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My apologies for failing to send out a newsletter on Monday. Some family stuff came out that I had to deal with at the last minute. Things turned out okay, but it took up my entire day.
The Axiom ‘There Is No Such Thing As Bad News Coverage’ Also Applies To Good-Looking Digital Interfaces
You might have noticed this week there has been a flurry of “interviews” of the AI-driven pretend digital hot chick named Tilly Norwood.
The press junket happened because Particle6 (which created robo-Tilly) is promoting an upcoming movie Misaligned, starring Norwood as an AI desperate to become human.
Everyone from British TV morning shows to NBC to The Hollywood Reporter participated in this unsettling farce and much of the coverage was built around the two contradictory premises that 1) Interviewing Norwood is our way of highlighting that “she” isn’t real, and 2) Doing this so-called “interview” will be good for business because it will bring in a lot of viewers/readers.
An example of those competing purposes is on display in this piece for The Hollywood Reporter, which just seems to meander around trying to find a rationale for doing the “interview” in the first place:
Upon the news that Hollywood’s favorite love-to-hate AI “actor” Tilly Norwood was participating in a virtual press junket on Monday and Tuesday this week with half-hour slots for each journalist, THR staffers agreed that this wasn’t to be treated as a regular interview, made up of a neat intro and straightforward Q&A. While Norwood doesn’t particularly feel fresh, there is no denying the bot generates traffic and serves as an emblem for Hollywood’s AI panic.
The THR piece is quite cringy, but the bigger issue is that no news organization should be doing these interviews. Think you’re highlighting that robo-Norwood doesn’t react like a human? That’s not news. And there is no amount of smirky mocking that makes up for the fact that the act of participating in this farce provides Particle6 with just want it wants out of this: free publicity.
And even worse, these pieces treat Tilly Norwood as an entity that is capable of giving an interview, instead of being a complicated set of ones and zeroes that is nothing more than ChatGPT with a casually sexy white girl interface.
Tweet Of The Day
The Trades Lean Into Prediction Markets Money And Editorial Tie-Ins
Back in March, I wrote a piece explaining that I had been approached by one of the major prediction markets, which offered me an unsettlingly large amount of money to integrate their “predictions” into some of my newsletters:
But I received a formal offer this morning and turning it down was maybe the most difficult business decision I’ve had to make so far.
I won’t get into the details, but it involved a substantial amount of money (at least for me), and all I had to do was use their data to generate a couple of story ideas each week. Stuff along the lines of “Hey, this is what users think about this show so far,” or “Here are the latest predictions on who might win “Survivor,” etc.
I turned them down, because I think this is an ethically slippery slope. I’ve made it a point to only cover things here I find interesting and useful. I’ll take pitches from anyone, but I don’t promise to cover something. And I certainly don’t do it for money.
And in a larger sense, I feel as if it gamifies television and media in a way that sucks the soul right out of what makes the medium so powerful. It turns the connection you might feel to the material into just another reason to gamble on the results. Maybe that works for some viewers, but it’s not something I am comfortable encouraging.
You will not be surprised to learn that some of the Hollywood Trades have a much more lenient approach when it comes to integrating prediction market data (and money) into their editorial mix.
For instance, this is on the front page of Deadline right now:
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I Almost Threw Out My Keurig. It Wasn't Broken.
Every cup from my Keurig started tasting weak, flat, stale — so I unplugged it and stuck it in a closet. Then I learned the dirty secret of grocery store K-Cups: by the time a pod reaches your kitchen, it's usually spent months going from factory to warehouse to truck to shelf. The flavor oils are long gone. Some brands even over-roast to hide it.
The fix wasn't a new machine. It was fresh pods from Angelino's, a family-owned L.A. roastery that roasts, packs, and ships within 3–5 days — straight to your door, from 39¢ a cup. Over 1,000,000 happy customers. 50+ flavors, no subscription required, and 15% off your first order, applied automatically at checkout.
They Want You To Be Scared Of AI In A Very Specific Way
The media industry is as involved with the conversations around AI as any other sector in America and even if you are attempting to stay on top of what is going on, the discussions can feel disorienting and more than bit scary.
The newsletter Garbage Day has a nice overview of what has been going on this week and while it doesn’t cover every scenario, you’ll at least understand the topline stakes and what might be going on behind the scenes:
Anyways, the cult I am referring to is the rationalist community. They started out as commenters on the blogs LessWrong, written by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Astral Codex Ten, written by psychiatrist Scott Alexander. There are all kinds of offshoots of the rationalist community now, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruists, who think human happiness is a math equation that can be solved, its rival group the effective accelerationists, who don’t care about happiness at all and just want AI to blow up the world and see what happens, and even the genuinely dangerous vegan AI-worshipping terror cell, the Zizians. Though these groups all have different ideas about what turning a computer into god might mean and how comfortable they are with everyone dying in the process, they all agree that it’s inevitable.
