From the very first frames, you can tell there's something off about Netflix's version of "A Different World," a "Cosby Show" spin-off that aired on NBC from 1987 to 1993.

As spotted by developer and blogger Scott Hanselman, the streamer — or whatever rightsholder licensed the show to it — seriously bungled its efforts to upscale the decades-old footage, which was originally shot on film and made available on DVD since then.

The show was added earlier this month and is currently listed as being "HD." But onscreen artifacts quickly make it clear that an algorithm is being used to increase the sharpness of pixelated frames, with sometimes comically awful results.

The intro credits already raise alarm bells, with mangled hands, misaligned facial features, bungled logos, and overall smeary lines that don't meet up.

In other words, it's all the hallmarks of sloppy AI — except that instead of screwing up a single scene, as was the case with the AI-generated posters appearing in a 2024 episode of HBO's "True Detective" — those shortcomings are apparent throughout the show.

And that's just the first few seconds. The rest of the show's pilot doesn't fare much better, with weird-looking faces and other details throughout. Particularly glaring is background text, which in the source material was clearly too pixelated to be coherent, resulting in the AI filling in a garbled script that looks like an alien language.

In short, it's an egregious example of how AI slop is infiltrating almost every aspect of the entertainment industry and our daily lives. Even shows that stopped airing over 30 years ago aren't safe.

Did we really need a smeared reimaging of a beloved 90s sitcom? "A Different World" is now besmirched by its association with Bill Cosby, but it was culturally important when it came out, confronting social issues like the HIV crisis in a mainstream way. It's clearly important enough to put on Netflix; why isn't it important enough to present viewers with a good viewing experience?

At the end of the way, what does Netflix think viewers prefer: the original blur of an analog show from decades ago, or a version that looks crisp at a quick glance but that's insulting their intelligence and mangling television history?

The results can be downright horrific. Check out this, which is apparently supposed to be a family photo, except that everyone's face has been replaced by a geometric mash.

The show in its original format "was blurry but it didn't really matter, cause you watched it far away on a CRT," said Hanselman, who works on AI at Microsoft, in a recent TikTok video, referring to cathode-ray tube TVs that predated flat panel screens. "Absolutely iconic show, and you can upscale it, you can make one blurry pixel into four pixels or four pixels into 16 pixels."

"But you gotta have that information come from somewhere," Hanselman explained. While there are different kinds of upscaling, "there still isn't enough information here to make [main characters] Dwayne and Whitley look correct."

Despite looking "amazing" in 4K and HDR, Hanselman noted that there's obviously "something's wrong" with Whitley's mouth and teeth in the Netflix version.

Text gets jumbled badly "because the AI can't read," Hanselman explained. "Rather than guessing the phrase or guessing the words, [the AI] just upscales that. It looks like hieroglyphics."

"The problem is AI upscaling image technology isn't quite there yet," he concluded. "So what you end up with is an uncanny valley."

In a followup video, Hanselman clarified that there are plenty of ways to faithfully upscale TV shows, which tend to be far more resource-intensive than simply having an AI churn through every frame.

The use of generative AI in television has reached a fever pitch. Earlier this year, for instance, Amazon Prime Video came under fire for adorning the iconic 1922 horror film "Nosferatu" with a slapdash poster that was obviously AI-generated.

Netflix has previously leaned into the controversy. Last year, viewers spotted fake, garbled AI images in the Netflix true crime documentary called "What Jennifer Did."

The streaming service also came under fire earlier this month for using generative AI to reproduce the voice of Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old social media influencer who, according to the FBI, was murdered by her fiancé in 2021.

As generative AI continues to infiltrate almost every aspect of our daily lives, the tech has sparked a major debate within the entertainment industry. In 2023, Hollywood actors went on strike, decrying the use of AI to replicate their likenesses.

Futurism has reached out to Netflix for comment.

More on generative AI: Microsoft Is Suing People Who Did Bad Things With Its AI


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