netflix by bots

Netflix by Bots: Films by AI; Weird & Hilarious

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Netflix by Bots: Films by AI; Weird & Hilarious

“Haha. I laugh at the joke. The joke is society. Haha!” –
Netflix By Bots: Cheese and Chonk Smoke a City Safe

We’ve discussed in this blog how AI is being used to create not just algorithms that can streamline data and codes, but how it can be sometimes used for friendship, art and music. AI is life’s helpful little sidekick, running along in the background of our lives making everything make sense.


And here is where it gets weird.


Most AI Algorithms nowadays employ a little Machine Learning. The AI program “Learns” what is expected of it using given examples, rather than the processes, of which there could be hundreds, be meticulously programmed into it. Your Netflix “Watch next” list is simple Machine Learning as it goes by what you watch or ignore, and I’m sure that when it recommended “Killer Bikini Vampire Girls v SharkZilla”, it was just a glitch.

Could GPT-3 Create and Produce As a Human?

photo by ft.com

A bit of background is probably in order. The OpenAI GPT-3 is a 3rd generation language model with a 175 Billion Parameters. You maybe remember we touched briefly on GPT-2, which was released last year and only had 1.5 Billion parameters. This model can then be “Trained” with different sources. Then, after being prompted with a few outlined requirements, it will then generate a document of text using the given examples to predict what comes next. For example, if you “fed” it on a bunch of children’s books then asked it to generate a story about a dog called Dave who could fly, the program will do its best to oblige.


This means that this language model has some pretty impressive powers. If you want to design a website or an app, you can give it a basic outline of what you need and it will generate the HTML code. This is already causing concern that human programmers and coders will soon be obsolete, but this is doubtful – the humans will be the ones programming it to be even more powerful.


But where GPT-3 is less effective is where it attempts to emulate the human component. Netflix by Bots have simple animated videos where the GPT model was given a bunch of different movie genres to work off, then write a short script based on one of those genres. The results are….Interesting.

netflix by bots
A scene from Netflix by Bots: Netflix’s First Holiday Film

Because here is possibly one of the most interesting paradoxes concerning AI. If AI attempts to act like a Human, ie in conversation or trying to create a cohesive story, it sounds like a computer. If it attempts to behave more like a computer, ie constructing HTML code or programming language, we would believe a human coder wrote it.

AI will always be a growing presence in our lives, and the GPT-3 is proof of just how powerful it can be. But while it is a useful tool to help you work, I don’t think it will write an Oscar-winning movie just yet. But to be fair, the Christmas movie was possibly the first Christmas comedy to actually be funny in years.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to catch Killer Bikini Vampire Girls II – Zombie Sharkzilla. Then I want to read this new book about Dave the Flying Dog – it sounds really fascinating.

Love, the experimental Lucidica Bard.