- "Nothing, Forever," an AI-generated parody of "Seinfeld," took over the internet last week.
- Twitch temporarily banned it on Monday after the robot main character went on a transphobic rant.
The internet was ablaze last week about "Nothing, Forever," a parody of "Seinfeld" created by the experimental media lab Mismatch Media. The show, which was streamed on Twitch, used AI and machine learning to mimic the dialogue and plotlines of the beloved TV series.
For days, thousands of people tuned in simultaneously and spammed the chat with their reactions to every scene. But on Monday morning, Twitch temporarily banned "Nothing, Forever" after the character Larry Feinberg — an AI parody of Jerry Seinfeld — went on a transphobic rant. He pondered the idea of doing a comedy set about "how transgender people are ruining the fabric of society," among other things.
The troubling bit and its thereby ban were unfortunately not surprising, given the history of AI exhibiting bigoted behavior. (A staff member for the show claimed the incident occurred because the chat model they were using experienced an outage, and they had to temporarily switch to a less-sophisticated AI.)
I've been a longtime fan of "Seinfeld" so I was eager to watch the AI spin-off. After watching "Nothing, Forever" for hours last week, I'm not too upset by this temporary suspension. The show is a drag and doesn't do the original series justice. All the segments began to blur together into a repetitive mess of soulless interactions.
The experience of watching an infinite AI-powered "Seinfeld" is surreal… and not in a good way
What's initially most striking about "Nothing, Forever" ("NF") is that nothing happens — even less so than "Seinfeld," which was famous for making intricate plotlines out of seemingly mundane squabbles.
The parody is ironically funny because some dialogue is strangely coherent despite the characters' graceless and scatterbrained behavior. They have stilted conversations about topics similar to ones that would take place on the actual show (like the New York Mets being a crappy team, or a new cafe opening up), except they don't lead anywhere. Larry and Fred (the AI parody of George Costanza) will feverishly talk up a new restaurant, but they'll never go see it, and we never hear of it again. Also, laugh tracks are cued in at random moments, punctuating sentences that make no sense.
A strange surrealness permeates every second of the show, kind of like "Nathan For You," which I found funny until it became mind-numbingly nonsensical. There were many unnatural pauses during conversations and breaks that were held too long for comfort — or as successful satire. The characters often veer into non-sequiturs and outlandish observations, like Yvonne (the AI character for Elaine) telling the crew she saw a "hand pop through the seat" in front of her on a bus. In one episode, the gang spoke with bated breath about assembling to go see "a new flock of pigeons" on the block. One of the few redeeming moments of genuine oddity was a stand-up bit where Larry seemed to forget his joke and read stage directions instead: "Fist bump, peace out, mic drop. Throws confetti and exits the stage," he said.
A key piece of "Seinfeld" is the physical comedy: Kramer's jitteriness like he poked his finger in an electrical outlet and Elaine's dramatic shoves. While it isn't entirely lost in "NF," where the computerized avatars often malfunction, flicker, twitch, and shake, it's done almost too robotically and in haphazard ways. In one of the first scenes I watched, Fred appeared to be limboing as if his spine was fully broken for no reason. In a heavily circulated clip where Larry and Fred ruminated on death, Larry starts vibrating like a zombie.
—the j (@queenbiscuit311) February 2, 2023
After hours of watching what felt like an endless sequence of terrible stand-up gags and humdrum apartment awkwardness, I couldn't handle the monotony anymore. The relentless insularity of "NF" began to feel claustrophobic. Maybe future versions will have more polished plotlines, but this one isn't even remotely close to reaching the original's excellence.
The main redeeming quality of the show is the community chat box
My favorite part of the show was actually the collective viewing experience on Twitch chat. At multiple points, over 10,000 people were reacting to a single piece of dialogue in real-time, like when Larry said a happy-go-lucky man invited him to go camping, and fans started spamming the comment sections with "WEIRD GUY ARC" and "CREEPER MODE." It felt like watching a live show together. The community-building aspect was the only redeeming part of my viewing experience.
Each episode of the real "Seinfeld" show during its peak run has a brilliant structure that circles back to its original themes. The classic sitcom may appear to be aimless and about nothing, but the "nothing" is the unexamined trivialities of our lives.
As of now, AI can't quite mimic that quality authentically. It's able to replicate the language of neurosis by drawing on a bank of sample dialogue, but it can't make absurdity feel true to real life the way the TV writers and actors can. If anything, "Nothing, Forever" is evidence that code can't finesse a genius sitcom. The times I laughed were all from the discomfort of its disjointedness. Unlike "Seinfeld," we laugh at it, not with it.