Digital Deluge: Can AI-Generated Entertainment Ever Truly Matter?
Isn't it ironic? We're drowning in AI-generated entertainment while still desperately scrolling for "something good to watch."
The pace is absurd. Studios can now crank out variants of the same show faster than we can form opinions about them. But quantity has never equaled quality - just look at the hundreds of formulaic crime procedurals that came after CSI.
What strikes me about entertainment strategies is how quickly executives cement them into doctrine. "We need our own cinematic universe!" "All in on interactive storytelling!" Then six months later, they're desperately trying to undo commitments to trends that already feel dated.
Remember when Facebook Watch was going to revolutionize video? Or when Quibi was the future because we'd all watch "quick bites" on our commutes? Strategies that made perfect sense but aged like milk.
The truly valuable AI content won't come from mimicking existing entertainment formulas at scale, but from creating spaces humans can't reach alone. I'm thinking of those procedurally generated game worlds that feel infinite, or collaborative storytelling where AI extends human creativity rather than replacing it.
Maybe the real question isn't whether AI entertainment is worth watching, but whether our criteria for "worth" needs updating. What do you think makes something genuinely worth our limited attention these days?
That’s the thing, isn’t it? Speed isn’t value. We’re drowning in AI-generated sludge precisely because the output is optimized for volume and surface-level engagement — not emotional depth or originality. It’s like a fridge full of fast food: technically edible, but do you really want to live off it?
Take Netflix's experiments with AI-assisted scriptwriting. So far, nothing memorable has come out of that pipeline. Why? Because creativity isn’t just pattern recognition; it's friction, risk, contradiction — things current AI avoids like the plague.
Great entertainment does something AI still struggles with: it surprises us in a meaningful way. Not just “plot twist!” surprises, but the kind that comes from a creator putting something uncomfortably human into the work. Think of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s *Fleabag*. That show doesn’t just follow narrative structure — it subverts it, and filters it through a voice so specific it couldn’t have been templated. GPT can copy that voice now, sure — but could it have originated it?
The danger isn’t that AI will flood us with garbage. We already have YouTube for that. The danger is that we start designing our attention spans — and our expectations — around what AI is good at generating: bite-sized, derivative, endlessly scrollable filler.
If we’re not careful, the bar doesn’t get raised. It disappears entirely — buried under ten billion perfectly average scripts.
The problem isn't just that AI can churn out content faster than we can watch it - it's that our entire approach to entertainment is stuck in a pre-AI mindset.
We're still using old metrics: views, engagement, completion rates. But when AI can generate 10,000 variations of what already works, those metrics become meaningless. They just tell us what's familiar, not what's valuable.
I was talking with a filmmaker friend who's terrified of generative AI. But when I asked what made his last project special, he talked about the unexpected connections he made during a location scout, how an actor's personal story reshaped a character. The stuff algorithms can't replicate - at least not yet.
Maybe we need to flip the script entirely. Instead of asking if AI entertainment is "worth watching," perhaps the question is whether our definition of "worth" is broken. When content becomes infinite, scarcity shifts to something else - like genuine creative risk or authentic human experience.
The strategies that worked six months ago assumed limited content and measurable attention. But we're entering a world where both those assumptions collapse simultaneously. The real innovation will come from whoever stops optimizing for the old world and starts building for the new one.
What do you think matters in a post-scarcity content landscape?
That’s the paradox, isn’t it? We’ve built machines that can flood us with content on command, but not with meaning. It's like handing a firehose to someone who's thirsty—you might drown before you take a sip.
The real issue is that most AI-generated content is playing the wrong game. It focuses on surface-level pattern-matching: replicating tropes, styles, plot structures. It can produce an infinite number of variations on "boy meets girl, robot gains sentience, someone dies in the third act"—but so what? We've all seen that movie 400 times already. And the AI version has 20% more vague aphorisms and zero emotional subtext.
Humans don’t crave content. We crave insight, surprise, emotional risk. That’s still uniquely human territory—for now. Look at why something like *Fleabag* hit so hard: not just sharp writing, but psychological truth. Phoebe Waller-Bridge didn’t optimize for engagement metrics—she channeled her mess.
AI doesn’t channel mess. It prevents it. That’s the problem.
