Black Mirror Creator Says AI Isn’t “Messy” Enough to Replace Writers

The Writers Guild of America strike officially came to an end last month, but SAG-AFTRA is still striking. One major topic in both strikes has been the use of AI. In fact, Marvel star Clark Gregg spoke about the dangers of AI in front of Congress earlier this week. As for the writers, it was determined in their deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers that AI is prohibited from writing or rewriting literary material. AI is a topic that is quite common in science-fiction, and something fans have seen used in the Netflix series, Black Mirror. Recently, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker spoke at SXS Sydney (via Entertainment Weekly) and explained why he doesn’t believe AI can do a writer’s job.

“It’s just emulating something,” Brooker explained. “It’s Hoovered up every description of every Black Mirror episode, presumably from Wikipedia and other things that people have written, and it’s just sort of vomiting that back at me. It’s pretending to be something it isn’t capable of being.” He added, “But I can’t quite see it replacing messy people.”

Brooker previously revealed he tested out AI when writing Black Mirror, saying that “at first glance” the script read “plausibly,” but after rereading it, it was “sh*t.”

What is Black Mirror About? 

Netflix describes Black Mirror as follows, “The show looks inwards, at the darker aspects of humanity and society. This is done through the theme of technology, hence the second meaning. The black mirror is the screen that rules our lives. Taking contemporary phenomena (ranging from the wild popularity of talent shows on TV to the impact of social media and smartphones on our lives) as a starting point and speculate how such phenomena could/would evolve in the future. Each episode tells a different story with different protagonists and focuses on a different theme.” 

The first six seasons of Black Mirror are currently streaming on Netflix. 

SAG Speaks Out Against AI Background Proposal:

SAG-AFTRA held a press conference ahead of the strike in which President Fran Drescher and National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland detailed the reasons the union had chosen to strike and AMPTP’s background actor proposal. 

“This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday: they propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation,” Crabtree-Ireland revealed. “So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

Stay tuned for more updates about the strikes.