Roku's new AI channel is top of the slops: is this an important AI milestone or just "the cutting edge of AI slop"?

Channel 300 brings you Fairground AI, 24/7 AI video
Critics have been harsh, calling the channel "slop"
Could this be a lawsuit waiting to happen?

Roku has added four new channels to its Roku Channel collection: Mad TV, Retro Black Laughs, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and Fairground AI. That last one is a world first: it's the first free, ad-supported streaming TV channel dedicated exclusively to AI-generated content. Or as Futurism calls it, "an unending conveyor belt of AI slop."

Fairground Entertainment says it's "a landmark moment in the distribution of AI Cinema, a groundbreaking new form of storytelling that merges cinematic production values with the creative possibilities of artificial intelligence."

According to CEO Colin Petrie-Norris, it's a genuinely groundbreaking moment for AI Cinema.

According to The Verge, it's "like eating from a trough."

What are people saying about Fairground AI?

That very much depends on which people you're reading. On X, AI fans and boosters are very excited, not least because you can upload your own GenAI videos in the hope of being featured on the channel. Fairground AI says it'll pay for that video.

However, more cynical sorts aren't impressed. "That new Fairground AI channel on Roku is so bad, it makes North Korean propaganda shows look good," says PSYMAGE on X. "It's kind of must watch for a little while, if only to see the cutting edge of AI slop."

Futurism isn't pulling any punches. "It broadcasts AI-generated abominations 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The only interruption to this slop flow state are intermittent ads — which are also AI-generated. It sounds more like a concept for a sci-fi torture device than it does a source of genuine entertainment, but it is, unfortunately, real."

While there are some interesting things being done by some of Fairground's creators, the AI videos being shared on X are attracting criticisms familiar to anyone who's seen much genAI video: dialog is bad and poorly delivered, cuts are incoherent, weird things happen on-screen, and the visuals are derivative. It's fair to say that if you're not a fan of genAI content, this channel isn't going to change your mind.

But I think there's a more serious issue. We've just seen the AI music platform Suno lose a lawsuit over unauthorized and unpaid use of copyrighted content in its AI models' training data. By monetizing generative AI video that's likely to be from models trained on commercially released content, Fairground AI may find itself attracting attention from something more terrifying than any AI-generated monster: movie studios' lawyers.

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.