Tubi is now on my shit list.<\/p>\n
For the past few years, the free streaming service has endeared itself to me with its extensive library of both mainstream and obscure movies. Sure, Tubi has ads, but to quote the legendary closing line to one of the all-time great comedies, Some Like it Hot (available on Tubi), \u201cNobody\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then Tubi screwed up its goodwill with the recent announcement<\/a> of its own AI chatbot within ChatGPT. As the company\u2019s chief product and technology officer explained in the press release (in a corporate speak that sounds AI-generated itself): \u201cAs chatbots and AI agents are becoming a common way people navigate the internet, Tubi is expanding its discovery experience to meet viewers in the moment they\u2019re expressing intent in their own words.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, Tubi is offering an AI chatbot that you can have a conversation with to figure out what movie you want to watch.<\/p>\n Not only is this one more example of the way tech corporations are encouraging humanity to offload its critical thinking<\/a> to sycophantic large language models, but the launch of Tubi\u2019s AI chatbot also runs contrary to the many, many movies in the service’s own library that preach the dangers of AI. Here are five such anti-AI movies in Tubi\u2019s library that you (and Tubi execs) can watch before Tubi\u2019s chatbot goes all Skynet on us.<\/p>\n 5 <\/p>\n RoboCop (1987)<\/p>\n The 1987 action thriller RoboCop<\/a> is about a police officer who dies in the line of duty and is revived by being turned into a cyborg. The newly-named RoboCop is ruthlessly efficient at enforcing the law and entirely lacking in human compassion. Really, the central struggle of RoboCop is about a guy trying to rediscover his humanity which has been supplanted by robotics. Meanwhile, Tubi is kinda telling you to do the opposite.<\/p>\n Also, one of the very first scenes in RoboCop sees a different robotic police officer, ED-209, malfunction and kill someone. I\u2019m not saying Tubi\u2019s chatbot is going to do that, but I\u2019m also not going to be trusting it with any high-grade weaponry.<\/p>\n 4 <\/p>\n Maximum Overdrive (1986)<\/p>\n The only film written and directed by Stephen King<\/a> is about all the machines on Earth coming to life after Earth enters into the tail of a rogue comet. The movie features everything from monster trucks to electric knives to vending machines attacking humans. It\u2019s about as anti-tech as you can get. (It\u2019s also pretty anti-comet, but that doesn\u2019t really apply here.)<\/p>\n 3 <\/p>\n Logan\u2019s Run (1976)<\/p>\n In the year 2274, the future is represented as a highly-advanced utopian society run by an AI system named \u201cDeep Sleep.\u201d In this future, people can indulge all their hedonistic desires. There is, however, a catch. On their 30th birthday, people enter a device called the \u201cCarrousel\u201d which they\u2019ve been told allows them to be reborn, but really just kills them so Deep Sleep can maintain the human population size.<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly the kind of coldly efficient thinking that AI is known for.<\/p>\n 2 <\/p>\n The Lawnmower Man (1992)<\/p>\n In movies, the way that technology often gets the better of mankind is by offering up some way to help. The intentions may even be good, that doesn\u2019t mean things can\u2019t get out of control. In The Lawnmower Man<\/a>, a scientist offers up his cutting-edge VR technology to enhance the mind of an intellectually disabled gardener. But the gardener winds up getting so enhanced by the VR tech that he gains away with the telekinetic powers and begins killing people.<\/p>\n Now, Tubi is offering us an AI Chatbot to help us pick out a movie. I\u2019m sure the intentions are good, but can they really promise that we won\u2019t get sucked into the AI interface and become killer maniacs? The press release rather conspicuously sidesteps this concern.<\/p>\n 1 <\/p>\n Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)<\/p>\n