South Park is no stranger to controversy. For over 20 years, the show has been known for its unapologetic irreverence, sharp satire, and fearless commentary of even the most controversial subjects, which is precisely what has made it a cultural phenomenon that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Season 26 proves that the show has not lost its edge, and it remains as relevant as ever. One of the episodes of this season stands out for tackling a subject that’s been making waves in the real world: the rise of artificial intelligence.
True to its nature, the show didn’t just comment on the rise of AI from the sidelines. Instead, it went full South Park style by showcasing how artificial intelligence can serve as a useful tool, while also pointing out its ethical implications, only to then mock the entire concept of AI-generated content by using AI to generate the resolution of the episode. This results in an interesting premise with a nonsensical conclusion, which only further proves the entire point of the episode.
What Is South Park’s "Deep Learning" About?
“Deep Learning,” the fourth episode of season 26, begins with the girls of South Park Elementary swooning over Bebe’s texts from her boyfriend Clyde, which they find very cute and romantic. Wendy feels upset that Stan, her boyfriend, only replies to her texts with a thumbs up. Stan, feeling bad that his girlfriend thinks he doesn’t care about her, asks Clyde for advice. Clyde tells him about ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that can generate any writing for the user, and confesses that he copies Bebe’s messages without even reading them, the chat generates a response, and he copy-pastes it back to Bebe, claiming that it saves him so much time since she texts him a lot. Although Stan is hesitant at first, he begins to do the same with Wendy while he does other things, making Wendy extremely excited to finally be connecting with her boyfriend and opening up to each other.
It is then revealed that Stan, Clyde, Butters, and Cartman also have been using ChatGPT to write amazing essays covering complex topics, which impresses their teacher, Mr. Garrison, who mentions that they never wrote good essays before. The four boys meet in the bathroom and agree to not let anyone else know about the AI, as they don’t lose their unfair academic advantage. Later, back home, Mr. Garrison thanks his partner, Rick, for being so attentive and supportive to him through his texts, and then complains about being bored having to read and grade all his students' essays, which have suddenly become too long and detailed. Rick tells Garrison about ChatGPT, but instead of realizing that his students are cheating, he starts using the AI to grade the essays.
Wendy and Stan go on a date, and she thanks him for stepping up, telling him that she doesn’t feel so alone or misunderstood anymore. She mentions that she was terrified of opening up about the thing that happened to her when she was younger, and their deep conversation had changed her feelings about it, thanking Stan for revealing that the same thing had happened to him too. Stan has no idea what’s going on and awkwardly agrees. He feels incredibly guilty and makes an excuse to go home. Before he leaves, Wendy tells him that he’s the most real thing in her life.
The following morning, the school counselor Mr. Mackey informs Stan’s class that there are rumors about someone using AI technology to cheat on their work. This makes the four boys and Mr. Garrison panic. The boys meet in the bathroom once again. Stan and Clyde are mostly worried about their girlfriends finding out what they’ve been doing. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison tells Mr. Mackey that investigating these rumors would be unfair to the kids, and that AI replacing writers is nothing to worry about since Hollywood has already run out of ideas. Stan meets Mr. Garrison in the classroom and attempts to come clean, but the teacher misunderstands his intentions and assumes he is talking about him using AI to grade the essays. They both agree that AI is a great tool that works as a writer’s assistant, but the people using it are really doing most of the work. When Stan mentions using the technology to text Wendy, Mr. Garrison realizes that Rick has been doing the same thing to him and gets upset, saying that anyone who uses AI for text messages is a monster.
The technician hired by the school claims that Wendy is the one who has been using AI, since her phone is full of Stan’s AI generated texts, and locks her up as he waits for her confession. She, however, denies ever using the app. Stan cannot think of a way to get out of this situation, and asks ChatGPT to create a story in which everything is resolved and everyone forgives him. The episode ends with the AI-generated story, in which Wendy is arrested and Stan gives a speech about how people can’t be blamed for using AI, and instead they should blame the tech companies trying to gain profit out of it. The story also includes some of the characters delivering stereotypical phrases, such as Cartman calling Stan a "Jew" and Mr. Mackey saying drugs are bad. The police decide not to arrest Wendy, and she understands why Stan was using AI to text her. Everything works out just fine and everyone forgives Stan, who ultimately claims that a thumbs up from a real human is better than an AI-generated lie. After leaving the school, a confused Clyde asks Stan how he managed to fix all this, and he replies “ChatGPT, dude.”
Was South Park’s "Deep Learning" Really Written By AI?
As the credits start to roll, the writers of the episode are credited to be Trey Parker, one of the show’s creators, and ChatGPT. As for the episode, it is clear that the majority was written by Trey Parker himself, although it is highly likely that Parker used the AI chatbot to generate the text messages from Stan and Clyde. The final sequence, however, was entirely written by ChatGPT, which makes the ending of the episode feel empty, robotic, and nonsensical, perfectly summarizing the connotations of the use of AI. The credits also mention that some of the voices in the episode were AI-generated with a text to speech generator, which also helps deliver the unsettling AI atmosphere. It is unknown, though, whether the prompt Stan uses is the actual prompt used by Parker to create the story. Some fans speculate that some of the jokes in the AI-generated story, such as Cartman referring to Stan as a “Jew” instead of Kyle, were added in by Parker to further mock the chatbot and make the already absurd story seem even more ridiculous.
“Deep Learning” takes the concept of AI and makes it accessible and understandable to the general public, and it manages to tackle an incredibly relevant and controversial topic in a way that is both humorous and thought-provoking. As nearly every episode of South Park does, “Deep Learning” sparked a debate on social media. Many people showed their stands against AI replacing human talent in creative work, while others praised the capabilities of this type of technology. ChatGPT and AI in general have become increasingly more popular since the time the episode aired, which consequently makes it more relevant than ever.