

Looking at ChatGPT’s output reminded him of what some of his harsher critics say, and inspired him to keep on his toes. The experience wasn’t a total wash, however. It’s not the ChatGPTs of the world we need to worry about: it’s what humans decide to do with it that counts.Booker compared ChatGPT’s work to that of Mike Yarwood, a British impressionist and comic from the 1970s.
BLACK MIRROR EPISODES EXPLAINED SERIES
Brooker is especially skillful when it comes to distilling human emotion into a story and even as real-world innovation catches up with his imagination, the series remains a crucial exploration of not just our relationship with tech, but each other. Subjectivity is the essence of human creativity, and ChatGPT can only deal in facts. It’s a reflection of our lives and our perception of reality: two people watching the same drama may come away with two completely different takeaways. Television is more than a good idea and a script playing that idea out. ChatGPT can come up with a concrete plot, but it can’t capture what makes Black Mirror so grimly fascinating because it has no idea what it means to wrestle with human emotion. But it’s not just the idea of such technology that scares us, but how humans – who can act impulsively and selfishly and without foresight – will interact with the advancements. This is why they might be right Read MoreĪpple’s new VR headset Vision Pro, a Chinese app that allows people to rate their friends, Abba’s return to stage as digital avatars, the Boston Dynamics dogs and Google’s design for a “smart contact lens” all have echoes in Black Mirror episodes. News Analysis People think ChatGPT is getting worse and slower. ChatGPT has accidentally written its own eulogy. The scripts I asked ChatGPT to write based on its own idea were atrocious (“it’s a powerful tool, but it’s also a reminder of the importance of our own individual experiences and the need to preserve our own identities,” says Emma in the final scene). The episode claims to “challenge our perceptions of reality and raises profound questions about the nature of humanity in an increasingly technologically driven world”. “Is a remarkable tool that allows us to understand each other better, or does it dangerously erode the boundaries of personal privacy and individuality?” the synopsis asks. I’d watch that! But after reading the treatment a little closer, I realised it’s just a series of tired clichés.īuried among the plot details is some rather ironic analysis of the deeper themes and meaning of the episode itself. It told me a story about an actor, Emma, who is offered the ”opportunity of a lifetime” to access the memories of a legendary celebrity in preparation to play her in an upcoming biopic. I asked ChatGPT to “write a synopsis for a new Black Mirror episode” and, at first, I was impressed. Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul also stars in series six of Black Mirror (Photo: Nick Wall/Netflix) There is “not actually any real original thought”, he says of the AI tool. But if there’s one thing he hates, it’s apathy. Everyone is working out what it can do for them, from shopping lists to coding websites.įor all that he lambasts technology’s potential for harm, Brooker isn’t afraid to play around with it: his standalone Black Mirror film, Bandersnatch and cartoon Cat Burglar both embraced Netflix’s choose-your-own-adventure capabilities.
BLACK MIRROR EPISODES EXPLAINED GENERATOR
Because all it’s done is look up all the synopses of Black Mirror episodes, and sort of mush them together.” It’s not surprising that he would turn to AI – and ChatGPT in particular, probably the most famous and widely used text generator – to create a new episode. “It comes up with something that, at first glance, reads plausibly, but on second glance, is shit. “I’ve toyed around with ChatGPT a bit,” Brooker told Empire in a recent interview.

No wonder AI had no chance at writing a decent script. It takes an intricate, nuanced understanding of the human condition – of our fears, anxieties, secrets, hopes – to so successfully pull the wool over his audience’s eyes again and again. Whether he’s exposing a so-far sympathetic character as a paedophile (“Shut Up and Dance”), making a prime minister have sex with a pig (“The National Anthem”), or revealing an entire episode to be an elaborate ruse involving clones and murder (“White Christmas”), creator Charlie Brooker is a master of surprise. If there’s one accusation no-one can throw at Black Mirror, it’s that it’s predictable. Annie Murphy in series six of ‘Black Mirror’ (Photo: Netflix)
