The robots are taking more jobs every day, or so the warnings go.
Even the minds behind Black Mirror, TV’s darkest dystopian visions, are not safe it seems. Except apparently they are, at least for now.
Show creator Charlie Brooker tried an experiment – he fed ChatGPT, an AI writing tool, the prompt “Generate a Black Mirror episode.” The result? A disjointed mess that simply recited synopses of existing episodes.
Brooker realized the truth – AI lacks the creativity and nuance of the human mind. It can only regurgitate and repackage what already exists. To generate something truly new, you need a human writer.
Brooker’s experiment reflects a larger debate in Hollywood.
While AI could be a handy tool, the Writers Guild warns that it cannot replace flesh-and-blood writers altogether.
The union is fighting for better pay and benefits from streaming services that are rapidly growing their profits.
As Brooker saw firsthand, AI is full of holes. There’s no substitute for the complex web of human experience, emotion and imagination that goes into weaving an engrossing story. AI can only clone, it cannot create.
In the end, if Black Mirror is to warn us about a dystopian future shaped by AI, it needs human authors to craft those very warnings.
The chilling dystopias spring not from the logic of algorithms but from the fears of human minds – and only human minds can shape those fears into futuristic fables that stick with us long after the final credits roll.
Human writers – keep typing.
The robots may take many jobs, but they cannot steal the one that matters most: the art of storytelling.
