Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Joe Biden: all the guests of the talk show generated by artificial intelligence

“Artificial intelligence is taking everything, including our jobs: at best, maybe we’ll have a sense of humor left. Or maybe not even that.” One of the last times I opened Twitch to watch AtheneAIHeroes, a show entirely generated by artificial intelligence, ironically enough there was a computer version of comedian Dave Chappelle who was churning out jokes about AI.

The latest version of the format created by a collective called the Singularity Group features a series of celebrities who take turns taking the virtual stage to interact with users, who can write comments and requests in real time. There are many, from Steve Jobs to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, up to Keanu Reeves, Steve Carell and Andrew Tate.

Yes, you read right: there is a format on Twitch, broadcast 24 hours a day, in which celebrities generated by artificial intelligence interact with the public on the most diverse topics.

The talk show generated by artificial intelligence

Strictly speaking, it is not new: it was born in mid-February, in the wake of the infinite version of Seinfeld (which then encountered some problems). It was created by Bachir Boumaza, a 40-year-old Belgian known online as Athene, famous for being a streamer specializing in the World of Warcraft game. In the first version of the talk show, Boumaza appeared in first person: it was he (sometimes in an artificial version) who asked the guests, selected on the basis of requests from the audience, questions.

At the time of writing, the format has changed slightly: the public votes for the next guest, who takes the stage and answers questions. The interesting thing, in addition to the feeling of estrangement that one can have seeing public figures commenting on subjects totally outside their contexts of origin, is that the whole operation appears rather credible. Sure, there are times when the artificial nature is revealed; however, in most cases, the product is not only realistic but also quite entertaining.

“The entire configuration at the base – explained a spokesman for Boumaza, Reese Leysen, a Vice – it’s something that took quite a bit of development time and combines many different AI technologies. We also had to tweak the machine learning process, to make sure the result could be a funny parody rather than a simple imitation.”

Translated: Replies are created in real time by generating new text with a version of GPT-3 (the underlying model of ChatGPT) adapted to the tone of voice of individual characters. For success, the type of format helps a lot: the questions of human beings help the system not to go too far and to react to ideas and concepts without creating new ones. Contextually, audio and video are generated, with open source systems of which details have not been revealed.

Who is behind the AI-generated talk show

Boumaza heads a sort of collective called the Singularity Group: “a group of activists working on an innovation that can make a difference in the world”, reads the official website. More prosaically, the collective looks like a group of people who, led by Boumaza, try to interpret the waves of technological hype, to generate some sort of profit. One of the only products showcased on the site, in fact, is an NFT and cryptocurrency-based game, Mobile Minigames.

Boumaza is a complex personality: he does charity with Save the Children but, at the same time, he has been accused by the Kotaku portal of abuse and prevarication on the members of the Singularity Group. Which, among other things, looks dangerously like a cult, with a rather precise political vision: a universal income in a world where technology has made many of the jobs we know obsolete.

From Seinfeld to Manga: All AI-Generated Shows

Athene’s is not the first entertainment experiment entirely generated by artificial intelligence. In addition to the robotic version of Seinfeld, first stopped for transphobic jokes and now back online, there are, among others, an infinite Star Trek and a continuous, uninterrupted revival of variations on the theme in the steamed veal scene in episode 22 of the seventh season of the Simpsons.

This is content, such as the Athens talk show, which is still a niche product, but which, according to some analysts, could change entertainment. According to Sam Lessin, tech entrepreneur and one of the founders of The Information, intelligence could be at the center of a fifth stage of online content consumption. A moment in which much of the material we see online will be generated by an AI.

According to Nathan Baschez, developer of the Lex platform, artificial intelligence could change not only entertainment, but also information. In an article published in Every, the US journalist and developer imagines a future in which AI will be able not only to recommend articles, videos, photos, but also to offer them to us in the format we prefer.

“Have we entered the era of infinite content?” Baschez asks. The answer may be closer than we imagine.