One of the dumber ideas American Idol ever came up with is the online audition. The way it’s sat up ’til now, when tone-deaf people show up in the judges’ room to be mocked, you’ve been expected to believe they’re just random auditioners – as if 22,000 people showed up at the Alamo-dome and Randy, J-Lo and Steven took a few minutes to listen to each and every one of them.
That’s impossible, of course. But that’s how the producers have always contrived it to look, and no small number of people have undoubtedly believed it.
But when they pull people out of thousands of Internet auditioners to sing for the judges, and some of THEM couldn’t hit a note with a bazooka, that’s an obvious, deliberate decision. AI has never come out and said it deliberately picked delusional fruitcakes for our cruel entertainment. But they’ve shattered the illusion with this “innovation.”