Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs, the co-creators of Hacks, are now developing their first project since wrapping the first season of HBO Max's Emmy-winning hit comedy series. According to Deadline, the show will be called Hot Robot and is a half-hour comedy set in the world of AI development.
Aniello is set to direct the pilot, which will be written by Genevieve Aniello, who won an Emmy for writing on Hacks and has written for a range of critically-acclaimed comedies, including Broad City and Emily in Paris. Hot Robot will center around "a jaded young woman whose life is turned upside down when she’s recruited to work on a super-secret AI project by a big brother corporation." There is no word at this point on what outlet Hot Robots could appear on, as Aniello and Downs are currently shopping the project around.
With the upcoming The Matrix Resurrections set to reignite our late-'90s dystopian artificial intelligence paranoia, the intervening decades have seen the birth of social media, the introduction of functioning virtual reality, and the somewhat popular belief that we might actually be living in a simulation (which some people only seem to be half-joking about). The past few years have brought an array of different shows set in the tech industry, ranging from dramatic (Hulu's Devs) to the kind of half-hour comedy template Hot Robot could eventually resemble (Amazon Prime's Upload).
Our society's ongoing fascination with all things AI makes something like Hot Robot a potentially zeitgeist-defining concept, especially from the minds behind one of the best shows of 2021. Hacks is an observant and acerbic look at several intersecting issues, from different generations of women and how they see themselves and each other to problematic aspects of the entertainment industry. With the end of HBO's Silicon Valley leaving a void when it comes to satiric takes on the tech sector, the team behind Hacks has proven that they can provide the smart female perspective that Silicon Valley was frequently criticized for mishandling.
There is no information on when Hot Robot will premiere or where it will eventually land.