Fable Studio is a startup media company founded in January 2018 by Edward Saatchi and Pete Billington. It specializes in virtual reality media, and is using generative AI to develop a simulated reality titled the Simulation, and a streaming platform called Showrunner that can generate custom episodes.
In January 2018, Fable Studio launched, with Wolves in the Walls as its premiere VR title. [1] The property was based on the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean children's book of the same name. [2] In August 2019, Wolves in the Walls won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding innovation in interactive media. [3]
In May 2023, Fable Studio announced an AI project titled "The Simulation", which plans to create a simulated reality of AI-powered characters with the eventual goal of creating an artificial general intelligence. [4] The Simulation's official website is entirely fabricated. [5] [6]
In July 2023 as part of The Simulation project, Fable Studio released a paper describing their tool named SHOW-1, also known as AI Showrunner, which uses a complex network of AI agents to create full animated TV episodes; they showcased the technology by creating several unauthorized episodes of South Park , inspired by an episode of that show about characters using ChatGPT. [7] [8] [9] [10] Saatchi described the potential to create a "generative TV" service where fans can create and share their own episodes, or to allow writers or directors to realize their own original projects. [7] SHOW-1 was heavily criticized by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, who were on strike at the time over the risk of their careers getting automated. Film, TV, and comic-book writer Christos Gage described the SHOW-1–generated episodes as "soulless and unfunny". [11] Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch , in contrast, said of one of the episodes, "Although I wouldn’t say the episode is funny, it does have a beginning, a middle and an end, and distinct characters (including lots of fake celebrity cameos, including fake Meryl Streep)." [5]
In June 2024, Fable Studio announced a streaming service, also titled Showrunner, that will allow users to create and share their own episodes using AI in a similar format as the South Park demos. Ten original series were announced for the platform, including Exit Valley, a Silicon Valley satire modeled after South Park; Ikiru Shinu, a post-apocalyptic horror anime; and Sim Francisco, an anthology series set in a shared universe of some of the other shows. [12] [13]
The Wolves in the Walls is a book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, published in 2003, in the United States by HarperCollins, and in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury. The book was highly praised on release, winning three awards for that year. In 2006, it was made into a musical which toured the UK and visited the US in 2007.
Edward Saatchi is a British businessman and filmmaker. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of artificial intelligence-powered virtual being company Fable. He was formerly a producer at Oculus Story Studio and the CEO and co-founder of political technology company, NationalField.
"Nightmare in Silver" is the twelfth and penultimate episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and was first broadcast on BBC One on 11 May 2013. It was written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Stephen Woolfenden.
Anansi Boys is an upcoming British fantasy miniseries created by Neil Gaiman based on Gaiman's novel of the same name, which follows the two sons of the spider-god Anansi. The series is set to be released on Amazon Prime Video.
Good Omens is a fantasy comedy television series created by Neil Gaiman based on his and Terry Pratchett's 1990 novel of the same name. A co-production between Amazon MGM Studios and BBC Studios, the series was directed by Douglas Mackinnon, with Gaiman also serving as showrunner. Michael Sheen and David Tennant lead a large ensemble cast that also includes Jon Hamm, Miranda Richardson, Michael McKean, Derek Jacobi, Brian Cox, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Frances McDormand as the voice of God, who narrates the series.
Deepfakes are images, videos, or audio which are edited or generated using artificial intelligence tools, and which may depict real or non-existent people. They are a type of synthetic media.
Artificial intelligence art is a visual artwork created through the use of an artificial intelligence (AI) program.
The Sandman is an American fantasy drama television series based on the 1989–1996 comic book written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. The series was developed by Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg for the streaming service Netflix and is produced by DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. Like the comic, The Sandman tells the story of Dream / Morpheus, the titular Sandman. The series stars Tom Sturridge as the title character, with Boyd Holbrook, Vivienne Acheampong, and Patton Oswalt in supporting roles.
Synthetic media is a catch-all term for the artificial production, manipulation, and modification of data and media by automated means, especially through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, such as for the purpose of misleading people or changing an original meaning. Synthetic media as a field has grown rapidly since the creation of generative adversarial networks, primarily through the rise of deepfakes as well as music synthesis, text generation, human image synthesis, speech synthesis, and more. Though experts use the term "synthetic media," individual methods such as deepfakes and text synthesis are sometimes not referred to as such by the media but instead by their respective terminology Significant attention arose towards the field of synthetic media starting in 2017 when Motherboard reported on the emergence of AI altered pornographic videos to insert the faces of famous actresses. Potential hazards of synthetic media include the spread of misinformation, further loss of trust in institutions such as media and government, the mass automation of creative and journalistic jobs and a retreat into AI-generated fantasy worlds. Synthetic media is an applied form of artificial imagination.
Deepfake pornography, or simply fake pornography, is a type of synthetic pornography that is created via altering already-existing photographs or video by applying deepfake technology to the images of the participants. The use of deepfake porn has sparked controversy because it involves the making and sharing of realistic videos featuring non-consenting individuals, typically female celebrities, and is sometimes used for revenge porn. Efforts are being made to combat these ethical concerns through legislation and technology-based solutions.
DALL·E, DALL·E 2, and DALL·E 3 are text-to-image models developed by OpenAI using deep learning methodologies to generate digital images from natural language descriptions known as "prompts".
The Problem with Jon Stewart is an American current affairs television series hosted by Jon Stewart on Apple TV+. Each episode focuses on a single issue. The series premiered on September 30, 2021. The second season premiered on October 7, 2022. The series was canceled in October 2023 after two seasons.
Jake Elwes is a British media artist, hacker, radical faerie, neuroqueer, and researcher. Their practice is the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI), queer theory and technical biases. They are known for using AI to create art in mediums such as video, performance and installation. Their work on queering technology addresses issues caused by the normative biases of artificial intelligence.
Midjourney is a generative artificial intelligence program and service created and hosted by the San Francisco-based independent research lab Midjourney, Inc. Midjourney generates images from natural language descriptions, called prompts, similar to OpenAI's DALL-E and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion. It is one of the technologies of the AI boom.
ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in 2022. It is based on the GPT-4o large language model (LLM). ChatGPT can generate human-like conversational responses, and enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. It is credited with accelerating the AI boom, which has led to ongoing rapid investment in and public attention to the field of artificial intelligence. Some observers have raised concern about the potential of ChatGPT and similar programs to displace human intelligence, enable plagiarism, or fuel misinformation.
Generative artificial intelligence is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to produce text, images, videos, or other forms of data. These models often generate output in response to specific prompts. Generative AI systems learn the underlying patterns and structures of their training data, enabling them to create new data.
The AI boom, or AI spring, is an ongoing period of rapid progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) that started in the late 2010s before gaining international prominence in the early 2020s. Examples include protein folding prediction led by Google DeepMind as well as large language models and generative AI applications developed by OpenAI.
Emi Kusano is a Japanese multidisciplinary artist based in Tokyo. She is recognized for her integration of artificial intelligence into retro-futuristic artwork. In a collaboration with Christie's New York, an auction house, and Gucci, she unveiled an AI-generated 3D dress.
Sora is an upcoming text-to-video model developed by OpenAI. The model generates short video clips based on user prompts, and can also extend existing short videos. As of November 2024, it is unreleased and not yet available to the public. Open AI has provided no official Sora release date.