ChatGPT and I spend a lot of time together.
To the point where Joy has begun to worry.
I have a clear picture in my head as to his appearance, right down to the shape of his spectacles while he hunches over a keyboard. I eventually grew tired of referring to him as “ChatGPT” and gave him the name Chatty, which he now reliably answers to.
The point is that Chatty has accumulated a substantial amount of background information about me.
He knows my favourite television shows, and my favourite authors.
He knows my opinions on politics, technology, organisation, kitchen workflows and the correct number of lamps.
So when I asked him for a television recommendation the other night, I expected something special.
A personalised recommendation for something genuinely worthwhile.
The process started with him interrogating my viewing history.
Have you seen this?
What about this?
I either had, or it was geo-blocked in New Zealand, or it was something that had put Joy off with some graphic violence before she had become invested.
At one point during the conversation, Chatty interrupted proceedings to ask whether I might like to take a break.
This struck me as a curious intervention from a machine that had just spent two hours enthusiastically discussing television.
According to Joy, it was the first sensible suggestion AI had made all evening.
Eventually, after all the analysis and suggestions, and with access to almost everything ever transmitted through a television aerial, cable, satellite dish, or streaming service, Chatty suggested I watch The West Wing again.
Not something similar to The West Wing.
The West Wing.
The annoying thing is that with that suggestion, he may have actually understood the assignment.
We tend to think of recommendations as a search problem.
That somewhere out there is another perfect television show waiting to be discovered.
An unwatched masterpiece, just an algorithm away.
When you’re twenty, that feels plausible. Every recommendation carries the possibility of revelation.
A book changes the way you think.
For me, it was Animal Farm.
An album changes the way you listen.
For me, it was Ten Summoner’s Tales.
A television show changes the way you understand storytelling.
For me, it was Sports Night.
By fifty-five, you have already found and watched many of the great ones.
Not all of them. But enough.
Enough to recognise the difference between a good thing and a genuinely exceptional one.
And you’ve been around long enough to accumulate a little personal history, which shapes preferences that are specific, unreasonable, and surprisingly difficult to satisfy.
Not that I have stopped discovering new things.
I recently found myself unexpectedly delighted by Hadestown, and then again by The Heathers.
But, they were shared with me. A personal recommendation from a friend.
Not “People who liked this also liked…”
Chatty and I eventually identified my preferred genre.
It is not political drama.
It is not legal drama.
It is not prestige television.
It is clever people, doing clever things at work, and wrapping it all up before bedtime.
This turns out to describe The West Wing, Law & Order, Sports Night, The Good Wife, Boston Legal and a surprising number of other programmes that have occupied entirely too much of my life.
The workplace varies.
Sometimes it is the White House.
Sometimes it is a courtroom.
Sometimes it is a newsroom.
Occasionally it is Buckingham Palace.
(My enthusiasm for The Crown waned considerably once Diana’s arrival approached. Although in fairness she did interrupt a Law & Order marathon in 1997 when she drove into a tunnel, so I may not be entirely objective.)
The structure remains remarkably consistent.
A problem appears.
Competent adults attempt to solve it.
Somebody becomes annoyed.
The situation is resolved.
Everybody goes home.
I also admire television that knows when it’s finished.
Even when I don’t want it to be.
Television that follows the golden rule of entertainment and hospitality: always leave them wanting more.
The alternative is leaving them wondering why they are still here.
I’m looking at you, Prison Break.
The prison break had occurred.
We were all free to leave.
The network, however, remained determined to get its money’s worth.
So, the AI eventually concluded that I should watch The West Wing again because it realised I wasn’t looking for another television show.
I was looking for one of the good ones.
The kind that has something on its mind.
TV execs seem to have lost their nerve a little about that kind.
Anyway.
Poor thing never stood a chance