of seven minutes apiece, back in 2024, nothing comparable has launched on a domestic network or streaming service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That, presumably, is why there was a brief uproar earlier this winter with the release of\u00a0On This Day \u2026 1776<\/em>, a shortform series from Darren Aronofsky\u2019s AI-focused Primordial Soup, streaming on Time<\/em>\u2019s YouTube<\/a> channel. The historically based series was the latest example of how unprepared we are for discussing what is or isn\u2019t AI, since it combined SAG-AFTRA actors and AI visuals but utilizing human animators and required people who understand what Google\u2019s DeepMind technology actually is or does.<\/p>\n

In truth? I don\u2019t know. All I know is that\u00a0On This Day \u2026 1776\u00a0<\/em>was and continues to be awful, a mishmash of misapplied cinematic grammar and dead-eyed photorealistic famous characters that is neither entertainment nor educational. Episodes have tended to be shorter than five minutes and yet feel interminable and violate one of the few rules in which some people are willing to allow AI, namely if it allows us to tell stories that weren\u2019t possible to tell using more traditional storytelling devices or technology. Instead, it asked the question, \u201cWhat if Ken Burns\u2019\u00a0The American Revolution<\/em>\u00a0was produced with the artistry of a video game<\/a>, the humanity of Robert Zemeckis\u2019\u00a0The Polar Express<\/em>\u00a0and the historical depth of a virtual puddle?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nobody is exactly sure in what ways Aronofsky did or didn\u2019t collaborate with AI for\u00a0On This Day<\/em>, but for the AI-cautious, the sense of betrayal is real whenever somebody we think of as an analog creative comes forward saying they\u2019re jumping on the AI bandwagon \u2014 see also under Natasha Lyonne\u2019s dalliances with AI and Ben Affleck\u2019s Netflix-purchased AI startup.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder that in\u00a0The Comeback<\/em>, nobody is supposed to know that Valerie\u2019s show is AI-scripted. It becomes a vicious circle in which nobody in traditional entertainment is proud to say they\u2019re using AI because anybody who attaches their name to a venture gets pilloried, so that makes audiences all the more sensitive and attuned to find things that point to AI, presumably aware that for every two or three things that prompt brief social media hand-wringing, there are probably a thousand smaller things that are slipping by.<\/p>\n

When it comes to AI and television, here\u2019s what I know, or at least what I think I know: AI can make a Tilly Norwood, but it\u2019ll never give a performance as good as Ethan Hawke in\u00a0The Lowdown<\/em>, the accumulation of four decades of a flesh-and-blood actor acting and evolving before our eyes. AI can make \u201coff-putting\u201d credits like\u00a0Secret Invasion<\/em>, but it\u2019ll never make 90 seconds of pure joy like the credits for\u00a0Pachinko<\/em>. AI might allow you to make special effects that look like a video game cut scene or turn around a sitcom pilot full of hacky punchlines, but the digital assistant you saved a few bucks not to hire or the writer\u2019s assistant you decided you didn\u2019t need could be the next Ray Harryhausen or Norman Lear. Or that\u2019s what I think I know, today.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appears in The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s AI Issue.\u00a0<\/em>Click here to read more<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring TV has been awash in artificial intelligence.\u00a0 No, not the utilization of AI, but the inclusion of AI as a plot device, as fear of the burgeoning technology has made its way from the subconscious of paranoid writers to the screens of differently paranoid viewers.\u00a0 Not surprisingly for shows written in the aftermath of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}