2023, the year 'Seinfeld' was recreated by AI... and went out of control!

As artificial intelligence grows ever stronger, the American digital art collective Mismatch Media tried to use its power to create a show about nothing that lasts forever, called 'Nothing, Forever.' It began as a version of ‘Seinfeld’ that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the streaming platform Twitch... Until it got kicked off for transphobic comments!

The show started by harnessing Open AI’s Chat GPT3. "Aside from the artwork and the laugh track you’ll hear, everything else is generative, including dialogue, speech, direction (camera cuts, character focus, shot length, scene length, etc), character movement, and music," wrote a creator on Reddit.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Although ‘Nothing, Forever’ began as a bizarre take on ‘Seinfeld,’ one of the truly novel parts of the show is that it interacts with viewers’ comments, changing the narrative based on reactions. Supporters who pay $1,000 a month also get a character based on them (but that option's already sold out!)

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Season 1 followed around four characters based on Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Benes, George Costanza, and Cosmo Kramer. People mostly liked it, with Ash Parrish from ‘The Verge’ calling the stream "nonsensical, yet humorous."

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Given that the script and images are totally generated by machines, it’s pretty low-fi and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Despite its very new technology, it has a retro look, and the movement of the characters is also very strange. The laugh track also often comes in at the wrong time and it's mostly based in one setting: an apartment.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

In one scene, for instance, Kakler told Yvonne a funny joke: "What’s a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear!" Yvonne replied by saying if she didn't laugh, she'd have to cry.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

At one point, they were talking about having a fish for a friend. Larry said maybe he could train the fish to do his taxes, and the Fred (George) character replied: "I wish I could look to my fish for down-to-the-wire financial advice."

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

At one point, Yvonne said it felt like she was living in "one big cosmic joke" and asked: "Why are we here, anyway?" Larry responds: "to tell jokes, obviously." Yvonne pushed on, asking "why are we here together." Fred replied that maybe it was fate.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

The strangeness of the show attracted a lot of viewers. ‘Nothing, Forever’ started on Dec. 14, 2022, and by its peak on New Year’s Eve, 20,000 people from around the world were tuning in simultaneously.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

However, things got harry when Larry, performing standup, said he was "thinking about" telling jokes about how being transgender is like a mental illness. He also 'joked' that all liberals were secretly gay and trying to take over the world. Then he said, "no one’s laughing," and stopped the routine, asking, "Where’d everybody go?”"

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Shortly after the Larry incident, on Feb.6, 2023, ‘Nothing, Forever’ was suspended from Twitch for 14 days. While it was down, its creators blamed the homophobic glitch on their decision to switch to a different AI platform. They also announced they would implement new guardrails to prevent characters from saying inappropriate content.

Way back in 2016, Twitter corrupted Microsoft’s chatbot Tay, which soon after launch started tweeting racist, Nazi, and misogynistic remarks. In Aug. 2022, Meta’s chatbot BlenderBot 3 AI also started making false statements like anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and insisting that Donald Trump would always be president, even after he lost.

On Mar. 8, 2023, the updated show came back. Creators said it was more advanced, now generated with GPT 4, and with more safeguards in place. However, the new format deviates from the direct take on ‘Seinfeld’ while remaining an absurd sitcom about nothing.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

All the original castmates were replaced in season 2. Larry, for instance, became a blogger named Leo. While the format was vaguely similar, fans like Levi Winslow of Koaku lamented that the new version "feels neutered, or like the show was canceled only to be picked up by an entirely different network."

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Six months after the reboot, the show ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also kept getting updated.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

By late December 2023, the adapted version was still on, and it had 167,000 followers. Hundreds of people appear to be hooked to watching the bizarre, infinite sitcom. The comments box has become a community, as people express their dismay with the bizarre conservations happening between the characters and try to influence the plot. Some people have spent days of their lives tuned in.

Image: Nothing Forever, Twitch

Although ‘Nothing, Forever’ is still too weird to garner mass viewership, its creators wonder if Artificial Intelligence will eventually allow people to watch their favorite shows not just for an hour, but forever. "That’s truly where we see the future emerging towards. Our goal with the next iterations or next shows that we release is to actually trade a show that is like Netflix-level quality," creator Skyler Hartle told Vice.

Image: Seinfeld, NBC

While 'Nothing Forever' is still far from Netflix-like quality, this AI-generated entertainment is a concern to Hollywood actors and writers. Both groups went on strike and wanted protection to ensure AI (including Leo Borges) wouldn't take their jobs.