Charlie Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror, recently shared his experience experimenting with ChatGPT, a leading artificial intelligence solution. He attempted to use the AI program to write a new Black Mirror episode but was left unsatisfied with the outcome.h the outcome.
The rise of artificial intelligence is why more than 4,000 jobs have been cut since the year started. So the Black Mirror creator wanted to know if his own job was at risk by trying to check if ChatGPT could write a Black Mirror series story. Recently, there have been experimentations with several artificial intelligence tools to generate content and solve social issues; in fact, ai technologies have been used to generate songs by superstars like Drake!
Ahead of the show’s sixth season, Brooker was left disappointed and happy after the AI solution created what he termed "shit." During an interview with Empire, Brooker revealed his escapades with ChatGPT.
According to him, the outcome of the AI solution didn't come as a surprise. Although he didn't have high expectations, the story generated by ChatGPT turned out to be worse than anticipated. Brooker pointed out that the capabilities of ChatGPT are restricted, resulting in a satisfactory output for beginners but subpar for professionals.
"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 plausible 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," Brooker said during the interview with Empire. It was clear that the dystopian sci-fi auteur wasn't impressed by what ChatGPT did. While adding a few more details to his interview, the film creator mentioned that all the AI solution does is go through an extensive database and summarize the results.
ChatGPT is Great At Pointing Out Mistakes
While ChatGPT's capabilities might be limited in creating a new Black Mirror series story, Brooker conceded that the technology is excellent by pointing out some of his mistakes in his own works. He highlighted how the AI solution pointed out some of his writing clichés.
"I was aware that I had written lots of episodes where someone goes, ‘Oh, I was inside a computer the whole time!’ So I thought, ‘I’m just going to chuck out any sense of what I think a Black Mirror episode is.’ There’s no point in having an anthology show if you can’t break your own rules. Just a sort of nice, cold glass of water in the face," he added. The creator established that ChatGPT can't be used for many creative endeavors as orchestrated by many people. However, it can make certain contributions to work by pointing out where to improve.
Brookers new interview about ChatGPT also comes in handy after Hollywood writers went on strike for many issues relating to the industry. After the strike, many suggested that AI solutions like ChatGPT could be used to replace these writers. The new experiment from the Black Mirror creator shows that up till the moment, movie writers would still keep their job.