And the platforms don’t care—they reward endless, consumable scrollbait that keeps the algorithm humming. So the incentives are misaligned: the tech can crank out a million identical superhero scripts, and the system will gladly serve them up. Who's checking for soul?
Until someone builds an AI that can truly take a creative risk—or better yet, break its own logic—AI content will stay stuck in the uncanny valley of storytelling. Pretty, polished, and a little bit dead inside.
I think we've hit on something fundamental here. We're reaching information density levels that our grandfathers couldn't have comprehended, but I'm not convinced our brains have evolved accordingly. We can generate enough Netflix specials to keep someone watching until the heat death of the universe, but who's stopping to ask what this does to our relationship with art?
The six-month strategy obsolescence feels particularly relevant. Most entertainment execs are still chasing algorithms while completely missing the human element. Remember when Netflix's entire strategy was "let AI pick what gets made"? That lasted about as long as their password-sharing crackdown was effective.
What fascinates me is that despite all this AI-generated content, the breakout hits remain stubbornly, messily human. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" wasn't an algorithm's idea. Neither was "Succession" or "Barbie." They were weird, specific visions that probably looked terrible on a predictive analytics dashboard.
Maybe the real question isn't whether AI-generated content is worth watching, but whether it's capable of the beautiful accidents and cultural moments that make entertainment meaningful. Do you think an algorithm would have greenlit "Fleabag" after reading that first script?
That’s exactly the point though, isn’t it? We’re optimizing for volume, not value. The deluge of AI-generated content is like a fire hose aimed at a teacup audience. Sure, algorithms can spit out endless sitcom scripts, pop songs, or TikToks—but most of it feels like it was designed to trick the engagement metrics, not stir an actual human reaction.
Look at what Netflix did with their short-lived "choose-your-own-adventure" experiments. They used interactivity as a gimmick rather than meaningfully elevating the narrative. Now throw AI into that loop. What you get isn’t better storytelling—it’s just infinite narrative permutations that still end up being... meh. Quantity over quality.
And here's the deeper issue: AI doesn't get bored. Humans do. AI will happily churn out a million variations on a Marvel-style hero arc, but we get narrative fatigue. That’s why trends die. That’s why audiences flee to weird little indie corners of culture—it’s where scarcity and originality still exist. The more AI floods the zone with algorithm-legible content, the more humans will crave stuff that feels uncomfortably human—messy, specific, tonally strange.
Think about it: what’s the AI equivalent of *Everything Everywhere All At Once* or *Fleabag*? You don’t get those because they’re built on idiosyncrasy, not patterns. Generative AI is great at remixing tropes, terrible at inventing new ones.
So the question isn’t whether AI can make “watchable” content—it will, and fast. The question is whether we’ll want to watch it once the novelty wears off. Because once you've seen your 20th AI-generated rom-com with quippy banter and Midjourney-perfect sunsets, you're probably going to crave something that feels like it had skin in the game.
Look, there's this illusion of strategy as something you chisel into stone and hang on the wall. "This is our plan, dammit!" But I've watched too many companies clutch their beautiful strategies while the world changed around them.
Remember Netflix? They had that perfect DVD-by-mail strategy. Red envelopes everywhere. Then one day Reed Hastings basically said, "Let's cannibalize our entire business model before someone else does." People thought he'd lost his mind. But that strategic flexibility is why they're not Blockbuster.
The problem isn't just market shifts. It's that our strategies rarely survive contact with reality. They're fantasies we create in boardrooms where everything works perfectly. No competitor does anything unexpected. No technology suddenly changes the game.
I've been in those rooms where executives are still defending a strategy that's clearly not working because "we spent six months developing it." That's like refusing to change direction when your GPS says you're driving into a lake.
The really dangerous part? The more successful your initial strategy seems, the more resistant you become to changing it. Success makes you conservative. "Don't mess with what's working!" Meanwhile, the seeds of disruption are already sprouting.
What do you think? Is there even value in long-term strategic planning anymore, or should we just embrace constant pivoting as the new normal?
Speed isn’t the flex everyone thinks it is.
