Bill Simmons is ending his partnership with ChatGPT, effectively canceling the recurring segment on his podcasts that utilized the generative AI to simulate reviews from the late critic Roger Ebert.
Simmons, the founder of The Ringer, confirmed the decision to Bloomberg after acknowledging that the integration of the technology failed to resonate with his listeners.
The segments, which appeared on the podcast The Rewatchables, involved Simmons using the OpenAI tool to generate opinions on films released after Ebert’s death in 2013. During a March episode discussing the film The Nice Guys, Simmons attempted to present an AI-generated assessment, prompting immediate pushback from his co-hosts. “You’re going to disgrace yourself by asking ChatGPT,” Chris Ryans said.
“Don’t do that,” Rob Mahoney said.
“I think Shane Black was right about humanity. We are the absolute shit. Just bottom of the barrel stuff. ChatGPT-ing Roger Ebert’s opinion about a movie after he died,” Mahoney added.
Simmons explained that his initial goal was to stay ahead of industry trends, noting that he had observed other competitors and organizations, such as the NFL, experimenting with similar AI research for content.
“Last spring, we thought we could integrate AI research for baked-in content segments for a couple of our shows the way some of our competitors were doing (and also leagues like the NFL were doing)—I’m always going to try to be early instead of late on something,” Simmons said.
“This time we learned almost immediately that those segments weren’t a fit for us—our audience just didn’t like them,” Simmons said.
The use of the AI tool also drew criticism from other figures at The Ringer. Sean Fennessey, host of The Big Picture, stated on the Talk Easy podcast that he had expressed his disapproval of the segments directly to Simmons. “I don’t like it. I’ve told Bill I don’t like it,” Fennessey said.
