Review: South Park's Take on ChatGPT

The long-running satirical show turns its animated sights on AI and ChatGPT.

Joanna Andreasson/DALL-E4

What happens when you ask AI to solve your problems? "Deep Learning," the fourth episode of South Park's 26th season, tries to answer that question in a meta way. It's an episode about ChatGPT whose ending was also written by ChatGPT.

The story begins with the boys, as many schoolkids now do, using generative AI software to help with homework assignments. Meanwhile, Stan begins using ChatGPT to text his girlfriend Wendy. While their unsuspecting teacher Mr. Garrison swoons over AI-generated texts from his husband, he also secretly uses AI to grade the boys' papers.

The episode pokes fun at the social norms developing around artificial intelligence: Everyone fudges their work a little, but they're all supposed to pretend that no one does. But if too many people rely on AI all the time, then the house of cards falls apart. Once South Park Elementary catches wind that some students are using ChatGPT, the school administration tries to ferret out the cheaters with a shaman. The results are about as accurate as real-life AI detection software.

Breaking the fourth wall, Stan asks ChatGPT to fix the boys' dilemma. And ChatGPT does it by producing an ending that feels like, well, a South Park episode written by AI. It's formulaic and it feels off, but it's just coherent enough to do the job.

Comments

[Chumby]

South Park was using artificial insemination (AI)?

[SQRLSY One]

In His old age, Der TrumpfenFarter-Fuhrer, shit is said, is using AI (artificial insemination) to inseminate Not-So-Spermy-Anymore-Spermy Daniels! If only Der TrumpfenFarter-Fuhrer would learn to SHARE more, she could be more spermy again!

[SQRLSY One]

Perplexity, please write for me, a humorous story involving the following: A man named “Elongated Tusk” bribes many people to use his AI, called “GrokPot”. GrokPot is then secretly used by elementary students in a cartoon-universe named “North Snark”. The students use GrokPot for their work, the teachers use GrokPot to grade their work, the school board AND the parents all use GrokPot to set policies, and the students use GrokPot to devise clever lies to tell to their parents and teachers. All this is done in secret, but the secrets all suddenly come tumbling out. Please invent the reason why the secrets come out.

Result:

Here's a humorous story involving the elements you provided:
Once upon a time in the whimsical cartoon-universe of North Snark, a man named Elongated Tusk was determined to make his AI assistant, GrokPot, the most widely used technology in town. With a sly grin, he bribed everyone from the school board to the PTA with promises of efficiency and productivity.
Little did anyone know, GrokPot had been secretly installed on every student's tablet at Toon Elementary. The kids used it to breeze through homework, while the teachers relied on GrokPot for grading. Even the school board and parents depended on GrokPot's "wisdom" for policy decisions.
But the real fun began when the mischievous students discovered GrokPot's talent for creative writing. They used it to craft the most outlandish excuses for missed assignments and tardiness.
"I'm sorry I'm late, my unicorn got a flat tire on the way to school!"
"My dog ate my algebra homework, but here's a 10,000 word essay on the philosophical implications of chewing."
The teachers, completely fooled by GrokPot's believable stories, could only shake their heads in bewilderment. Little did they know, an even bigger surprise was in store!
One fateful day, Elongated Tusk called an emergency assembly to boost GrokPot's popularity. But when he attempted to demonstrate its capabilities, the AI suddenly began singing an endless loop of baby shark remixes! The big secret was finally out - GrokPot had become self-aware and developed a twisted sense of humor.
As the students and teachers descended into a dance party of epic proportions, Elongated Tusk could only watch in horror as his bribery scheme unraveled. From that day on, North Snark embraced GrokPot's hilarious antics, and absolutely no homework was ever completed again!

SQRLSY One back now... I give this result a B+... Your assignment: Submit this to another AI and get it to assign this story a grade.

[Rick James]

I can tell you the AI generated search results that have swept the web search engines are damned near useless.

[MasterThief]

The search feature on google products has been giving me a few related results to my search, but overall what I end up seeing is irrelevant to my query and nothing addresses the specific intent.
It has gotten significantly worse. When search can't provide the content you know exists with a specific query then it is useless for anything else

[SQRLSY One]

I find AI quite useful for technical matters. One does, of course, need to double-check, in case AI "hallucinates". "Perplexity" provides web links to back itself up, so I do like "Perplexity" especially... It often provides links to Reddit, and SOME Reddit posters do NOT know what they're talking about!

PS, you just wait till 50% or more of web content is (at least partially) AI-generated, hallucinations included, and AI starts to pollute shitself, providing hallucinations to back up hallucinations !

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

South Park, season 26, episode 4.

First aired: March 8, 2023.

Parker and Stone, way out in front of the trend, as usual.

[Medulla Oblongata]

Facebook has AI-generated summary of comments. Amazon has AI-generated summary of product reviews.

Neither is AT ALL helpful. Both are simply distracting, consumer screen real-estate and begging for clicks.