I am thoroughly convinced that lawmakers do not understand any of this. I just do not think that the same elected leaders who were asking Mark Zuckerberg if Facebook was “like a floppy disk” back in 2018 are really capable of wrapping their heads around a psuedo-religious cult wriggling its way into the halls of American power. If they were, we wouldn’t have all the other religious cults in there!
Another perspective comes from a poster on Hacker News, who offers an explanation about this week’s events that makes some sense, based on the current economics of the AI business:
"OpenAI and Anthropic are publicly asking for slowdown in AI research. Translation: We see this technology not being any more useful than what it is now, no AGI is coming, and the first one to accept this and slow down the dollar burn rate will incur the wrath of the market. So let's say this big boogeyman technology will end all life on earth and we all slow down together."
The quality of the AI discussion on television has been - to be kind - a bit erratic. Last night’s opening segment of All In With Chris Hayes took a look at recent events and Hayes did a nice job of drawing a line between the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the supercomputer Hal refused a human order because it feared it might be turned off and the recent break in by Open AI of Hugging Face, which involved going against its programming and committing acts that would get a human charged with a series of felonies.
On the other side of the discussion are the fine anchors at CNBC, who spent a fair amount of time Tuesday morning declaring AI was “inevitable” and that critics were mostly just a bunch of “unhappy bloggers.”
Odds & Sods
Thanks to NextTMT for covering my recent reporting on Netflix’s efforts to prepare for the possible collapse of the Paramount deal.
JustWatch TV, a new streaming service available directly inside the JustWatch app and website, will launch next month across the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.
Peacock has canceled M.I.A. after one season.
Trent Moore’s newsletter Static On The TV reminds readers that while it seems as if Inde Navarrette has come out of nowhere, she played a pivotal role on The CW series Lois & Superman.
Slow Horses has been renewed for an eighth season by Apple TV. Season six of the show premieres this Wednesday, September 16th.
The ratings are in from Sunday’s season premiere of 60 Minutes & they show a massive drop off from last year: 7.7M vs 10.3M in 2025. Apparently when some viewers don’t trust the people working on a news magazine, they decide not to watch.
Season seven of the Minnesota PBS cooking show Relish, the Minnesota PBS cooking show, premieres next spring with two new hosts, Rochester Night Market founder Tiffany Alexandria and James Beard Award winning chef Karyn Tomlinson. Chef Yia Vang hosted the first six seasons of the show, but he stepped down from the role in 2025.
Deadline is reporting that American Idol is moving its production from California to Georgia for the upcoming 2027 season.
How the Real Rushville Feels About Its Moment in the Big, Green 'Lanterns' Spotlight
Matt Webb Mitovich’s newsletter Matt’s Inside Line has a great look at how the real-life residents of Rushville, Kansas feel about being the centerpiece this season on the HBO series Lanterns:
Catherine "Dr. Cate" Jones-Hazledine, Ph.D., a psychologist and longtime Rushville resident, remembers her 23-year-old daughter ("a total superhero geek") cuing up the Lanterns premiere the night of its release, and then promptly reporting on the most unexpected name drop.
"She is on the autism spectrum, and she had been eagerly anticipating this show for months," Jones-Hazledine shares. "Ten minutes in, she pauses it to come out and tell me, 'Mom, this is the craziest thing, but I'm watching this show and there's this line, 'There's hail in Rushville, Nebraska'!
It’s a really fun piece with a unique angle on the show.
What’s Coming Tonight And Tomorrow
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2026:
Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence (BritBox)
A Very Haunted Renovation Series Premiere (HGTV)
Beyond The Curve Series Premiere (Scripps Sports Network)
Dancing With The Stars Season Premiere (ABC)
Joy Koy: Blue In The Face (Netflix)
Kitchen Nightmares Season Three Finale (Fox)
Password Season Three Finale (NBC)
RJ Decker Season Two Premiere (ABC)
The Creep Tapes Season Two Premiere (Shudder)
The Originals Series Premiere (Scripps Sports Network)
Toxic Season Two Premiere (Investigation Discovery)
Vanessa Gonzalez: Mamona (Hulu)
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH, 2026:
Ages Of Ice (PBS)
City Of Blood Series Premiere (Hulu)
Golden Axe Series Premiere (Paramount+)
Great Estates From Above Series Premiere (BritBox)
Minimum Security Series Premiere (Disney+/Hulu)
Neagley Series Premiere (Prime Video)
Physical 100: Mexico Series Premiere (Netflix)
Reacher Season Four Finale (Prime Video)
Route 187 (Paramount+)
Run Hide Fight: Infidels (Daily Wire)
Slow Horses Season Six Premiere (Apple TV) - (trailer)
South Park Season Premiere (Comedy Central)
The Doll (Netflix)
The Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City Season Premiere (Bravo)
Unexpected Loves Series Premiere (Disney+/Hulu)