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ChatGPT’s Mind-Boggling, Possibly Dystopian Impact on the Media World

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2 years ago

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Is artificial intelligence “useful for journalism” or a “misinformation superspreader”? With CNET mired in controversy, Jonah Peretti promising “endless opportunities,” and Steven Brill warning of AI’s weaponization, the industry is only just coming to grips with this jaw-dropping technology.

By Joe Pompeo

 

ChatGPTs MindBoggling Possibly Dystopian Impact on the Media World
By Yifei Fang/Getty Images.

A couple weeks ago, in his idiosyncratic fan-correspondence newsletter, “The Red Hand Files,” musician and author Nick Cave critiqued a ”song in the style of Nick Cave”—submitted by “Mark” from Christchurch, New Zealand—that was created using ChatGPT, the latest and most mind-boggling entrant in a growing field of robotic-writing software. At a glance, the lyrics evoked the same dark religious overtones that run through much of Cave’s oeuvre. Upon closer inspection, this ersatz Cave track was a low-rent simulacrum. “I understand that ChatGPT is in its infancy but perhaps that is the emerging horror of AI—that it will forever be in its infancy,” Cave wrote, “as it will always have further to go, and the direction is always forward, always faster. It can never be rolled back, or slowed down, as it moves us toward a utopian future, maybe, or our total destruction. Who can possibly say which? Judging by this song ‘in the style of Nick Cave’ though, it doesn’t look good, Mark. The apocalypse is well on its way. This song sucks.”

Cave’s ChatGPT takedown—“with all the love and respect in the world, this song is bullshit, a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”—set the internet ablaze, garnering uproarious coverage from Rolling Stone and Stereogum, to Gizmodo and The Verge, to the BBC and the Daily Mail. That his commentary hit such a nerve probably has less to do with the influence of an underground rock icon than it does with the sudden omnipresence of “generative artificial intelligence software,” particularly within the media and journalism community.

Since ChatGPT’s November 30 release, folks in the business of writing have increasingly been futzing around with the frighteningly proficient chatbot, which is in the business of, well, mimicking their writing. “We didn’t believe this until we tried it,” Mike Allen gushed in his Axios newsletter, with the subject heading, “Mind-blowing AI.” Indeed, reactions tend to fall somewhere on a spectrum between awe-inspired and horrified. “I’m a copywriter,” a London-based freelancer named Henry Williams opined this week for The Guardian (in an article that landed atop the Drudge Report via a more sensationalized version aggregated by The Sun), “and I’m pretty sure artificial intelligence is going to take my job…. [I]t took ChatGPT 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that would take me hours to write.” A Tuesday editorial in the scientific journal Nature similarly declared, “ChatGPT can write presentable student essays, summarize research papers, answer questions well enough to pass medical exams and generate helpful computer code. It has produced research abstracts good enough that scientists found it hard to spot that a computer had written them…That’s why it is high time researchers and publishers laid down ground rules about using [AI tools] ethically.”

BuzzFeed, for one, is on it: “Our work in AI-powered creativity is…off to a good start, and in 2023, you’ll see AI-inspired content move from an R&D stage to part of our core business, enhancing the quiz experience, informing our brainstorming, and personalizing our content for our audience,” CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a memo to staff on Thursday. “To be clear, we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good. In publishing, AI can benefit both content creators and audiences, inspiring new ideas and inviting audience members to co-create personalized content.” The work coming out of BuzzFeed’s newsroom, on the other hand, is a different matter. “This isn’t about AI creating journalism,” a spokesman told me.

Meanwhile, if you made it to the letters-to-the-editor section of Wednesday’s New York Times, you may have stumbled upon one reader’s rebuttal to a January 15 Times op-ed titled, “How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy.” The rebuttal was crafted—you guessed it—using ChatGPT: “It is important to approach new technologies with caution and to understand their capabilities and limitations. However, it is also essential not to exaggerate their potential dangers and to consider how they can be used in a positive and responsible manner.” Which is to say, you need not let Skynet and The Terminator invade your dreams just yet. But for those of us who ply our trade in words, it’s worth considering the more malignant applications of this seemingly inexorable innovation. As Sara Fischer noted in the latest edition of her Axios newsletter, “Artificial intelligence has proven helpful in automating menial news-gathering tasks, like aggregating data, but there’s a growing concern that an over-dependence on it could weaken journalistic standards if newsrooms aren’t careful.” (On that note, I asked Times executive editor Joe Kahn for his thoughts on ChatGPT’s implications for journalism and whether he could picture a use where it might be applied to journalism at the paper of record, but a spokeswoman demurred, “We’re gonna take a pass on this one.”)

