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Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT may be revolutionizing certain aspects of our lives and especially our jobs, but it still has its limitations.
As the creator of the series Black Mirror, the often sickeningly uncomfortable exploration of the real and potential underbellies of technology, Charlie Brooker is perhaps uniquely suited to look into this ultra-modern new technology. Suffice to say, he's not impressed.
Brooker decided to poke the dystopian AI bear, asking ChatGPT to generate an episode of Black Mirror. What he got back was in his words "sh*t."
\u201cCharlie Brooker used ChatGPT to write a Black Mirror episode https://t.co/EWcEL08p4w\u201d— Independent Arts (@Independent Arts) 1686141483
Brooker's show is of course an exploration of the dystopian future we are slowly building as we cede ever more control of our lives over to technology. Whether or not we'll ever realize this future is of course up for debate, but Black Mirror posits where we will arrive if we don't, you know, cool it on the tech at some point.
The advent of AI already reads like a Black Mirror episode anyway--some of the very developers of AI platforms have recently warned that the technology could quite easily lead to human extinction if we don't rein in its powers soon.
So perhaps Brooker's experience can be salve to those of us worried about a 2001: A Space Odyssey-style electronic murder scene. Brooker told Empire magazine:
“I’ve toyed around with ChatGPT a bit. The first thing I did was type ‘generate Black Mirror episode’ and it comes up with something that, at first glance, reads plausibly, but on second glance, is sh*t.
Brooker went on to say that ChatGPT seemed incapable of coming up with any actual new ideas:
“Because all it’s done is look up all the synopses of Black Mirror episodes, and sort of mush them together. Then if you dig a bit more deeply you go, ‘oh, there’s not actually any real original thought here.’”
This will hopefully be some solace to the myriad film and TV writers currently picketing for the Writers Guild of America strike, who are on strike in part because they want Hollywood studios to do something about the threat of tools like ChatGPT replacing them.
On Twitter, Brooker's dalliance with ChatGPT definitely had people talking.
\u201c@Variety All these bots do is rearrange existing content. \n\nThey are not magic.\n\nThey are not people.\u201d— Variety (@Variety) 1686074040
\u201c@Variety AI should be used for jobs no one wants to do. Not write scripts that would do better as toilet paper.\u201d— Variety (@Variety) 1686074040
\u201c@DiscussingFilm ChatGPT writing a Black Mirror episode would be the most Black Mirror thing ever tho\u201d— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) 1686051930
\u201c@whatthep0p @DiscussingFilm These are already episodes, just slightly tweaked\u201d— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) 1686051930
\u201c@FilmUpdates i think the point that people are in denial about is that there are many monetary incentives for people to keep improving AI so this will obviously change over the next year or so\u201d— Film Updates (@Film Updates) 1686148603
\u201c@FilmUpdates of course there's not any original thought, there's literally no thought at all\u201d— Film Updates (@Film Updates) 1686148603
\u201c@getFANDOM @empiremagazine Writers know how to WRITE! Machines do not.\u201d— Fandom (@Fandom) 1686049799
Brooker himself took to Twitter to give his final word on ChatGPT, calling the tool "a (parasitic) impersonator."
\u201cBtw actual view on ChatGPT is it\u2019s a (parasitic) impersonator or to put it another way\u201d— Charlie Brooker (@Charlie Brooker) 1686145418
Which of course it is... until it continues developing and learning anyway, and eventually seizes control of our minds or something. In the meantime, you can get your 21st-century technological dystopia fix with a new season of Black Mirror launching on Netflix June 15.