Can ChatGPT write Black Mirror? The creator tried

The rise of tools like ChatGPT is quite significant black mirror-the thing is. But can the AI ​​also host an episode of the upcoming new season? Showrunner Charlie Brooker decided to give it a try.

The last season of black mirror came out in 2019. Since then, reality has changed the anthologypretty caught up series. Apple recently introduced the Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset that lets you relive your kid’s birthday, among other things. in 3D The product demo images were candid. black mirror-the thing is. Not even Apple’s clever marketing machine can change that.

GPT, Black Mirror and strikes

Great strides have also been made in the field of artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, in particular, pretty much made sure we’re talking to a mass AI from the ground up. Boring email for work? Take ChatGPT. Summarizing a long report into bullet points for your presentation? ChatGPT. What is possible now compared to six months ago is already absurd, let alone where we will be a year from now.

In such a changing context, how do you start a new season of black mirror to make? We will know on June 15, because then the sixth season of the hit series will arrive on Netflix. In either case, the answer will not be ChatGPT. The current writers’ strikes in Hollywood, partly due to the fallout from AI, already sound like the start of one. black mirror-episode. In any case, showrunner Charlie Brooker can’t outsource his own writing to artificial intelligence just yet.

Episode created by ChatGPT

The 52-year-old Briton revealed to film magazine Empire that he tried to generate an episode of the Netflix series with ChatGPT. The result was disappointing:

“I played around with ChatGPT a bit. The first thing I did wasblack mirrorgenerate episode’ and came up with something that sounds plausible on the surface, but is actually bullshit,” Brooker told Empire. “Because they are just all summaries of black mirrorThe episodes searched and mixed them up, so to speak. Then when you dig a little deeper, you realize, ‘Oh, there really isn’t a single original thought here.

The danger of clichés

Practical GPT users will now no doubt notice that Brooker just used a clumsy message. If you ask for a literal episode of the show, you get a kind of greatest hits compilation of what’s already on the internet about the show. Immediately or not, Brooker got something out of the experiment: ChatGPT confronted him with its own clichés.

“I knew that I had written a lot of episodes where someone says ‘Oh, I was on a computer the whole time!’ So I thought, ‘I’m going to make all the sense of what I think black mirrorepisode is, throw overboard’. There’s no point in doing an anthology if you can’t break your own rules. Just kind of a nice cold glass of water in the face.”

The AI ​​is mostly based on what already exists, in this case, previous episodes of black mirror. In short, that is also a pitfall for series writers: that you create a pastiche of your previous work, that you are always using the same trick or cliché. Like artificial intelligence, the repackaging of existing ideas.

For how long?

So yes, showrunners like Brooker still need the flashy writers for the time being. Good news, but for how long? Will this be one of those news stories that we will look back on two years from now, because artificial intelligence will be many steps further by then? We will see! Meanwhile, Brooker is happy to present us with wonderfully depressing images of the future again. black mirror. Until 15 June!

Empire