Category: Society

A QUESTION I ASKED A.I. LAST DECEMBER…

Why doesn’t AI admit that the line about television from Quiz Show is “It’s the world’s biggest something”?

A.I.’s RESPONSE

The line you are referring to from the film Quiz Show is most likely delivered by Herb Stempel, who describes television as the “world’s most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine” in a recent quote related to the topic of AI and the movie. 

However, the specific quote from the film that is most similar to your phrasing is:

“That box is the biggest thing since Gutenberg invented the printing press, and I’m the biggest thing on it”. 

This line is said by Herb Stempel (played by John Turturro) to a reporter outside the congressional hearing room, highlighting his ego and the perceived power of the new medium. 

It seems AI might not have initially confirmed your exact phrasing because:

• The quote “It’s the world’s biggest something” does not appear verbatim in the movie script. AI systems are trained on existing text data, and if a precise phrase isn’t in the source material it has access to, it cannot “admit” it is correct.
• AI tends to favor widely recognized or exact quotes and may “hallucinate” or provide close but inaccurate phrases if the exact wording is not confirmed in its training data.
• The quote about television being a “plagiarism machine” is a recent meta-commentary by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, who referenced the themes of Quiz Show to criticize AI, not a line from the original film itself. 

Ultimately, the model provides information based on the statistical likelihood of word sequences in its data, rather than a human understanding of implicit “somethings”. 

IN TRUTH…

The line from Quiz Show “It’s the world’s biggest something” is a line delivered by Charles Van Doren, portrayed in the movie by Ralph Fiennes.

RALPH FIENNES.  1993-1994.

• “…those six centuries are a rumor.  They never happened.” –from Schindler’s List
• “It’s the world’s biggest something.”  –from Quiz Show