Black Mirror creator explains why we should be scared of AI in TV

❘ Published: 2023-08-07T09:11:57

Annie Murphy in Black Mirror Season 6 episode 'Joan is Awful'

Netflix

As the writers’ and actors’ strikes rage on, Charlie Brooker – the legendary creator of Black Mirror – has opened up about why we should be scared of artificial intelligence in TV.

If there’s anyone who should be talking about AI in TV, it’s Charlie Brooker. The Black Mirror creator has had his finger on the pulse for decades, having accurately predicted our tech-led future in a number of ways.

The latest is his Season 6 episode ‘Joan is Awful’, which mirrors the issues raised by the actors’ strike as the titular character’s digital likeness is used by Streamberry (a rip of Netflix) for a TV series without pay or consent.

While it might be a hyperbolized account of how this AI-led future might look, a number of background actors have already been subjected to this practice, and it’s one of the key issues highlighted by SAG-AFTRA amid its standoff with the studios.

Black Mirror creator explains why we should be scared of AI in TV

Not only is the use of AI a concern for Hollywood’s actors, but the same is true for those penning scripts, with the Writers Guild of America requesting regulation on the use of AI-generated scripts.

Brooker spoke about this topic in a new interview with Peter Kafka for Vox, explaining that while tools such as ChatGPT are useful, “the scary thing is I can imagine people using it to generate something that they then claim to own, which isn’t good enough to actually pass muster, that you’d have to then hire a human in, cheaply, to knock into shape.”

Charlie Brooker seen at the ‘Black Mirror' panel

While Brooker acknowledged that human writers take influence from other artists – Black Mirror’s ’USS Callister’ is “directly inspired” by The Twilight Zone episode ‘It’s a Good Life’ – he pointed out AI-generated responses are “fairly generic.”

“So now that is an example of me, I guess, parasitically hoovering up something that Rod Serling wrote, putting it through my own little AI in my brain,” he said. “I guess you just call it ‘I.’ There’s nothing artificial about it. Just my I.”

When Kafka asked if it’s “a real fear for writers and actors” that studios would want to use AI to replace much of what they do, Brooker replied: “I think it’s a real fear.

“I think the fear with writing is that the studio could use it to generate vomit drafts of things, and then hire human writers to depressingly rewrite it. And make it human. And that’s a very depressing state of affairs.”

Black Mirror Seasons 1-6 are available to stream on Netflix now. You can check out our other coverage below: