on thursday, scrubs Star Zach Braff posted a story on his Instagram account (archived by Vulture’s Meghan Wright) with the following text:
“I’m not dating a chatbot.
I can’t believe I have to type these words.
This is a story from an upcoming episode of Scrubs.
Maybe it came from that?
Not sure.
But not me.
Love,
That guy is not dating his chatbot.
Please update all gossip sites.
Braff’s story posts on Thursday were more than a rebuttal. They were an apparent appeal for decency on the part of fellow showbiz types Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate, Gabe Liedman and Kumail Nanjiani, who on December 18 — three days after Gizmodo reached out to Braff’s representatives — teased each other in a podcast segment about an unnamed lead actor who was rumored to be romantically involved with an AI chatbot. Supposedly, the unnamed actor was so bold about his relationship that he was chatting with the chatbot in front of others.
As documented in Wright’s post for Vulture, the rumor flared up and fizzled out last year, but a repost of the Silvestri-Slate-Liedman-Nanjiani clip surfaced on the gossip account Deuxmoi earlier this month, and it appears to be the fresh spark of interest that led to Braff’s denial.
““Besides, I had no idea until tonight (because I’m not on TikTok) that these people were the origin of it?” Braff wrote in an additional story post, “I think now is a good time to be kind to people.”
If the purpose of the denial was to kill the subject, then it’s safe to say that for Braff the results have been downright distorted. His denial of romantic involvement with an AI chatbot is now covered:
Plus Vulture, and now Gizmodo.
Online commentators have questioned his wisdom in addressing this rumor, as it was anonymous. Right of Vulture pointed out that Braff calling himself “the guy who isn’t dating his chatbot” could have been seen as an unnecessarily tricky choice, when he could have simply said “that guy isn’t dating”. A Chatbot.”
12 years ago, Braff had another uncomfortable time online — caused by the surprising controversy over his decision to use Kickstarter to help finance his 2014 film. wish i was there-The stars sat down for a Q&A with a YouTube documentary. This was not a particularly difficult interview, but some of his statements are worth reading in the current context:
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“I’m on Twitter, and they’re like ‘Did you read the comments?’ And I was like ‘You don’t want?’ And I realized that some people just post—and they don’t engage. I really love connecting with my fan base and letting them know they’re smart. They are not idiots. They like it. This is a conversation. It’s not me saying, ‘Hey look at my new makeup line,’ and so people can smell it from a mile away. Look what happened when Morgan Freeman did an AMA on Reddit. I don’t know if people followed it or not, but there was a big reaction because it was clearly a movie publicist just writing a reply to Morgan Freeman, whereas my AMA, um, I don’t hold anything back. Ask Me…It’s called ‘Ask Me Anything’. Ask me anything. I will answer it.”
Even with that in mind, I’m not holding my breath for Zach Braff to do a Reddit AMA just yet. If he did so, I would read it with great interest.
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