Black Mirrorreturned to Netflix with its sixth season, and its premiere episode has led to manyNetflixusers questioning whether they should cancel their subscriptions. Known for its use of real-world situations and a bleak outlook on our possible future,Black Mirrorhas outdone itself with the episode “Joan is Awful”, which tells a “terrifying” tale about Streamberry…which is Black Mirror’s thinly veiled version of Netflix themselves.
The episode starts off, asmostBlack Mirrorepisodesdo, with a seemingly normal scenario of a woman named Joan having some pretty normal and mundane events including publicly firing someone from their job and meeting an old flame after confessing to her therapist that she is bored by her current fiance. When she arrives home that night, she turns on her Streamberry account to find a new programme called “Joan is Awful” has appeared, and it seems to be a dramatization of the day she has just experienced. As the story unfolds it turns out that Streamberry has been able to take her live and make it into entertainment due to a clause in the terms and conditions that Joan signed up to when taking out a subscription.
Black Mirror Season 6 Review: A Fantastic ‘F You’ to Humanity
Of course, this is all fictional, but that hasn’t stopped manyBlack Mirrorfans from feeling a sudden need to investigate Netflix’s own T&Cs and maybe even think about canceling their subscriptions just in case. You can see the reactions from numerous Twitter users below.
Black Mirror Creator Charlie Brooker Tested Out An AI Episode
The world of AI creative programmes is something of aBlack Mirrorscenario in itself, with many tech companies all attempting to be the first to make AI something that works so perfectly they make themselves, and everyone else, redundant. However, that is still some way off, andCharlie Brookerdiscovered that when he attempted to get an AI chatbot to create an episode ofBlack Mirrorfor him. In an interview, Brooker explained:
“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 shit. 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.’ It’s [1970s impressionist] Mike Yarwood — there’s a topical reference.”
There is an ongoing debate over whether programmes like ChatGPT should be part of the TV and movie industry, and the current WGA writer’s strike has become a part of the discussion. While most studios and publications have pushed back against the use of any AI creations being used in their productions, popular comedy seriesSouth Parkhas already aired an episode that was co-written with the use of ChatGPT, although that was done to effectively promote human writing over AI counterparts.
