Seth Rogen Says A.I. Can’t Write Good TV: ‘You’d Have to Shove a Lot of Weed in That Thing’
Seth Rogen, who currently leads Apple TV+ sitcom series “Platonic,” called out the injustices surrounding the secrecy behind streaming platforms when it comes to viewership ratings during a red carpet interview with IndieWire at the show’s premiere last night.
“I’m personally very disturbed and distressed by the lack of information that I personally get from these streaming services that we have films and television shows on,” Rogen said. “I only assume they’re being secretive because they don’t want to let us know how much money they’re making off us and how little of that money they’re giving to us.”
Rogen shared his support for the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, which started May 2 and incited rumblings of ChatGPT and other A.I. models taking over writing TV series.
“I think the prospect of artificial intelligence writing things is horrifying,” Rogen added, “and the fact that they seem to be digging in on [it] is more horrifying…You’d have to shove a lot of weed in that thing [for it to write good TV].”
Rogen continued, “In general, the fact that these studios are able to kind of band together to drive down the wages of their workers is horrible. Thank god for labor unions. I think I’ve been in four unions for around 20 years. I’m always in favor of every strike that you can go on. Studios will never act fairly or equitably without being forced to.”
With film and TV productions currently being halted amid the strike, actors have banded together to support writers and showrunners’ demands to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Rogen’s “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” collaborator Judd Apatow recently speculated that studios most likely anticipated the strike and have an end date in mind.
“I think they probably already know what they’re going to bend on,” Apatow said. “I would assume they already know what date this is going to end. They’ve probably been planning this for years…That’s what’s scary about it, is that there is a solution but I’m not sure that all of the business interests are interested in getting to it quickly.”
