An AI is making an endless Seinfeld episode on Twitch, and it’s as horrifying as it sounds. Movies have warned humanity for decades about the dangers of artificial intelligence, but in reality, the concept of AI has always seemed like something fictional and faraway. But now real AI has arrived in a big way, and is currently being used for all sorts of pursuits once deemed beyond the capability of machines, including creating works that somewhat controversially are referred to as “art.”

Now at least one Twitch stream is giving humanity a taste of what will happen when AI begins learning how to write comedy – and the result is truly bizarre and yet fascinating.

The experiment is playing out on the Twitch channel watchmeforever in the form of a never-ending Seinfeld episode, complete with crudely-drawn AI-controlled versions of Jerry, Kramer, George and Elaine (all conveniently renamed to avoid copyright issues). The episode has the rough format of Seinfeld down, from the opening stand-up monologues to the jazz-scored building exterior transitions, but it’s safe to say that comedy writers and human actors have little to worry about if this AI creation is any indication of what the technology can do.

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Why AI Art Can’t Surpass The Real Thing

Crudely animated computer model of a character who is supposed to be Kramer from Seinfeld standing in a computer-generated room

The above video indeed provides a stark demonstration of the huge limitations of AI when it comes to replicating the act of human creativity. Clearly, there is an intuitive component to something like writing comedy that cannot yet be replicated by programs created to take in huge amounts of data, crunch it and mindlessly regurgitate a result (like the art-making program DALL-E). Perhaps at some point in the far future, an AI will exist that can come close to comprehending an abstract, tough-to-define thing like humor, or will at least be able to act like it comprehends such a concept in a convincing way. But obviously, humanity is a long way from possessing such a tool.

The evidence provided in the above never-ending Seinfeld episode should indeed be enough to convince any AI-curious folks that true machine-made art is a long way from being a real thing. Yes, there is a certain novelty value to some AI-made works, as demonstrated by programs by DALL-E, which can take text prompts and create instant images, some of which are quite amusing (mostly because of the human sense of humor behind the initial prompt). But beyond the curiosity factor involved with the concept, and the bizarre comedic value that some of the works possess, it’s hard right now to see the value of AI-made "art." Never-ending Seinfeld on Twitch may be amusing for a minute or two, and fascinating to anyone interested in AI, but real human-made sitcoms are currently in no danger of being replaced (and real Seinfeld of course is currently available on Netflix).

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Source: watchmeforever/Twitch