¶ Introduction
Ready to go. All right, agree to you one Happy Thursday, Happy may Day. It is what this really is. It's the one month anniversary of the Chuck podcast. So you know when you in content creator years one month, that's the equivalent of five years of service these days, I have kid, but I'm having a blast. I hope you're
enjoying the content we're creating. I'm an amazing team around me that has been able to get me into some social spaces that I had not been to before, including my new and growing audience on YouTube like and subscribe. Do I say that enough?
So?
I appreciate that Apple podcasts Spotify. By the way, I tweeted out, we know some of you who get Apple or you know, we're fixing that and feed issue and that's that should be. That should be up and running without any problems, without you having to manually refresh very soon. But before I get to my guest, and I tell you this is going to be a fantastic interview, You're going to love it. It's Charlie Brooker. He is the creator of Black Mirror, the amazing Netflix series that's sort
of you know, near term, the futuristic. Some people think it's all dystopian. What's interesting is, I will tell you this, I had a lot of thoughts of what I thought motivated Charlie Brooker on various shows. I bet you, as Black Mirror fans, you will assume some things that you will find out are not true. What motivated him, what were his what were his creative mentors? If you will, both individuals and of different movies and shows. Just trust me,
you're going to love this interview. You're going to love him, and you're going to learn a lot about what it takes to create Black Mirror. In the mind of Charlie Brooker, it is just I am. I would have him on weekly if he had the time to do it, and there's no doubt, as you'll find out in this interview, this dude would be a lot of fun to be
¶ The first 100 days report card for the Democratic Party
in a writer's room with, that's for sure. But before I get to there, I spent a lot of time this week talking about the first hundred days of Donald Trump. But there is an opposition party that's out there, and I thought it would be worth doing the first hundred days report card, if you will, for the Democrats, because as bad as things have gone for Donald Trump, this has not been a seesaw as Trump goes down, Democrats
go up. That has not been the case. In fact, the hallmark of all of the polling you've seen is, even as Donald Trump's going down, the brand of the Democratic Party has yet to improve in the minds of voters. And arguably that's a pretty honest assessment. Right what have the Democrats had done to improve their brand? They really haven't done anything yet. If anything, they're still trying to
¶ Democratic voters are not happy with party leadership
figure it out. It isn't clear where this party is headed. What is universally clear, though, is that the DC leadership of the Democratic Party is not very popular at all. Whether it's aking Jeffries Chuck Schumer, they're feeling some pressure. I've talked to some donors who are very frustrated with Jeffries. Don't understand why Nancy Pelosi is still sort of lingering
over the leadership of the House as much. I had one prominent donor say to me over the weekend, I'm glad Nancy Pelosi was there to do what was needed to be done with Joe Biden's candidacy, but her shadow over the party is only hurting Jeffries in the long run, and is only hurting the party's brand in the long run. If the party is going to try to gear itself to the future, it's leadership of the previous twenty years probably needs to step aside completely so that you certainly
hear that. Obviously, Chuck Schumer has been feeling the heat. He's probably getting more of the arrows than most, considering he had to make a tough decision, which was whether to shut down the government or sort of let Donald Trump have a situation that wasn't going to be popular with the base of his party. I do think politically
he made the right call. He just communicated the idea extraordinarily poorly, since he spent one day talking up the idea of orchestrating a shutdown and then immediately backtracking on
¶ Which democratic leaders have performed well?
that front. But his political calculus about what the right call was I think has turned out to be right, which is, don't get in Donald Trump's way if he's in the middle of hurting himself politically. That's been the James Carvel strategy. So I would say, if you were going to give grades, the DC leadership is not getting good grades. I don't think they're getting passing grades yet. Now the question is who individually has had a good
first hundred days in the Democratic Party. Well, probably the best way to judge that as you look at it through the prism of future elections and the prism of trying to position yourself as a leader or a player at the table, trying to figure out what is the Democratic Party going to look like, what is the Democratic brand going to be? So immediately when you look at people who have made an early effort to make an impression, Corey Booker, he certainly has decided to take matters more
into his own hands. He did the twenty five hour Philipbuster, which got a reasonable amount of tension. In fact when he timed it. If you recall, I thought it was fascinating when he timed it. He timed it during the election and day of that first special election in April, which had the Wisconsin election and those two specials in Florida.
