In any conversation about artificial intelligence, the hit series “Black Mirror” usually comes up, thanks to its stories about humans’ lives being impacted by technology, mostly for the worse.
“The soothsaying aspect comes up quite often. Unfortunately, I seem to have an early alert system for people sending me things like, ‘Have you seen this news story? This is quite Black Mirror.’ And all I can say is, ‘Well, I’m just exaggerating something I’ve seen,’” series creator Charlie Brooker told Deadline.
He continued, “And it’s just the way that, unfortunately, the world works. It seems that things get worse, so reality did catch up.”
The most recent season, streaming on Netflix, featured an episode titled “Joan is Awful,” starring Salma Hayek and “Schitt’s Creek” star Annie Murphy, about a woman named Joan who has her life ruined when her every move is turned into a TV show, thanks to AI-generated content.
“Black Mirror” creator Charlie Brooker told Deadline, “Unfortunately, I seem to have an early alert system for people sending me things like, ‘Have you seen this news story? This is quite Black Mirror.’ And all I can say is, ‘Well, I’m just exaggerating something I’ve seen.'” (River Callaway/Variety via Getty Images)
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The episode premiered in June 2023, in the middle of the writer’s strike and just before the actor’s strike, both of which heavily focused on the impact of AI on entertainment.
Brooker said the timing of the episode “was crazy.”
“However, the timing of this massively spiked public interest in AI as a threat to the creative industries and the creative arts,” he said. “And so, it was nuts because we were in post-production on the episode at that time, and the timeliness of that as it came out around the strike, I couldn’t have foreseen, but gratifying to have done something about it.”
“If the episode was helping to — in its own comically grotesque way — articulate some of the dangers and some of the problems and fears, then that’s especially satisfying,” he added.
Brooker said the “Black Mirror” episode about generative AI premiering during the writers’ strike last year was coincidence, but hoped it helped “articulate some of the dangers and some of the problems and fears.” (Getty Images)
He also noted that Hayek and Murphy were already “disturbed” by the idea of deepfakes “and they’re already thinking about what control do they have over their literal image.”
Hayek told The Radio Times last year the episode genuinely scared her.
“Just like any powerful tool, it’s what you do with it.”
“There are so many moments that shocked me in the script. There is one huge one that I had to come to terms with, and made me ask myself, ‘Do I really want to do this? Am I going to get in trouble?’” Hayek told the outlet.
She played a version of herself in the episode, starring as the fake Joan in the AI-generated show within the show.
Salma Hayek said the “Black Mirror” episode she starred in has “so many moments that shocked me in the script.” (Jo Hale/FilmMagic)
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“It’s as if I created an alter ego where I could do the most disgusting, grotesque things that you would never do in real life … and have permission to do that.”
She added, “It’s been absurd and a lot of fun. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play an interpretation of myself. I got to explore the concepts and clichés people have about me and be self-deprecating.”
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Despite the often-prescient nature of the show, Brooker never intended for “Black Mirror” to be a “‘Oh, it’s the phones are evil and tech is bad’ show.”
“It’s because I think I’m impressed by the technological tools that we create, because they’re f–king amazing, and phones are amazing. Just like any powerful tool, it’s what you do with it,” he explained.
Brooker said he never intended for “Black Mirror” to be a “‘Oh, it’s the phones are evil and tech is bad’ show.” (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for SXSW Sydney)
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“AI-generated imagery, for example, is impressive and incredible. You could use it completely f–king destabilize our society by pumping out terrifying misinformation, or just use it as a tool in Photoshop that fills things in, or use it to bounce ideas back and forth, or something innocuous as a list of names for coal miners in the 1930s that I can pick.”
But Brooker doesn’t think AI-generated creativity is the way forward for Hollywood, saying, “If you were using it to generate a pitch and then try to turn it into a show, I think that’s not good. And you’ll end up with dog s–t, and you’ll be putting people out of work.
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“So, with any of these things, it’s how you use it. So, if anything, it’s not ‘the tech is bad’ show. It’s ‘the tech is impressive but neutral and the humans, it’s not that we are f–k-ups, because we’ve invented this stuff, we’re amazing’ show.”