Nothing, Forever

Nothing, Forever is a procedurally generated sitcom broadcast as a livestream by American digital art collective Mismatch Media, led by developers Skyler Hartle and Brian Habersberger.[1] Mainly a parody of the American sitcom Seinfeld, the livestream broadcasts permutations of 3D computer animated sequences in a kitschy retro low-resolution style, where characters perform AI-generated scripts using voices generated through speech synthesis; it has been running on Twitch since December 2022.[2]

Nothing, Forever
Created bySkyler Hartle and Brian Habersberger
Based onSeinfeld
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Production companyMismatch Media
Release
Original networkTwitch
Original releaseDecember 14, 2022 (2022-12-14)

Nothing, Forever experienced a surge in popularity in February 2023 following media coverage of the show.[3] The show's nonsensical humor, nondescript style and enthusiastic audience activity has received praise.

The Nothing, Forever stream, hosted on Twitch, received a 14-day suspension on 6 February 2023. Leading up to the incident, Mismatch Media needed to switch over towards "a less sophisticated model" of GPT-3, Curie, after experiencing an outage of their main model.[4] This resulted in remarks said by the show’s Larry Feinberg during a stand-up bit.

Conception and production

The concept of Nothing, Forever was envisioned by Skyler Hartle, a product manager at Microsoft Azure, and Brian Habersberger, a polymer physicist, in 2019. The two met over the video game Team Fortress 2.[5] The show takes inspiration from Rabbits, a series of web films created by American filmmaker David Lynch, and the show's premise is an homage to the American sitcom Seinfeld.[6] Hartle said that the work "originally started its life as this weird, very, off-center kind of nonsensical, surreal art project. But then we kind of worked over the years to bring it to this new place. And then, of course, generative media [...] just kind of took off in a crazy way over the past couple of years".[7] Hartle and Habersberger formed Mismatch Media in 2022, in collaboration with Jakob Broaddus, Zale Bush, Nic Freeman, Edward Garmon, and Stanley Janoski.[8]

The show's cast of characters includes Larry Feinberg, Yvonne Torres, Fred Kastopolous, and Zoltan Kakler, parodies of Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Benes, George Costanza, and Cosmo Kramer, respectively.[9][10]

The character of Larry Feinberg, during the stand up section of the livestream

Nothing, Forever is procedurally generated. Dialogue is generated through GPT-3 (though it has many variants which have been used by Mismatch Media), a language model from OpenAI. Other technologies used include Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and Azure Cognitive Services.[9] To generate new scenes, an Azure Function written in TypeScript is used. The machine learning models were written in Python using TensorFlow, while the show is rendered using Unity and C#.[11][5] Viewers can interact with the livestream through Twitch's chat function; in contrast to most television shows, the narrative in Nothing, Forever can change depending on the reactions of the viewers.[7] A fictitious 1990s-style TV channel guide with nonsensically generated show names periodically interrupts the show while new scripts of dialogue are generated.[12][13]

To fund the show, Mismatch Media maintains a Patreon; the highest tier allows viewers to request an appearance of a character based on them within the show. Notably, Twitch streamer xQc purchased the tier on a livestream.[14]

Suspension

On February 6, 2023, the Twitch channel for Nothing, Forever received a 14-day suspension, with the developers attributing this to an unspecified piece of standup dialogue. Twitch did not give a public reason for the suspension, but users in the stream's Discord suspected it to be due to a potentially transphobic and homophobic joke that had been delivered by the Feinberg character shortly before the suspension.[4] During a stand-up scene with Feinberg, the character began making a series of offensive jokes, including comparing the state of being transgender to mental illness and references to the gay agenda.[15] In a statement to The Washington Post, Hartle expressed embarrassment about the incident.[16]

According to Mismatch Media, OpenAI's primary model for GPT-3, Davinci, had been experiencing outages that were disrupting the broadcast so the creators switched over to Curie, a less sophisticated model also from OpenAI. That model produced the offensive content. Since then, the creators have said they resolved the issue with Davinci and will not be switching back to Curie as a fallback in the future.[4]

Reception

Ash Parrish of The Verge found the show nonsensical, yet humorous.[17] Engadget's Will Shanklin was more critical of the show's surrealist humor, comparing the voices of Larry and Fred to the Beavis and Butt-Head character Mr. Van Driessen.[18] The Twitter account for Seinfeld acknowledged the show, tweeting a link to the Twitch channel and referencing George's line about "robot butchers" in the episode "The Stock Tip".[19]

The livestream has drawn comparisons to Twitch Plays Pokémon, a social experiment livestreamed on Twitch.[5]

References
  1. Stanton, Rich (February 1, 2023). "Watch AI generate weird Seinfeld episodes about nothing, forever". PC Gamer. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  2. Navlakha, Meera (February 1, 2023). "An AI-generated parody of 'Seinfeld' is streaming on an infinite loop". Mashable. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  3. Xiang, Chloe (February 2, 2023). "Thousands of People Can't Stop Watching AI-Generated Sitcom 'Nothing, Forever'". Vice. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  4. Koebler, Jason (6 February 2023). "AI-Generated 'Seinfeld' Show 'Nothing Forever' Banned on Twitch After Transphobic Standup Bit". www.vice.com. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
  5. Silberling, Amanda (February 3, 2023). "'Nothing, Forever,' an AI 'Seinfeld' spoof, is the next 'Twitch Plays Pokémon'". TechCrunch. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  6. Jones, Mat (February 1, 2023). "This Infinite Sitcom Generator Is Broadcasting A Show About Nothing, Forever". IGN. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  7. Xiang, Chloe (January 31, 2023). "'Nothing, Forever' Is An Endless 'Seinfeld' Episode Generated by AI". Vice. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  8. "Mismatch Media". mismatchmedia.com. February 5, 2023. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  9. Winslow, Levi (February 1, 2023). "AI-Generated Seinfeld-Like Twitch 'TV Show' Is Peak Absurdity". Kotaku. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  10. Gwilliam, Michael (February 2, 2023). "What is Nothing, Forever? AI-generated Seinfeld show goes viral on Twitch". Dexerto. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  11. Hartle, Skyler (December 12, 2022). "Show HN: Nothing, Forever – a streaming, AI-generated, always-on television show". Hacker News. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  12. McCarter, Reid (January 31, 2023). "AI has been generating an endless Seinfeld episode for more than a month now". The A.V. Club. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  13. Friscia, John (February 1, 2023). "Nothing Forever Is an Infinite, AI-Generated Seinfeld Episode". The Escapist. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  14. Bennett, Connor (February 2, 2023). "xQc spends $1000 on character in Twitch's viral AI-generated Seinfeld stream". Dexerto. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  15. Rosenblatt, Kalhan (February 6, 2023). "Twitch temporarily bans 'Seinfeld' parody AI after transphobic remarks". NBC News. Retrieved February 11, 2023.
  16. Wu, Daniel (February 7, 2023). "AI generated an endless 'Seinfeld' parody — until it made transphobic jokes". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2023.
  17. Parrish, Ash (February 1, 2023). "What's the deal with this AI Seinfeld stream?". The Verge. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  18. Shanklin, Will (February 1, 2023). "AI-generated 'Seinfeld' is just as awful as it sounds". Engadget. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  19. Seinfeld [@SeinfeldTV] (February 1, 2023). "The robots are coming... and not just robot butchers" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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