So it was sort of feeding the Democratic base as they were getting excited about winning some of these special elections, over performing in some of these special elections, and here he was jacking the DC message machine for a day, so I think, and over the weekend, Corey Booker and Akim Jefferies did a live stream from the Capitol steps. So I think Booker is trying to become one of, you know, trying to find his voices as a Trump resistor, another sort of DC insider that's trying that same thing
as Chris Murphy, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut. He's been trying to get on more socials, trying to sort of also become more of an outside voice in pushing the party, and you know, clearly is probably somebody at least thinking about running for president. I think Corey Booker fair to say that he's thinking about running for president other Democrats in the first hundred days. So I think for the most part, both Corey Booker and Chris Murphy, as far
as their own standing, I've made progress. And what they're where they're trying to get to. I don't know if they're the right answer. We're going to find out. Right. Corey Booker was not could not get traction when he ran for president in twenty twenty. Maybe that'll change this time. But some of the efforts he's making, you can see what he's doing, and it makes sense. Chris Murphy same thing, gets a little less attention than Corey Booker, but you see what he's trying to do. It may be just
the Washington baggage. You know, I'm convinced that the Democratic primary electorate come twenty twenty seven to twenty twenty eight
¶ AOC has become the heir apparent to Bernie Sanders
is just going to care about two things new and electable. Now, electable is going to be a debate, right, everybody has a different version of who's electable and what's electable. But new, I think it's going to be a big deal. Right on the other first hundred days, Bernie Sanders and AOC obviously, I think Alexandria Cassio Cortez has probably had a for her personal politics, a very strong first one hundred days. Right, She's already in line. There's no question anymore of who's
the heir apparent to the Bernie movement. It is her. It is not going to be Rocanna, It is not going to be anybody else. It is going to be her. It is hers, unless somehow she decides not to run for president. Now she's got two options sitting in front of her in twenty twenty eight. If she chooses not to run for president, she could run for a Chuck
Schumer Senate seat. I'd be as I told you in a previous during the Dan Goldman preview there when I said keep an eye on him for the future, I believe, you know, I don't believe Schumer ends up running for reelection by twenty twenty eight. Right, that just you sort of see where you kind of see where that's going. And I think he could be vulnerable in a primary if he's not careful on twenty twenty eight. I don't think that's the way he would want to go out. So,
you know, I don't know this, Nobody knows this. He's certainly been a very successful New York politician. So I'm not going to sit here and say that he should know when the time to go is. But I would be I certainly if I were a betting man, and as many of you know, I do enjoy a FanDuel a FanDuel app every now and then, I certainly would be betting against him running for re election in twenty eight.
So the question is does she want to be a constant, long term player in DC or does she want to go for it and seeing if she can win the nomination. I'm skeptical she can win the nomination. I'm not sure. I go back to electability, will she be able to pass the electability test, which is again very subjective, but I think the perception and there's going to be we'll see what the evidence shows, but I think she starts with a perception that she's going to have a hard
time winning in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But I'm going to just always be careful to under I'm not going to undersell her. She is what I like to describe as a very talented political athlete. And sometimes, you know, you look at the NFL draft and you'll see certain, oh, somebody's got his arms are too short, or he doesn't have big enough hands and all this stuff, but they're just so good at being a football player.
They overcome whatever physical trait that that that they should have that they don't have. And so I feel the same way about politicians is that you know, they can be such a good campaigners. They can overcome maybe it's a character flaw, maybe they overcome an ideological issue, whatever it is. That you can overcome these things if you're talented enough. So I'm hesitant to assume AOC can overcome
these things. I think she's proven to be a very talented, talented politician, and I'm just watching her go from activist to elected activist to start trying to have more say, you know, both figuring out how to balance inside game versus outside game. But overall, I think you could SAYOC
¶ Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzker teeing up a 2028 run?
has had a very strong first hundred days because she now is certainly the one getting in front of crowds, whether they're Bernie generated, whether how much she's in charge of that, how much it's Bernie's operation. That's still a pretty strong first hundred days. Then there's Pete Footage, his decision not to seek any office in Michigan, and he was contemplating there are two open seats in Michigan, a Senate seat and in a governor seat. Of course, he's
a new resident there. He moved the changes residency to Michigan from Indiana, and his husband moved there. His husband's from Michigan. So the question was going to be whether whether he would seek state wide office in twenty six, and I think if he did, he was taking himself out of twenty eight. You're not if you're running for a new office in twenty six. I think it's hard to run in twenty eight if you're running for reelection in twenty six to set up a run in twenty eight.
I think that's a different story.
JB.
Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, appears to be on that track. Although it's interesting to me that David Axelrod, who's an Illinois guy through and through, is a little skeptical about whether, if he wants to run for president, whether it's a good idea to also seek reelection because Illinois might not be as easy of a win for him as it has been in the past. But remember, he is a billionaire, the heir to the Higatt fortune, so there is plenty
of money there for JB. Pritzker. So I don't you know, is he somebody that's had a good first hundred days. He's also somebody that wants to become the resistor on the gubernatorial side of things, more so than a Gretchen Whitmer, who's been seen working with Trumps. She gotten too close
to Trump. I think she certainly had the worst photo op moment of any Democrat in the first under days, with the infamous folder over her face, and then she you know, it's look, if she wants to rise above partisanship, she can't keep apologizing for showing up at events with Republicans. That's a habit. She's got a break if she really wants to rise above and say and be willing to
go to places other Democrats aren't going to go so far. Essentially, she's done that twice now with Trump, but she's apologized. I didn't plan to speak right coming across as if, like, please don't be mad at me democratic base that I'm doing this, but hey, swing voters, look what I'm doing, right,
¶ Gavin Newsom is trying to distance himself from his progressive brand
You got to sort of project more confidence in that. So I think that how I think the idea is she's pursuing are good. How she's gone about him right now, I think I think could use some work. There's Gavin Newsom, who started a podcast in the first hundred days to try to break out of the stereotype San Francisco liberal narrative that I do think is going to haunt him for however long he wants to be in the national spotlight. There's no doubt he has ambition to run for president.
I'm somebody who believes his best shot was primary ing Biden when that talk was active and he decided not to. I think my guess is, you know, if he ever I always say this. The later in life, the more you age, you start you do start not thinking and worrying about the things that you did. You start wondering
and regretting the things that you didn't do. I have a feeling gavenusom forever is going to regret not primarying Biden in twenty four, that that is that road not traveled will be one that he wonders what would have happened had he did? Would the entire party be in better shape? Would he be seen as a hero even if he didn't win? Who knows? But the extreme effort he's making to try to sort of left wing of
eyes himself right deeper resivise them. But I don't know what you want to call it that he's trying to do. But he's sort of like, I'm not sure how comfortable I am being a Democrat that you know, he's sort of acknowledging the elephant in the room with people who you know. But is he also gone a little bit? Is it a little too manufactured? Right? Is it going to be? He's got to pass whatever. Authenticity is another subjective word. You got to be authentic, well, authentic to
whom right? But I get I get the overall idea, if it looks like you're trying too hard, voters will punish that as well. So I give him a mixed grade. A for effort, but I don't know, if you know, just like I would with Qretchen Wimer. A for effort, but I'm not quite sure if the execution's been as good as it could be. And then there's the people that I expect to be players in twenty eight that have no have decided not yet to raise their profile.
Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland, Andy Basheer, Governor of Kentucky, Rafael Warnock, Senator from Georgia, Mark Kelly, Senator from Arizona, Ruben guy Diego Center from Arizona. I was talking to
¶ Ruben Gallego could break through on the national stage
a polster earlier this week who said to me, you know, when we were talking about the Wes More candidacy, because I think that's going to be assuming he runs in twenty eight. I think he will be the biggest, the biggest establishment organization on the democratic side. I think he'll have some of the biggest donors. He'll have, you know, big some of the big names around Hi, him and Buddhajic. I expect to be sort of the biggest traditional sort
of campaign operations you have out there. But I had somebody ask me, it's like, if you're going to try to rerun Obama, be careful, right it may be especially now that Latino voters are the new swing voters of American politics, you know, should the Democrats be looking for a Latino leader? And so to keep an eye on Ruben Diego. He was pretty pretty liberal as a member of the House, but he really has been trying to sort of recenter himself with the with a statewide Arizona
electorate he did. You know, he got a little room to run because of who his opponent was in the Senate race, so that helped him a little bit. But he's still probably you know, he's been viewing very close to Mark Kelly here. I just keep an eye on him. I just think that that there isn't a lot of Latino leaders that feel like they're on the cusp of putting together national campaigns that are not associated with an
ideology of AOC. But I think she, you know, I don't know if she would have an automatic appeal to that swing voting, working class Latino voter that may be
¶ The Democratic brand is still toxic with voters
voting more on some cultural issues that they're uncomfortable with on the progressive side. So it's going to be it's something to watch there, and it's something that I'm curious about. So look, I think the Democratic brand is in the toilet and all the polling, even if the first hundred day shows you that it still is, voters can believe two things. At the same time, Trump's presidency is going off is going horribly, and they haven't yet seen anything
out of the Democrats that's appetizing. It's pretty clear that DC leadership is getting a failing grade. The DNC is mired in its own intra party feud over David Hogg and primary individuals, all of those things. The new DNC chair I thinks had a hard time sort of sort of establishing himself frankly, yet I think bogged down a bit by this David hog controversy and the fact that both Schumer and Jeffries have their own challenges being the
official leadership of the Washington class of Democrats. And it's been fascinating. You do get this sense that a lot of Democrats have decided to take this branding issue and try to deal with it themselves. And I expect more of this. This is what happened to the Democrats after nineteen eighty eight, and this is what happened to the Democrats to a lesser extent after two thousand and five, two thousand and four, So I expect more of this.
