Edward Saatche isn't entirely sure people will gather at showrunners. This is a new AI-generated television program service his company is releasing this week. However, he has a trust vote from Amazon. Amazon is investing in Fable, a San Francisco-based startup in Alexa Fund Venture-Capital Investment Arm, Saatchi's San Francisco-based startup.
Amazon's Alexa Fund Investment in Fable has not been revealed. Money is directed towards building showrunners. Fable is promoting it as “AI Netflix.” This allows you to type in a few words to create a scene or entire episode of a TV show from scratch or based on an existing story world.
A few months after a closed alpha test with 10,000 users, Fable is launching a showrunner that allows users to tinker with animation-focused generation-AI systems. To use ShowRunner, users must sign in to the Discord Group-Chat platform. Initially, Showrunner is at will, but in the end, they plan to charge creators $10-20 per month for credits that allow creators to create hundreds of TV scenes, Saatchi said. Viewing content generated by the showrunner is free to allow anyone to share AI videos on YouTube or other third-party platforms.
Saatchi's hypothesis is that AI represents a new entertainment medium that resembles video games, rather than just a cheap special effects tool.
Saatchi, CEO and co-founder of Fable, says using AI purely as a VFX tool is “a bit sad.” “AI Toy Story” doesn't just become a cheap Toy Story. Our idea is that “AI Toy Story” is playable with millions of new scenes all owned by Disney. Saatchi said Fable, even at Hollywood Studios, is talking about its partnership with Disney on the Showrunner platform's IP licensing.
“The Hollywood streaming service looks like it will be two-way entertainment: audiences are watching the show's season. [and] Love it will allow you to create new episodes in a few words and become a character in the photo.
That said, Search has expressed some questions about whether people really want to be their own showrunners. “Maybe no one wants this and it's not going to work,” he said.
Saatchi previously co-founded Oculus Story Studios, which was founded in 2014 as a division of Oculus VR. This was acquired for $2 billion, a virtual reality company acquired by Meta (then Facebook). Oculus Story Studio has created several VR titles, including the Emmy Award-winning “Henry.” However, as a category, VR Entertainment did not come to fruition. In 2017, Meta shut down Story Studio.
“In 2014, everything takes off when everything takes off. this It happens,” said Search, like when VR headset sales passed certain milestones. “And that didn't work.” In 2019, Saatchi led the formation of Fable Studio, surrounded by current models of playable stories from VR to AI fuel (another company called Fable is a cybersecurity startup focusing on security training for generations of AI).
Fable's Showrunner Public Launch features two original “shows.” Story World users with characters can step into various story arcs. The first is “Exit Valley,” known as a “Family Guy” style television comedy that satirizes AI technology leaders Sam Altman, Elon Musk and others. The other is “Everything is fine,” with husband and wife going to IKEA to play a big fight.
The Showrunner system allows users to insert into the world of television shows. This has proven to be a popular use case among alpha testers. “People are interested in putting themselves and their friends in these stories, which was a surprise,” he said. “We didn't design it with that in mind. People want to be in a fictional world and tell a story about themselves.”
Showrunner is equipped with Fable's unique AI model, Show-2. Last year, the company published a research paper on how to build a Show-1 model. As part of this, we have released nine AI creation episodes based on “South Park.” The episode, created without the permission of the “South Park” creator, has received over 80 million views. (Saatchi said he is in touch with the “South Park” team, who is relieved that the IP is not being deployed commercially.)
Still from Fable's “South Park” AI Research Project
“It was very exciting to see how showrunners spark people's creativity,” said Jacob Madden, head of technology at Fable and co-creator of showrunners. “The platform allows showrunners to experiment with their stories in real time, constantly repeating and refine their vision. Showrunners can't wait to redefine what a TV show is and see what stories will appear next.”
Although Search is bullish on technology, he acknowledged that the huge weakness of general entertainment for showrunners and AI is more suited to episode content than, say, “Breaking Bad” or “Game of Thrones.”
“Today, AI can't maintain a story beyond one episode,” Saatchi said. “The strongest AI is in a very episode show with characters that primarily reset every episode, including comedy, police procedures, space exploration.”
According to Saatchi, Fable's AI model includes “Guardrails” that block offensive or illegal behavior, including protection against copyright infringement. (Last month, Disney and NBCuniversal were the first major Hollywood studios to file an AI-related copyright lawsuit against the startup mid-journey.) Saatchi said Showrunner could “avoid the story.”
From Gate, Showrunner focuses on animated content as it requires much less processing power than live action video scenes that look realistic. Saatchi said Fable wants to move away from the “knife battle” among big companies like Openai, Google and Meta, who race to create photorealistic content. “If you're competing with Google, are you planning on winning?” Saatche said. “Our goal is to have the most creative model,” he said.
With 15 employees, Fable is based in San Francisco's Mission District. Previous investors in the company include first day ventures, 8VC and Greycroft. For more information, please visit the company's website showrunner.xyz.