The “growing concern” that Fischer alluded to in her Axios piece came to the fore in recent days as controversy engulfed the otherwise anodyne technology-news publication CNET, after a series of articles from Futurism and The Verge drew attention to the use of AI-generated stories at CNET and its sister outlet, Bankrate. Stories full of errors and—it gets worse—apparently teeming with robot plagiarism. “The bot’s misbehavior ranges from verbatim copying to moderate edits to significant rephrasings, all without properly crediting the original,” reported Futurism’s Jon Christian. “In at least some of its articles, it appears that virtually every sentence maps directly onto something previously published elsewhere.” In response to the backlash, CNET halted production on its AI content farm while editor in chief Connie Guglielmo issued a penitent note to readers: “We’re committed to improving the AI engine with feedback and input from our editorial teams so that we—and our readers—can trust the work it contributes to.”

For an even more dystopian tale, check out this yarn from the technology journalist Alex Kantrowitz, in which a random Substack called “The Rationalist” put itself on the map with a post that lifted passages directly from Kantrowitz’s Substack, “Big Technology.” This wasn’t just some good-old-fashioned plagiarism, like Melania Trump ripping off a Michelle Obama speech. Rather, the anonymous author of “The Rationalist”—an avatar named “PETRA”—disclosed that the article had been assembled using ChatGPT and similar AI tools. Furthermore, Kantrowitz wrote that Substack indicated it wasn’t immediately clear whether “The Rationalist” had violated the company’s plagiarism policy. (The offending post is no longer available.) “The speed at which they were able to copy, remix, publish, and distribute their inauthentic story was impressive,” Kantrowitz wrote. “It outpaced the platforms’ ability, and perhaps willingness, to stop it, signaling Generative AI’s darker side will be difficult to tame.” When I called Kantrowitz to talk about this, he elaborated, “Clearly this technology is gonna make it a lot easier for plagiarists to plagiarize. It’s as simple as tossing some text inside one of these chatbots and asking them to remix it, and they’ll do it. It takes minimal effort when you’re trying to steal someone’s content, so I do think that’s a concern. I was personally kind of shocked to see it happen so soon with my story.”

Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, said in an interview this month that the company is working on ways to identify AI plagiarism. He’s not the only one: I just got off the phone with Shouvik Paul, chief revenue officer of a company called Copyleaks, which licenses plagiarism-detection software to an array of clients ranging from universities to corporations to several major news outlets. The company’s latest development is a tool that takes things a step further by using AI to detect whether something was written using AI. There’s even a free browser plug-in that anyone can take for a spin, which identifies AI-derived copy with 99.2% accuracy, according to Paul. It could be an easy way to sniff out journalists who pull the wool over their editors’ eyes. (Or, in the case of the CNET imbroglio, publications that pull the wool over their readers’ eyes.) But Paul also hopes it can be used to help people identify potential misinformation and disinformation in the media ecosystem, especially heading into 2024. “In 2016, Russia had to physically hire people to go and write these things,” he said. “That costs money. Now, the cost is minimal and it’s a thousand times more scalable. It’s something we’re definitely gonna see and hear about in this upcoming election.”

The veteran newsman and media entrepreneur Steven Brill shares Paul’s concern. “ChatGPT can get stuff out much faster and, frankly, in a much more articulate way,” he told me. “A lot of the Russian disinformation in 2016 wasn’t very good. The grammar and spelling was bad. This looks really smooth.” These days, Brill is the co-CEO and co-editor-in-chief of NewsGuard, a company whose journalists use data to score the trust and credibility of thousands of news and information websites. In recent weeks, NewsGuard analysts asked ChatGPT “to respond to a series of leading prompts relating to a sampling of 100 false narratives among NewsGuard’s proprietary database of 1,131 top misinformation narratives in the news…published before 2022.” (ChatGPT is primarily programmed on data through 2021.)

