We remain, narrowly, in the golden age of television. I appreciate this may be hard to accept on a bleak Christmas Day when our own Carol Midgley has described even the best offerings as \u201cthin gruel\u201d but it remains true, nonetheless. <\/p>\n
The revolution that began in the late 1990s with the likes of The Sopranos \u2014 when TV belatedly realised itself to be an art form distinct from theatre on the telly, or a cheaper version of film \u2014 has not yet, quite, suffered a counter-revolution. Browse any streaming service today and even the shows you\u2019ve never heard of are fundamentally far better than something half the country would gather to watch simultaneously on ITV 30 years ago. Look, I\u2019m not saying it wasn\u2019t very funny when Del Boy fell through that bar. The 1970s and 1980s lasted quite a long time, though, and he only did it once.<\/p>\n
But I wouldn\u2019t bet that this situation is going to last. The reason for this is AI, which will soon make so much art that the economics of trying to compete will be a disaster. In time, it will replace not only writers but also actors, stunts, sets, background and so on. This will all happen mainly because while the old ways may cost millions, the new way costs almost nothing. And yet the results are always, perhaps indefinably, going to be unsatisfying. <\/p>\n
You could see that earlier this month, when McDonald\u2019s put out an entirely AI advert in the Netherlands. Glitzy, weird, empty. Currently, it\u2019s true, there are numerous attempts to fight back, such as the way members of Equity, the British actors\u2019 union, are resisting having their bodies scanned. I wish them well but I still fear the looming, dreary, AI apocalypse to be unstoppable. <\/p>\n
While good telly still exists, let me tell you about my current obsession, which is Pluribus on Apple TV. Made by the entirely human Vince Gilligan, best known for Breaking Bad, it\u2019s a pretty weird show. Basically, it\u2019s about a virus from space that infects most of humanity and melds their minds. As in, they cease to be individuals and become a hive. Once infected, everyone knows everything, and everyone cares about everyone as much as themselves. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Pluribus review \u2014 Rhea Seehorn excels in Breaking Bad creator\u2019s triumphant return<\/a><\/p>\n Or at least, almost everyone. The show centres on Carol, played by Rhea Seehorn. She\u2019s a novelist in Albuquerque, and one of a dozen people around the planet on whom the virus hasn\u2019t worked. The infected bend over backwards to please her but simply cannot. It\u2019s because, now everyone is everyone, nobody is anyone. So whatever they say or do, they\u2019re not really there.<\/p>\n Some of Carol\u2019s fellow survivors deal with this by pure denial. For example, one mother insists that the body which once housed her nine-year-old son is still fundamentally her child. \u201cHe is also your prime minister,\u201d retorts Carol, \u201csome guy you dated in high school and your gynaecologist.\u201d <\/p>\n Another exploits the fact that the hive mind will now do whatever he asks and uses them to live out his fantasies, including the sexual ones. To the viewer, though, and to Carol, it\u2019s clear the beautiful women who now appear to want to have sex with him aren\u2019t really even still people who can want anything. Sure, they can pretend, and he can pretend they aren\u2019t pretending. But the emptiness, ultimately, is undeniable. All connection is ersatz. Nothing is real.<\/p>\n Perhaps you can see where I\u2019m going with this. Being dim, it took me a while. Last week, though, I was interviewing our own rock and pop critic Will Hodgkinson, who last month used AI to write a Christmas pop song. Some context here: while the slop deluge is still looming for TV, for music we\u2019re right in the midst of it. An estimated 100,000 new AI songs turn up on Spotify every day. Most are bilge and Will cheerfully admits his own is too. The trouble isn\u2019t that it is actively bad, more that it isn\u2019t bad enough to be interesting. \u201cIt\u2019s got Asda Christmas shopping event written all over it,\u201d said one of his friends, aptly. <\/p>\n