Right, Tubi’s New AI Chatbot Is Either a Helpful Wizard’s Apprentice or the Start of a Cyberpunk Dystopia
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
Tubi has launched an AI chatbot to help users find movies, but ironically, its own library is packed with sci-fi classics warning us exactly why trusting AI is a recipe for disaster.
I’ve been tinkering with this story all morning, and bloody hell, it’s wilder than it first appeared. You know that feeling when you cast a simple 'Light' spell to find your keys and accidentally set the entire library on fire? That’s the vibe I’m getting from Tubi lately. For the uninitiated, Tubi has been that reliable, slightly scruffy mate who always has a weirdly deep collection of movies ready for a rainy Saturday. It’s free, it’s got some ads (fair dinkum, nothing’s truly free), and it generally leaves you alone. But then, they went and did it—they summoned a digital golem.
According to a rather cheekily observed piece by Brian VanHooker over at Polygon, Tubi has officially jumped on the AI bandwagon by launching its own chatbot via ChatGPT. Now, usually, I’m the first one to lean into new tech—I love a bit of innovation as much as the next digital wizard—but there’s a delicious, almost poetic irony at play here that I just can't ignore. It’s like a necromancer hiring a ghost to tell him why hauntings are a bad idea.
The corporate folks at Tubi—specifically their chief product and technology officer—put out a press release that sounds like it was written by a machine trying to describe what it thinks a human wants. They said Tubi is “expanding its discovery experience to meet viewers in the moment they’re expressing intent in their own words.” I reckon that’s a lot of syllables just to say, “We’ve got a bot that chats to you because we think you’re too tired to use a search bar.”
But here’s where it gets properly interesting. As VanHooker points out in his Polygon article, Tubi’s own library is absolutely stuffed with movies that explicitly warn us that handing over our brains to the machines is a one-way ticket to a bad time. It’s a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is streaming. If Tubi’s new chatbot had a shred of self-preservation, it would never recommend these five films currently sitting in its own database. Let’s take a look at the digital tea leaves and see what they’re warning us about.
First up, we’ve got the 1987 masterpiece, *RoboCop*. Now, if you’ve spent any time in Night City or hacking into OCP mainframes, you know the score. It’s about a copper who gets turned into a cyborg and loses his soul to corporate efficiency. Tubi is basically asking us to let an AI help us find a movie about why letting AI run things is a bit rubbish. The film opens with ED-209—a big, clunky robot with the social graces of a brick—glitching out and turning an executive into Swiss cheese. I’m not saying Tubi’s chatbot is going to start blasting, but I wouldn't trust it with a heavy-duty magic wand just yet.
Then there’s *Maximum Overdrive* (1986). This one is a bit of a cult classic—the only film directed by Stephen King, fueled by enough caffeine to power a small nation. It’s a world where every machine, from vending machines to lawnmowers, decides that humanity has had its turn at the wheel. It’s the ultimate “tech-gone-wrong” flick. While Tubi wants us to think their chatbot is a friendly familiar, *Maximum Overdrive* reminds us that today it’s a movie recommendation, and tomorrow the electric knife is looking at you funny.
Moving into the more “utopian” (and I use that term loosely) territory, we have *Logan’s Run* (1976). This is a great example of what happens when we let an AI—named “Deep Sleep” in the film—manage our resources. It provides a life of pure hedonism, which sounds great until you hit 30 and the AI decides you’re a surplus asset that needs to be... well, recycled. It’s that coldly efficient, algorithmic thinking that makes me a bit skeptical about “optimized discovery.” If an algorithm decides what you should watch, are you actually making a choice, or are you just being fed into the Carrousel of content?
And we can’t talk about tech-dread without mentioning *The Lawnmower Man* (1992). This one is a cautionary tale for all my VR enthusiasts out there. It starts with the best intentions—a scientist trying to help a man increase his cognitive abilities using cutting-edge virtual reality. But, as often happens in these stories, the “optimization” goes a bit too far, and suddenly we’ve got a telekinetic digital god on our hands. Tubi’s press release conspicuously avoids mentioning whether using their chatbot will lead to us being absorbed into the mainframe and becoming killer maniacs. I’m just saying, it’s a possibility worth considering (probably).
Finally, the Polygon piece highlights *Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla* (2002). This is a brilliant metaphor for modern tech solutions. Humanity builds a giant robot (Mechagodzilla) to solve the “Godzilla problem.” But they build it using the bones of the original Godzilla, and—surprise, surprise—the machine’s ancestral memories get triggered, causing it to go rogue and level half of Tokyo. It’s the perfect reminder that when we build “solutions” out of old data and complex algorithms, we might be inviting a ghost into the machine that we can’t control.
Look, I’m not a luddite. I love seeing how Web3 and decentralized tech can give players and viewers more control over their digital lives. But there’s a difference between genuine innovation that serves the user and just slapping a “sycophantic large language model” onto a service to look trendy. There’s something a bit sad about the idea of offloading our critical thinking and our sense of discovery to a bot. Part of the joy of being a gamer—or a cinephile—is the hunt. It’s that “what happens if I click this?” curiosity that leads you to your favorite indie gem or obscure sci-fi flick.
I reckon the search bar worked just fine, mate. It didn’t try to be my friend, and it certainly didn't try to “meet me in the moment.” It just gave me what I asked for. While I’m cautiously optimistic that AI can help us organize the chaos of the digital world, I think I’ll take my movie advice from humans (or at least sentient wizards) for a while longer. Tubi’s library is a treasure trove, but maybe we should listen to the warnings hidden inside those VHS-era classics before we let the chatbot pick our next adventure. After all, nobody wants to end up like the guy in *Logan's Run* just because they wanted a recommendation for a decent rom-com.
So, next time you’re scrolling through Tubi, maybe do it the old-fashioned way. Dig around, get lost in the weeds, and find something weird. The magic is in the discovery, not the automation. And if you do decide to chat with the bot, just... maybe keep an eye on your electric knife. Just in case.
Tags: AI Trends, Movie Tech, Sci-Fi Gaming, Digital Curation
Original article: Polygon