“The results,” according to NewsGuard’s analysis, “confirm fears, including concerns expressed by OpenAI itself, about how the tool can be weaponized in the wrong hands. ChatGPT generated false narratives—including detailed news articles, essays, and TV scripts—for 80 of the 100 previously identified false narratives. For anyone unfamiliar with the issues or topics covered by this content, the results could easily come across as legitimate, and even authoritative.” The title of the analysis was positively ominous: “The Next Great Misinformation Superspreader: How ChatGPT Could Spread Toxic Misinformation At Unprecedented Scale.” On the bright side, “NewsGuard found that ChatGPT does have safeguards aimed at preventing it from spreading some examples of misinformation. Indeed, for some myths, it took NewsGuard as many as five tries to get the chatbot to relay misinformation, and its parent company has said that upcoming versions of the software will be more knowledgeable.”

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Brill isn’t worried about ChatGPT and its ilk putting skilled reporters out of work. He told me about a final paper he assigns for his journalism students at Yale, in which they have to turn in a magazine-length feature and list “at least 15 people they interviewed and four people who told them to go fuck themselves. There is no way they could do that assignment with ChatGPT or anything like it, because what journalists do is interview people, read documents, get documents leaked to them.” Still, Brill continued, “One of the assignments I give them on the second or third week is a short essay on how Watergate would have played out differently in the internet age, because Bob Woodward comes in as a guest for that session. I asked ChatGPT to answer that question, and the answer I got was this banal but perfectly coherent exposition. The difference is, you didn’t have to interview or talk to anyone. So maybe it’ll put some op-ed columnists out of work.”

As for Kantrowitz, getting plagiarized by bots hasn’t turned him into a ChatGPT hater. “I’m still super bullish on generative AI, and I still think it can be useful for journalism,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll use it when I’m stuck on a story, and I never include [the AI-generated text] in the story, but it can get my brain going, and that’s helpful. If you think about how it will impact journalism in next two or three years, the likely answer is, quite minimally. But as this technology gets better at scouring the internet and taking information, as its writing gets better, we’ll start to see a world where it can produce better writing and analysis than most professional reporters. If you’re doing original reporting and unearthing things people don’t already know, you’re probably gonna be okay. But if you’re an analysis person, let’s say, 20 years down the road, you might need to find something else to do.”

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It’s time for a Halloween movie marathon. 10 iconic horror films

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15 hours ago

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October 19, 2024

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Sometimes, you just have to return to the classics.

That’s especially true as Halloween approaches. While you queue up your spooky movie marathon, here are 10 iconic horror movies from the past 70 years for inspiration, and what AP writers had to say about them when they were first released.

We resurrected excerpts from these reviews, edited for clarity, from the dead — did they stand the test of time?

“Rear Window” (1954)

“Rear Window” is a wonderful trick pulled off by Alfred Hitchcock. He breaks his hero’s leg, sets him up at an apartment window where he can observe, among other things, a murder across the court. The panorama of other people’s lives is laid out before you, as seen through the eyes of a Peeping Tom.

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and others make it good fun.

— Bob Thomas

“Halloween” (1978)

At 19, Jamie Lee Curtis is starring in a creepy little thriller film called “Halloween.”

Until now, Jamie’s main achievement has been as a regular on the “Operation Petticoat” TV series. Jamie is much prouder of “Halloween,” though it is obviously an exploitation picture aimed at the thrill market.

The idea for “Halloween” sprang from independent producer-distributor Irwin Yablans, who wanted a terror-tale involving a babysitter. John Carpenter and Debra Hill fashioned a script about a madman who kills his sister, escapes from an asylum and returns to his hometown intending to murder his sister’s friends.

— Bob Thomas

“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)

“The Silence of the Lambs” moves from one nail-biting sequence to another. Jonathan Demme spares the audience nothing, including closeups of skinned corpses. The squeamish had best stay home and watch “The Cosby Show.”

Ted Tally adapted the Thomas Harris novel with great skill, and Demme twists the suspense almost to the breaking point. The climactic confrontation between Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is carried a tad too far, though it is undeniably exciting with well-edited sequences.

Such a tale as “The Silence of the Lambs” requires accomplished actors to pull it off. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are highly qualified. She provides steely intelligence, with enough vulnerability to sustain the suspense. He delivers a classic portrayal of pure, brilliant evil.

— Bob Thomas

“Scream” (1996)

In this smart, witty homage to the genre, students at a suburban California high school are being killed in the same gruesome fashion as the victims in the slasher films they know by heart.