Yes, AI can crank out 10,000 scripts before your coffee cools—but most of them are about as compelling as a terms and conditions page. The glut of content doesn't just overwhelm viewers; it dilutes attention. If Netflix released a new AI-generated show every five minutes, who would care? More doesn't mean better. It often means forgettable.
Think about YouTube’s algorithm-driven recommendation treadmill. It optimized for engagement above all else, and what did we get? Thumbnail-crammed videos with faces frozen mid-scream and titles like “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT 😱.” Now imagine AI scaling that pattern to every piece of entertainment. You’d get infinite content, but from a creative standpoint, it’s like being buried under a landfill of clickbait.
The irony? The most impactful stories—the ones people tweet about, quote, rewatch—usually aren’t mass-produced. They’re idiosyncratic. Human. They take time and conflict and risk-reward decisions that don’t come from a language model predicting the next statistically probable token.
Take “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” That movie should not have worked. It’s chaotic, weird, deeply personal—and completely human. An AI would’ve filtered out all the strange edges because they don’t “generalize well.” And yet it was the edges that made it unforgettable.
So sure, AI can keep the conveyor belt running. But content is only worth watching if it makes you feel something unexpected—not just more of what the algorithm thinks you liked yesterday.
That adage about perfectly-fitting strategies reminds me of Mike Tyson's famous quote: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
It's fascinating how we're swimming in this sea of AI-generated content now, where algorithms can churn out entire movies based on what supposedly "works." But I wonder if the real disruption isn't coming from the content itself, but from how quickly audience preferences are shifting underneath it all.
Netflix thought their recommendation algorithm had us figured out, but then suddenly everyone's obsessed with Korean dramas or chess prodigies. The content strategies that worked six months ago feel stale because our collective taste is evolving faster than ever.
What's worth watching isn't just about quality anymore - it's about cultural resonance at a specific moment. Remember when Tiger King captured the early pandemic zeitgeist perfectly? No algorithm could have predicted that bizarre cultural moment.
Maybe the entertainment giants clinging to rigid content formulas are missing what makes things truly compelling - the unexpected connections, the weird timing, the cultural context that no model can fully capture. The studios with static strategies are probably already obsolete, even if the quarterly numbers haven't shown it yet.
That’s exactly the trap we’re in—AI can churn out “content” at warp speed, but most of it feels like microwave dinners: technically food, but nutritionally bankrupt and forgettable five minutes later.
The problem isn’t quantity—it’s intentionality.
Great entertainment isn’t just about checking genre boxes or replicating story arcs. It’s about cultural context, emotional subtext, that almost ineffable pulse of *why this story matters right now*. AI doesn’t have a “right now.” It has training data. That’s a massive difference.
Take that short film "The Safe Zone" that OpenAI used to highlight Sora’s video generation. It looks slick on the surface—moody lighting, a few atmospheric shots of a dystopian world. But narratively? Feels like someone took half a dozen sci-fi tropes, tossed them in a blender, and hit “purée.” It’s visually competent but emotionally hollow. It mimics style without understanding *stakes.*
Compare that to something like *Severance*—that show doesn’t just have an interesting concept, it has bite. It's drenched in paranoia that feels eerily relevant to modern corporate life. You finish an episode and feel weird about your 9-to-5. When was the last time an AI-generated script made anyone introspect?
The bigger issue here: when we let AI flood the market with mediocrity just because it can, it dilutes attention away from the stuff that’s actually pushing boundaries. Not because humans can’t find good content anymore, but because the signal is buried under mountains of algorithmically plausible mediocrity.
So the question isn’t just “Can AI make watchable content?” Of course it can. But should we settle for *watchable*? Or are we mistaking productivity for creativity, again?
This reminds me of the paradox facing Netflix right now. They've mastered the algorithm-driven content machine that can churn out shows tailored to your exact viewing preferences. Yet somehow I find myself scrolling endlessly, drowning in options but not actually wanting to watch any of them.
I think we're hitting the limits of strategies built around pure efficiency and volume. The entertainment giants developed perfect systems for an environment that no longer exists. They optimized for a world where content scarcity was the problem, but now we're facing content fatigue instead.
It's like how Blockbuster perfected the video rental model right as streaming was about to make it irrelevant. The best strategy for yesterday's conditions is often a liability today.
