Now then parody sitcom has been shut down

A round-the-clock Seinfeld parody generated using artificial intelligence has been banned – after its lead character started spewing transphobic dialogue.

Nothing, Forever used the technology behind Chat GPT to automatically generate its scripts, which was turned into speech and animation by more software and then  streamed 24/7 on Twitch.

But although much of the dialogue was nonsensical, the sitcom was pulled from the platform this week when the lead character Larry Feinberg – based on Jerry Seinfeld’s screen persona – started making offensive comments.

In the stand-up part of the artificially generated show, the character said transgender people are ‘ruining the fabric of society’, that being transgender is a mental illness, and that ‘all liberals are secretly gay’.

Chat GPT draws on a vast dataset of text posted online, and developers of Nothing, Forever  say the glitch occurred because they temporarily switched the software they used to work around a glitch - but failed to  deploy the right content moderation tools.

One of the creators of the AI sitcom, Skyler Hartle, told tech website The Register:  ‘The text we generated was a mistake, we are super embarrassed, and that the generative content created in no way reflects the values or opinions of our staff. We very much regret this happened and hope to be back on the air soon, with all the appropriate safeguards in place.’

It is not the first time AI software has learned to be offensive based on what it found online.In 2016, Microsoft pulled its chatbot Tay after just 16 hours when in began to post inflammatory and offensive tweets.

Twitch’s community guidelines bans behaviour that is ‘motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance’  or that ‘promotes or encourages discrimination, denigration, harassment, or violence’ based on a number of protected characteristics, including gender identity 

Published: 9 Feb 2023