Black Mirror

[droqen]

[AB]

[droqen]

Season 7, Episode 4 - "Plaything"

10:5x

We have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings. Or else, what is the fucking point of the tools at our disposal?

The solution proposed, perhaps not by the artist in this situation but the perspective character--the games-writer and game-player--is that of creation and subservience to some alternative sentience, a supernatural rejection of the worst parts of humanity in pursuit of the better.

I really enjoyed this episode, but I think for most of it that positive experience was riding from the, to my mind, climactically resonant statement quoted above made by the fictional game developer. Hell, I'll write it out again:

'WE HAVE TO CREATE SOFTWARE THAT ELEVATES US, IMPROVES US AS HUMAN BEINGS. OR ELSE, WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE TOOLS AT OUR DISPOSAL?'

... yet, I recognize that my reaction to it is different from the message that I believe is being conveyed or intended to be conveyed here. The solution, as proposed and enacted by a videogame developer who is not portrayed to be anything less than a relatively mortal human touched by genius (and a bit mad, but that's par for the course, right?), is that we should create software that is better than us.

Black Mirror has moved so much into a futuristic depiction of simulacra, of alternate realities, of all-powerful hyperintelligences. My partner was commenting as we watched these episodes (the first five of six in season seven) that the writing and plots of Black Mirror has become more full of flawed human nature than flawed technology -- which is what the vast majority of stories are about, but it feels like... it's not what Black Mirror is about?

I'm kind of irritated by the anti-human sentiment that has only been growing inside of Black Mirror. It says... look at all the wonderful things that technology can do. What a shame that people are the ones using it. Stupid, greedy people. Hurt people. Dumb people who can't have a conversation. Great technology is the solution to humanity's idiocy and misery, except when people fuck it up.

No thanks? I don't want to aspire to make software that's better than me. How resigned do you have to be to subscribe to the idea that you're so limited that you have to write a machine to do something better than you instead of just learning to do it better yourself?

People can be better.