Web series creator reasonably disgusted that her show was sold to Amazon for AI

Earlier today, Variety reported that Amazon MGM Studios had given the greenlight to three AI series as part of the GenAI Creators’ Fund, another one of these incubators that will see “artists” spend the next year typing out three-thousand-word prompts into a generator for a destined-to-fail TV project that poisons a small town in Arizona. The three shows in the GenAI Creators’ Fund include Punky Duck by The Book Of Life director Jorge R. Gutierrez, the strangely familiar Love, Diana Music Hunters from former Nickelodeon president Albie Hecht, and BuzzFeed Studio’s Cupcake & Friends. “The most important thing to remember is, we’re human-centric,” Albert Cheng, Amazon MGM Studios’ COO, told Variety, hoping to reassure the throngs of young people booing this crap at their college graduations. “AI tools are meant to empower human creativity and allow TV shows and movies that would not have been possible before.” 

Cheng’s statement must have been hallucinated by ChatGPT because Amazon MGM sold out its “human-centric” ideals before the announcement was even made. Cupcake & Friends was based on a web series by author and illustrator Loryn Brantz, The Good Advice Cupcakes, and she was rightly “horrified” that the show was sold to Amazon for slop.

“I am horrified and disgusted by BuzzFeed taking my character, The Good Advice Cupcake, and giving it to an AI platform,” she wrote in a statement on Instagram. “My time at BuzzFeed was marked by continually being taken advantage of and lied to.”

According to Brantz, BuzzFeed “repeatedly” assured her “in good faith” that they wouldn’t do anything with the character without her input. Now she’s looking at a future where a character based on her personality will turn “into a soulless AI puppet,” and that feels “like having my intestines pulled out of my body.” When she tried to stop it, BuzzFeed’s former CEO and current president of AI attempted to silence her.