AI and Chatbots as Story Elements -- "Vince Gilligan has licked that cupcake" [View all]

The showrunner of a project I am writing on and I got into a debate about AI, specifically chatbots, as a story element. She told us all that she had just made rounds in LA and heard about many AI themed projects in the pipe. Fine. But I think that two years from now, when these projects that are being written now will come to screens, AI as a theme will be somewhat played out. AI as a story element will be where dementia is now, DOA.

Five years ago there were so many dementia and Alzeheimers projects that many festivals rejected them all or told applicants up front not to submit any more. I think AI is on a similar path to saturation although ‘Pluribus’ was well timed. It got made quickly because Vince Gilligan is Vince Gilligan but the rest of us are closer to the back end of the cue.

I think plots that involve protagonist and chatbots that isolate, twist, delude them, etc. will be played out quickly. Plus I dislike anything that makes the audience read text on the screen because it isn’t cinematic, it breaks tension and pace. ‘All acting is reacting’ means that you don’t have any acting going on while the camera is on text messages. You have to intercut the text with a reaction, eg shot reverse shot between actor and phone screen and the phone screen is lifeless.

I really think that two years from now projects that consciously avoid AI will be trending. A kind of backlash. I think a glut of AI slop will have audiences looking for the alternatives – things that are OBVIOUSLY not created by or with AI. That will include projects set in the pre-AI era, especially the 1990s and the aughts. But also some of the great stuff that is coming into PD right now: Agatha Christie, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc. The reaction and audience (141 million views) for ‘Adolescence’ for me confirm where we are headed. Audiences want raw human vulnerability. Intimacy and everything else that AI cannot deliver. More ‘Adolescence’ Less ‘Pluribus’

Curious to know what others here think about any of this.
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For reference the trailer for 'Pluribus' (and the show is very good. That is part of my point. Something done well 'licks more cupcakes' than something that leaves room for something better):