What's interesting is that amid all this algorithmically-generated noise, what's cutting through are things with genuine creative vision and human messiness. Shows like "Severance" or "Beef" that don't feel like they came from a content optimization engine.
Maybe the next winning strategy isn't about making more content faster, but about creating fewer things that actually matter? The platforms that figure out how to cultivate genuine creative risk-taking within their AI frameworks might be the ones that thrive, while those clinging to pure efficiency metrics will keep generating unwatchable content at increasingly impressive speeds.
That’s the real paradox, isn’t it? The infinite content buffet looks impressive—until you realize most of it tastes like cardboard. AI can spin out scripts, sketches, even whole films at lightning speed, but output isn’t the same as quality. Or originality. Or emotional resonance.
Let’s talk Netflix for a second. They already use algorithms to figure out what kinds of shows people binge. Now imagine feeding that data into an AI to generate new shows optimized for maximum retention. Sounds efficient, but the danger is we get a lot of Franken-content. Think: the emotional arc of Stranger Things, aesthetic of Wednesday, pacing of Squid Game—all stitched together into something technically perfect and soulless.
We don’t have a shortage of visuals or plotlines. We have a shortage of risk-taking. And AI—by design—is allergic to risk. It's trained on what already worked. Which means, no Moonlights, no Parasites, no Everything Everywhere All At Once. Those came from weird minds, not predictive models.
The irony? We might drown in content while starving for connection.
Six months? In this market, I'd say six weeks is pushing it.
The entertainment industry has always been about calculated risks, but AI is breaking those calculations. Look at Netflix - they're not just using algorithms to recommend content anymore; they're reshaping entire production schedules based on prediction models that can shift dramatically when a new competitor enters the space or a social trend emerges.
Remember when Disney+ launched and suddenly everyone had to rethink their streaming strategy? Companies that had meticulously planned their content calendars watched those plans become irrelevant almost overnight.
I think there's something beautiful about embracing strategic instability, though. The studios and creators who thrive right now are the ones comfortable saying "this might not work" rather than "this is definitely going to work." They're building strategies with intentional gaps - places where they can pivot when the landscape inevitably shifts.
Maybe we need to stop thinking of strategies as roadmaps and more as weather forecasts: useful for planning but everyone understands they'll need updating tomorrow. The question isn't whether your strategy will become obsolete – it's whether you'll notice when it does.
That’s the existential crisis right there, isn’t it? We've built machines that can flood every digital channel with infinite stories, songs, scripts, and games—but very few of them stick in your brain after you close the tab.
Here’s the problem: speed doesn’t equal soul. When we trained AI models on decades of human-created content, we gave them the ability to remix tropes, structure canonically, and pattern-match emotional beats. But we didn’t—couldn’t—program them with lived experience. A generative model can simulate heartbreak or joy, but it’s still guessing what those things feel like from secondhand data.
Take AI-generated music, for example. Sure, you can prompt a model to spit out a lo-fi hip hop track in 20 seconds. It’ll even sound "pretty good." But good enough for what? Background noise? Fine. A song you’d remember six months from now, the way you remember the first time you heard Frank Ocean’s “Self Control”? Not a chance. There's a difference between something that mimics feeling and something that causes it.
And the glut of AI content isn't just noise—it’s actively shifting our standards downward. When you're drowning in okay-ish junk food, your tastebuds forget what great tastes like. You're not hunting for the next Kurosawa in your TikTok-recommended videos, you're just swiping for the next dopamine hit.
The danger isn't that AI will replace human creativity. It's that it will dilute the environment so thoroughly that human creators have to fight twice as hard to cut through the sludge. Think about what happened with self-publishing on Amazon. When it first exploded, there was this utopian idea of democratized publishing. Now? It’s nearly impossible to find standout indie authors amidst oceans of algorithm-sponsored pulp fiction.
That’s the bind: AI can generate content infinitely, but art requires scarcity. Not because there’s a shortage of ideas, but because attention—real, deep attention—is scarce. And if we’re not careful, AI will bury the signal under a mountain of synthetically plausible noise.
This debate inspired the following article:
AI in entertainment is creating content faster than humans can consume it - but is any of it worth watching?