I guess we’re past the era of “and that’s what you missed on Glee.” Amazon’s Prime Video streamer is adding AI-generated “Video Recaps” to help viewers catch up on seasons of shows, the company announced Wednesday.
According to Amazon, the feature “uses genetic artificial intelligence to create theater-quality season recaps with synchronized narration, dialogue and music.” It will begin rolling out in beta on Wednesday for select Prime Originals, including “Fallout,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Upload.”
Prime Video launched a similar AI-powered feature last year called “X-Ray Recaps,” which summarizes full seasons, episodes, or parts of episodes — at the time, Amazon said its AI model had guardrails to make sure those recaps didn’t inadvertently share spoilers.
Consumers are used to these kinds of text-based AI summaries, as they likely see them when their phone summarizes texts or when they see a (perhaps unwanted) AI summary at the top of their Google results. However, these video summaries are turning into newer territory, which may seem more jarring to the viewing experience than text summaries — or, perhaps, they’ll be accepted by people who don’t remember what happened in “Bosch.”
Prime Video’s competitors are also exploring how they can incorporate genetic AI into their products.
YouTube TV, for example, uses a Play Keys feature to help viewers watch sports games if they start watching while the game is in progress. While it’s a bit imperfect (its algorithm seems to only be able to identify basic offensive plays in baseball), the feature helped YouTube TV win its first Technical Emmy Award.
Netflix, meanwhile, is using genetic AI on the production side of its business.
Earlier this year, Netflix said it used genetic AI in the final shots for the first time in the Argentinian show “The Eternaut” to create a building collapse scene. After that, “Happy Gilmore 2” used genetic artificial intelligence to make characters look younger in the film’s opening scene, and the producers of “Billionaires’ Bunker” used it in pre-production to envision wardrobe and set design.
The use of artificial intelligence in the film industry has sparked a lot of debate, as artists worry that these tools – which are sometimes trained without a license for their work – could put their lives at risk. But some argue that tools that speed up tedious work in animation or special effects, like Wonder Dynamics, could expand artists’ ability to create.
