Jon Stewart is best known for pissing the right people off with his nuanced political takes on his Apple TV show The Problem with Jon Stewart, and it appears he’s also pissed off his employer. Stewart’s The Problem has officially been canceled, and the reason why may lie in his view on artificial intelligence, a project Apple has been quietly working on.
The show would not be returning for a third season on the streaming platform Apple TV+, The New York Times reported Thursday. Things came to an “abrupt” end due to differences in direction between Stewart and Apple fueling the split. The Times says that Apple was feeling tension regarding Stewart’s interest in covering topics surrounding artificial intelligence and China. Future topics related to the upcoming 2024 presidential election reportedly could have caused an even further divide between the company and Stewart.
Apple reportedly approached Stewart and informed him that he needed to be “aligned” with the company’s values, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Stewart apparently “balked” at the idea of being sterilized by Apple, the report says.
Taping for the third season’s first episode was scheduled to begin in a few weeks. The comedian and political commentator is currently in the midst of a multi-year deal with Apple to produce content with his company Busboy Productions.
Apple did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Artificial intelligence has been taking the world by storm for bad or for worse, with companies like OpenAI ham-fisting the tech into every facet of our lives. Apple has also been interested in its piece of the pie, and canceling The Problem over coverage of AI could be a way to keep the brand’s name positively associated with the technology.
In May, news broke that Apple was building its own AI while banning its employees from using large language models like the wildly popular ChatGPT. Apple made progress on its AI endeavors in July with the main AI framework being codenamed “Ajax” (perhaps a reference to Apple Jacks), while an internal chatbot has the name “Apple GPT.”