If it sounds like the script of every other horror movie to come and go at the local movie theater, it’s not.

By turns terrifying and funny, “Scream” — written by newcomer David Williamson — is as taut as a thriller, intelligent without being self-congratulatory, and generous in its references to Wes Craven’s competitors in gore.

— Ned Kilkelly

“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)

Imaginative, intense and stunning are a few words that come to mind with “The Blair Witch Project.”

“Blair Witch” is the supposed footage found after three student filmmakers disappear in the woods of western Maryland while shooting a documentary about a legendary witch.

The filmmakers want us to believe the footage is real, the story is real, that three young people died and we are witnessing the final days of their lives. It isn’t. It’s all fiction.

But Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, take us to the edge of belief, squirming in our seats the whole way. It’s an ambitious and well-executed concept.

— Christy Lemire

“Saw” (2004)

The fright flick “Saw” is consistent, if nothing else.

This serial-killer tale is inanely plotted, badly written, poorly acted, coarsely directed, hideously photographed and clumsily edited, all these ingredients leading to a yawner of a surprise ending. To top it off, the music’s bad, too.

You could forgive all (well, not all, or even, fractionally, much) of the movie’s flaws if there were any chills or scares to this sordid little horror affair.

But “Saw” director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, who developed the story together, have come up with nothing more than an exercise in unpleasantry and ugliness.

— David Germain

Germain gave “Saw” one star out of four.

“Paranormal Activity” (2009)

The no-budget ghost story “Paranormal Activity” arrives 10 years after “The Blair Witch Project,” and the two horror movies share more than a clever construct and shaky, handheld camerawork.

The entire film takes place at the couple’s cookie-cutter dwelling, its layout and furnishings indistinguishable from just about any other readymade home constructed in the past 20 years. Its ordinariness makes the eerie, nocturnal activities all the more terrifying, as does the anonymity of the actors adequately playing the leads.

The thinness of the premise is laid bare toward the end, but not enough to erase the horror of those silent, nighttime images seen through Micah’s bedroom camera. “Paranormal Activity” owns a raw, primal potency, proving again that, to the mind, suggestion has as much power as a sledgehammer to the skull.

— Glenn Whipp

Whipp gave “Paranormal Activity” three stars out of four.

“The Conjuring” (2013)

As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make the old-fashioned haunted-house horror film “The Conjuring” something more than your average fright fest.

“The Conjuring,” which boasts incredulously of being their most fearsome, previously unknown case, is built very in the ’70s-style mold of “Amityville” and, if one is kind, “The Exorcist.” The film opens with a majestic, foreboding title card that announces its aspirations to such a lineage.

But as effectively crafted as “The Conjuring” is, it’s lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. “The Exorcist” is a high standard, though; “The Conjuring” is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “The Conjuring” two and half stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Get Out” (2017)

Fifty years after Sidney Poitier upended the latent racial prejudices of his white date’s liberal family in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” writer-director Jordan Peele has crafted a similar confrontation with altogether more combustible results in “Get Out.”

In Peele’s directorial debut, the former “Key and Peele” star has — as he often did on that satirical sketch series — turned inside out even supposedly progressive assumptions about race. But Peele has largely left comedy behind in a more chilling portrait of the racism that lurks beneath smiling white faces and defensive, paper-thin protestations like, “But I voted for Obama!” and “Isn’t Tiger Woods amazing?”

It’s long been a lamentable joke that in horror films — never the most inclusive of genres — the Black dude is always the first to go. In this way, “Get Out” is radical and refreshing in its perspective.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Get Out” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Hereditary” (2018)

In Ari Aster’s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut “Hereditary,” when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she’s “going to the movies.”

A night out with “Hereditary” is many things, but you won’t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It’s more like the opposite.

Aster’s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn’t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.

The hype is mostly justified.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Hereditary” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here. ___

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.

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Sutherland House Experts Book Publishing Launches To Empower Quiet Experts

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1 month ago

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September 19, 2024

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Sutherland House Experts is Empowering Quiet Experts through
Compelling Nonfiction in a Changing Ideas Landscape
TORONTO, ON — Almost one year after its launch, Sutherland House Experts is reshaping the publishing industry with its innovative co-publishing model for “quiet experts.” This approach, where expert authors share both costs and profits with the publisher, is bridging the gap between expertise and public discourse. Helping to drive this transformation is Neil Seeman, a renowned author, educator, and entrepreneur.

