Amazon Invests In 'Netflix of AI' Start-Up Fable, Which Lets You Make Your Own TV Shows

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Edward Saatchi isn't totally sure people will flock to Showrunner, the new AI-generated TV show service his company is launching publicly this week. But he has a vote of confidence from Amazon, which has invested in Fable, Saatchi's San Francisco-based start-up. The amount of Amazon's funding in Fable isn't being disclosed. The money is going toward building out Showrunner, which Fable has hyped as the "Netflix of AI": a service that lets you type in a few words to create scenes -- or entire episodes -- of a TV show, either from scratch or based on an existing story-world someone else has created.

Fable is launching Showrunner to let users tinker with the animation-focused generative-AI system, following several months in a closed alpha test with 10,000 users. Initially, Showrunner will be free to use but eventually the company plans to charge creators $10-$20 per month for credits allowing them to create hundreds of TV scenes, Saatchi said. Viewing Showrunner-generated content will be free, and anyone can share the AI video on YouTube or other third-party platforms. [...] Fable's Showrunner public launch features two original "shows" -- story worlds with characters users can steer into various narrative arcs. The first is "Exit Valley," described as "a 'Family Guy'-style TV comedy set in 'Sim Francisco' satirizing the AI tech leaders Sam Altman, Elon Musk, et al." The other is "Everything Is Fine," in which a husband and wife, going to Ikea, have a huge fight -- whereupon they're transported to a world where they're separated and have to find each other. [...]

Showrunner is powered by Fable's proprietary AI model, SHOW-2. Last year, the company published a research paper on how it built the SHOW-1 model. As part of that, it released nine AI-generated episodes based on "South Park." The episodes, made without the permission of the "South Park" creators, received more than 80 million views. (Saatchi said he was in touch with the "South Park" team, who were reassured the IP wasn't being deployed commercially.) [...] Out of the gate, Showrunner is focused on animated content because it requires much less processing power than realistic-looking live-action video scenes. Saatchi said Fable wants to stay out of the "knife fight" among big AI companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta that are racing to create photorealistic content. "If you're competing with Google, are you going to win?" Saatchi said. "Our goal is to have the most creative models," he said.

So we are probably looking at this wrong

[rsilvergun]

This is probably meant to be an incubator where a couple of ideas come out but they can easily monetize in the proper shows for a tiny amount of money.

Maybe it'll work maybe it won't but that's most likely the plan. I suspect they will probably get one or two really crappy shows that gets some play out of it.

Re:So we are probably looking at this wrong

[Rinnon]

I can also see some non-commercial uses that might be fun. I imagine somebody getting it to generate their D&D sessions as a short tv show, or just a "last time on" clip-set to play before a session. Little things like that I don't hate the use of AI for.

Re:So we are probably looking at this wrong

[sysrammer]

It does sound like fun. Hope it doesn't devolve into tentacle pr0n. Knowing humans, it'll be B&D sessions instead.

Re:So we are probably looking at this wrong

[John.Banister]

But, that's how media on the internet works, isn't it? Porn pays for the development, and once the production system is mature, it goes mainstream.

Re:

[jythie]

Alternatively, they might be hoping to get in on the vanity publishing grift. For a fee you'll be able to pretend that a streaming service picked up your genius work. Maybe empress theresa and sonichu will finally get their own animated series.

I'd love an engine ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

... that could whip up a miniseries based on some public domain books.

Re:

[cascadingstylesheet]

I have, which is why I would enjoy seeing them dramatized.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

... that could whip up a miniseries based on some public domain books.

Those of us that have written stories that we feel would be fun to see visual representations of could have a *LOT* of fun with something like that. Even if it's cartoony, I'd love to see a video of some of the battle scenes I've scripted over the years.

how much censorship will be put in?

[Joe_Dragon]

how much censorship will be put in?

Meanwhile, all I need is...

[devslash0]

...the ability to better filter content. To disable certain categories account/profile -wide, and to be able to blacklists individual titles that'd I'd never watch so that I don't see them ever again.

That's the feature(s) we need. Not more AI crap.

Or, just get a Netflix deal

[fahrbot-bot]

I heard five of Summer's [wikipedia.org] friend's have Netflix deals and it's a very achievable goal.

Writing TV is hard actually

[jacks smirking reven]

I mean look at Netflix's track record alone, seems obvious we have a lack of TV writing, producing and show running talent not lack of access to animation tools.

I expect the new influx of AI self-made TV series to increase Sturgeon's Law [wikipedia.org] to over 95% in the future.

Re:

[coofercat]

Yes indeed - and most people can't storyboard a 2 minute video terribly well, let alone an actual TV show. Youtube is already full of AI generated slop, and this will just make sure there's even more of it. Virtually unwatchable TV - can't wait.

In the UK we actually have some really terrific TV. $show might not be to everyone's taste, but in most cases they're well written and well made. I suspect it's because we have the BBC - love 'em or hate 'em, but they've kept the general level of quality pretty high.

I tried it so you don't have to.

[Bahumat]

The introductory tutorial involves cartoon caricatures of Donald Trump and Elon Musk meta-explaining the features of the AI animation program.

*It does not get better from there.*

The entire project feels like they distilled a Family Guy Knock Off TV Series Production Executive Who Isn't Even Allowed In The Writer's Room into an AI.

It's just... *that fucking bad*.

Verdict: Absolute dogshit. Not even in a "so bad you'll be ironically entertained" way. Just in a "this is abhorrent and everything it produces is soulless and unfunny".

Crowdsource micro prompts

[jezwel]

Let us setup a 'show' based on a book or submitted script and allow crowdsourcing the prompts (and/or submissions) for digital artworks and backgrounds. Allow users to submit voice models and/or prompt for AI creation. Let AI consolidate and create multiple animations based on storyboard or original book and allow voting from contributors and viewers on preferred artworks, direction, models etc.

Pitch: Gay President Trump Pegged by Nancy Pelosi

[jsepeta]

Can't wait for these AI shows to begin in earnest

Psych data harvesting x1000

[SomePoorSchmuck]

The prime value of getting users to use AI systems is the interaction data.

1) Interaction gives you far more psychological profiling than mere consumption. They already have a good psych profile of you based on what kinds of stories you like to watch, but they can create intimate models of your personality and cognition based on what kinds of stories you want to hear - because that's what a Mind IS - a biomachine listening to itself tell itself a narrative that it constantly edits to fit incoming stimuli. For humans our entire interaction with the universe is writing a narrative.

2) You are ensuring the AI company can sustain its development by feeding it interactions (aka your Mind) which it can roll over into an updated training set for the next gen. The real genius of AI business models is that once you get a large enough regular user base you only need a handful of Math whizzes to make the engine tokenize accurately - meanwhile all the actual R&D and content production you outsource to the users who are having so much fun playing with the new shiny toy they don't realize they are directly giving you billions of dollars worth of labor that you never have to hassle with running payroll for.