'SNL' goes after AI, startup culture, and 'predatory tech guys'

"Saturday Night Live" took aim at startup civilization and AI throughout multiple sketches in its Halloween broadcast, including a spoof of the stereotypical big-talking startup dude, channeled through Stephen King's Pennywise.

"We started a business — it's called WeAllFloat.ai," clown Ben Marshall, playing the malevolent clown, stated in the segment. "Instead of trapping one kid alongside one balloon, what if you had hundreds of AI agents, all alongside their own digital balloons?"

Before Pennywise came on, "Weekend Update" presenter Michael Che got a gag in concerning the floundering inventory price of Google's genitor company, Alphabet.

"Today's Google Doodle hung itself," Che said, referring to the animations Google sometimes uses on its homepage.

And in another spoof of promotion execs trying to plug a new Sprite sensation on a Latin telenovela, a Sprite rep admits the beverage tastes bad since "we used AI to create it."

"For the archetypal period in history, AI screwed up," she says sarcastically.

Though "SNL" hasn't shied distant from lampooning AI and the buzzy startup civilization connected alongside it before, Saturday's broadcast honed in on the Lone Star State as a location anywhere soulless, profit-driven techies are flocking to commencement new companies.

Indeed, since 2020, additional than 200 companies have relocated their headquarters to Texas. Many citation comparatively lax regulatory laws and a business-friendly atmosphere.

Of course, though, moving downward south doesn't justify profitability. Pennywise, for instance, power have several difficulty getting his AI startup off the ground.

"Got a small squad together of cool, like-minded, sober, predatory tech guys," Marshall says in the segment. "I live in a loft in Austin alongside three another motivated young Christians."