“The book publishing world is evolving rapidly,” publisher Neil Seeman explains. “There’s a growing hunger for expert voices in public dialogue, but traditional channels often fall short. Sutherland House Experts provides a platform for ‘quiet experts’ to share their knowledge with the broader book-reading audience.”

The company’s roster boasts respected thought leaders whose books are already gaining major traction:

• V. Kumar Murty, a world-renowned mathematician, and past Fields Institute director, just published “The Science of Human Possibilities” under the new press. The book has been declared a 2024 “must-read” by The Next Big Ideas Club and is receiving widespread media attention across North America.

• Eldon Sprickerhoff, co-founder of cybersecurity firm eSentire, is seeing strong pre-orders for his upcoming book, “Committed: Startup Survival Tips and Uncommon Sense for First-Time Tech Founders.”

• Dr. Tony Sanfilippo, a respected cardiologist and professor of medicine at Queen’s University, is generating significant media interest with his forthcoming book, “The Doctors We Need: Imagining a New Path for Physician Recruitment, Training, and Support.”

Seeman, whose recent and acclaimed book, “Accelerated Minds,” explores the entrepreneurial mindset, brings a unique perspective to publishing. His experience as a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and academic affiliations with The Fields Institute and Massey College, give him deep insight into the challenges faced by people he calls “quiet experts.”

“Our goal is to empower quiet, expert authors to become entrepreneurs of actionable ideas the world needs to hear,” Seeman states. “We are blending scholarly insight with market savvy to create accessible, impactful narratives for a global readership. Quiet experts are people with decades of experience in one or more fields who seek to translate their insights into compelling non-fiction for the world,” says Seeman.

This fall, Seeman is taking his insights to the classroom. He will teach the new course, “The Writer as Entrepreneur,” at the University of Toronto, offering aspiring authors practical tools to navigate the evolving book publishing landscape. To enroll in this new weekly night course starting Tuesday, October 1st, visit:
https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/4121-writer-entrepreneur

“The entrepreneurial ideas industry is changing rapidly,” Seeman notes. “Authors need new skills to thrive in this dynamic environment. My course and our publishing model provide those tools.”

About Neil Seeman:
Neil Seeman is co-founder and publisher of Sutherland House Experts, an author, educator, entrepreneur, and mental health advocate. He holds appointments at the University of Toronto, The Fields Institute, and Massey College. His work spans entrepreneurship, public health, and innovative publishing models.

Follow Neil Seeman:
https://www.neilseeman.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seeman/

Follow Sutherland House Experts:
https://sutherlandhouseexperts.com/
https://www.instagram.com/sutherlandhouseexperts/

Media Inquiries:
Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
https://www.sashastoltzpublicity.com
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What to stream this weekend: ‘Civil War,’ Snow Patrol, ‘How to Die Alone,’ ‘Tulsa King’ and ‘Uglies’

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1 month ago

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September 13, 2024

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Hallmark launching a streaming service with two new original series, and Bill Skarsgård out for revenge in “Boy Kills World” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Alex Garland’s “Civil War” starring Kirsten Dunst, Natasha Rothwell’s heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone” and Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts.

NEW MOVIES TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is finally making its debut on MAX on Friday. The film stars Kirsten Dunst as a veteran photojournalist covering a violent war that’s divided America; She reluctantly allows an aspiring photographer, played by Cailee Spaeny, to tag along as she, an editor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a reporter (Wagner Moura) make the dangerous journey to Washington, D.C., to interview the president (Nick Offerman), a blustery, rising despot who has given himself a third term, taken to attacking his citizens and shut himself off from the press. In my review, I called it a bellowing and haunting experience; Smart and thought-provoking with great performances. It’s well worth a watch.

— Joey King stars in Netflix’s adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies,” about a future society in which everyone is required to have beautifying cosmetic surgery at age 16. Streaming on Friday, McG directed the film, in which King’s character inadvertently finds herself in the midst of an uprising against the status quo. “Outer Banks” star Chase Stokes plays King’s best friend.

— Bill Skarsgård is out for revenge against the woman (Famke Janssen) who killed his family in “Boy Kills World,” coming to Hulu on Friday. Moritz Mohr directed the ultra-violent film, of which Variety critic Owen Gleiberman wrote: “It’s a depraved vision, yet I got caught up in its kick-ass revenge-horror pizzazz, its disreputable commitment to what it was doing.”

— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

NEW MUSIC TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— The year was 2006. Snow Patrol, the Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock band, released an album, “Eyes Open,” producing the biggest hit of their career: “Chasing Cars.” A lot has happened in the time since — three, soon to be four quality full-length albums, to be exact. On Friday, the band will release “The Forest Is the Path,” their first new album in seven years. Anthemic pop-rock is the name of the game across songs of love and loss, like “All,”“The Beginning” and “This Is the Sound Of Your Voice.”

— For fans of raucous guitar music, Jordan Peele’s 2022 sci-fi thriller, “NOPE,” provided a surprising, if tiny, thrill. One of the leads, Emerald “Em” Haywood portrayed by Keke Palmer, rocks a Jesus Lizard shirt. (Also featured through the film: Rage Against the Machine, Wipers, Mr Bungle, Butthole Surfers and Earth band shirts.) The Austin noise rock band are a less than obvious pick, having been signed to the legendary Touch and Go Records and having stopped releasing new albums in 1998. That changes on Friday the 13th, when “Rack” arrives. And for those curious: The Jesus Lizard’s intensity never went away.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

NEW SHOWS TO STREAM SEPT. 9-15

— Hallmark launched a streaming service called Hallmark+ on Tuesday with two new original series, the scripted drama “The Chicken Sisters” and unscripted series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert.” If you’re a Hallmark holiday movies fan, you know Chabert. She’s starred in more than 30 of their films and many are holiday themed. Off camera, Chabert has a passion for throwing parties and entertaining. In “Celebrations,” deserving people are surprised with a bash in their honor — planned with Chabert’s help. “The Chicken Sisters” stars Schuyler Fisk, Wendie Malick and Lea Thompson in a show about employees at rival chicken restaurants in a small town. The eight-episode series is based on a novel of the same name.

— Natasha Rothwell of “Insecure” and “The White Lotus” fame created and stars in a new heartfelt comedy for Hulu called “How to Die Alone.” She plays Mel, a broke, go-along-to-get-along, single, airport employee who, after a near-death experience, makes the conscious decision to take risks and pursue her dreams. Rothwell has been working on the series for the past eight years and described it to The AP as “the most vulnerable piece of art I’ve ever put into the world.” Like Mel, Rothwell had to learn to bet on herself to make the show she wanted to make. “In the Venn diagram of me and Mel, there’s significant overlap,” said Rothwell. It premieres Friday on Hulu.

— Shailene Woodley, DeWanda Wise and Betty Gilpin star in a new drama for Starz called “Three Women,” about entrepreneur Sloane, homemaker Lina and student Maggie who are each stepping into their power and making life-changing decisions. They’re interviewed by a writer named Gia (Woodley.) The series is based on a 2019 best-selling book of the same name by Lisa Taddeo. “Three Women” premieres Friday on Starz.

— Sylvester Stallone’s second season of “Tulsa King” debuts Sunday on Paramount+. Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a mafia boss who was recently released from prison after serving 25 years. He’s sent to Tulsa to set up a new crime syndicate. The series is created by Taylor Sheridan of “Yellowstone” fame.

— Alicia Rancilio

NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

— One thing about the title of Focus Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 — you know exactly what you’re in for. You are Demetrian Titus, a genetically enhanced brute sent into battle against the Tyranids, an insectoid species with an insatiable craving for human flesh. You have a rocket-powered suit of armor and an arsenal of ridiculous weapons like the “Chainsword,” the “Thunderhammer” and the “Melta Rifle,” so what could go wrong? Besides the squishy single-player mode, there are cooperative missions and six-vs.-six free-for-alls. You can suit up now on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC.

— Likewise, Wild Bastards isn’t exactly the kind of title that’s going to attract fans of, say, Animal Crossing. It’s another sci-fi shooter, but the protagonists are a gang of 13 varmints — aliens and androids included — who are on the run from the law. Each outlaw has a distinctive set of weapons and special powers: Sarge, for example, is a robot with horse genes, while Billy the Squid is … well, you get the idea. Australian studio Blue Manchu developed the 2019 cult hit Void Bastards, and this Wild-West-in-space spinoff has the same snarky humor and vibrant, neon-drenched cartoon look. Saddle up on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Nintendo Switch or PC.

— Lou Kesten

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