A new AI service allows viewers to create TV shows. Are we doomed?

Showrunner will let users generate episodes with prompts, which could be an alarming next step or a fleeting novelty

One of the key strategies of streaming services is to keep you in front of a screen for as long as possible. As soon as one episode of a show you're watching ends, the next one pops up automatically. But this approach has its limits. After all, when a series ends, Netflix will try to autoplay another series that it thinks you'll like, but it has a terrible success rate. Maybe the tone of the suggested show is wrong, or maybe it's too exhausting to be dumped into the sea of exposition that a new show brings. Maybe it's just too jarring to be pulled out of one world and dumped straight into another without any space to breathe.

You know what would fix that? If Netflix gave you the chance to automatically create a new episode of the show you were already watching. You'd stay there forever, wouldn't you? It would be wonderful. Ladies and gentlemen, you will be thrilled to learn that this glorious technology now exists.