And this is something about every you know, when we're going to check in on the status of Trump and the MAGA, we're going to do this with the Democrats as well. So with that, I'm gonna pause there again. You are gonna love this conversation with Charlie Brooker. Uh, please enjoy it. If you're I'm an obsessive Black Mirror fan.
Sometimes I can't watch back to back episodes though and and and get a good night's sleep, so I do sort of limit my exposure to Black Mirror about one or two episodes a week as I digest the dystopian
¶ Charlie Brooker joins the show!
nature of our future. Uh, enjoy the interview and enjoy this break. Charlie Brooker, you are a guest that my wife is probably more excited about than anybody that I've booked so far. I'm excited to don't get me wrong, Okay,
¶ Is Charlie the 21st century George Orwell
but you know you've made the missus really happy that you're a You're going to be a guest in the on the podcast here.
That's nice tonight.
So let me start with this before we get into black mirror. Do you feel like you are the twenty first century George Orwell?
No, I would never. No, I mean I think that, I mean, that would be nice if somebody wants to make that comparison. I'm not going to spend four hours trying to desperately talk them out of it. But no, I think he was. He was probably a more astute political writer than in many. I mean, I could list all his qualities that I'd be very British about it, aren't I I mean very British and self deprematic. No, I've not felt a.
Ful humility, right, you know, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, you know, please please don't tell me you know? No, no, no more more.
I suppose it depends what do you mean in terms of what do you mean? What do you mean by that? In that he wrote nineteen eighty four and it was.
Well when you look at when you look at Orwell, and he's probably the most prominent. Right here's somebody who wrote about a futuristic dystopia. Obviously his was political satire. Yours is cultural as well as societal and politically, I would say, but in many ways. I you know, when I try to separate those two, how many people say, well, everything's politics now, everything is all fused together, right, everything is? And I hate accepting that premise, but I understand why
people think that. So that's why I mean, I look at it. If George orwell Will reincarded today, he wouldn't be writing novels. He'd probably making episodic series like you're doing.
¶ Is Black Mirror meant to be a warning?
I guess probably, I suppose probably. And then and I've probably been moaning that his show was doing better than mine or something. Yes, maybe maybe I suppose it's interesting because I do. It's it's an odde, it's an odd BLACKMR is a weird show in that I I don't see it as the job of the show to like be a sort of warning about nineteen eighty four. Was probably more felt like a warning, more overtly a wow.
A lot of people watch you, I think, watch these episodes and view it as a warning. You don't view that's interesting.
Well, I don't. I suppose maybe I don't explicitly set out to be a warning because I'm I may what it probably is, and a psychologist could probably it would probably word out what it is better than me. It's probably I'm a worrier. I'm quite an anxious and neurotic person. But I've also got a background in comedy. Why often it's me kind of worrying out loud. Sometimes the episodes
are kind of me worrying out loud. Sometimes I'm trying to Sometimes it's actually coming from a sort of really darkly comic place that we then play straight if you're saying in the shirt itself. So I'm sort of but predominantly I'm trying to entertain more than i'm trying to warn. And if I'm trying to warn it, I'm not always I wouldn't necessarily boil it down to a specific warning.
But one thing that frustrates me is when people say it's a warning about technology, which I really don't think that the show is.
Well, let's start beating around the bush. What's the show?
What is it? You did say it's a cookery show. No, it's a am I talking about it? No it's no, it's well, okay, so it definitely it's it's more about people. I think. I think because I think while these show I'm actually impressed by technology in my everyday life. I
¶ The show isn't about technology, it's about the human response to these tools
think technology is amazing. And I used to be a video games journalist.
One quiet, So you're not, you don't you don't have a phobia.
I don't have a phobia about I'm impressed and amazed by technology, and I tend to be an early adopter of well certainly like video game consoles and things like that. So I'm sort of like a tech enthusiast in many ways. And I think but I but like I said, I am a warrior, and I think that I am often awestruck by what technology can do. And then that naturally leads you to worry about the implications of a powerful because it's a mawful tool. And we're we're amazing creatures
because we create created these tools. But we're also there's loads of us, and we can be clumsy, we can be we've got faults, we've got flaws, and so we can So it's sort of so if there's any sort of parable going on, it's really usually in our stories, it's usually a sort of active human clumsiness or an active human impulsiveness or greed or jealousy or something like that actually is the downfall of the character.
Well, you know, it's interesting I watch Black Mirror with the following thought in mind, is that you're doing the due diligence on the impact on human beings that the tech companies themselves don't do. Right, You're sort of like,
and that's what I feel. In some ways, you're the test kitchen for where there's is headed and I sit there and i'm you know, because we talk like there are no ethics boards with any of these you know, they all every once in a while open AI claims, oh, we haven't we have ethicists on staff, or we're trying to have an ethics board, but really they don't. In many ways, you're the human umbudsman for technology right now. In that I feel like you're you're the human test kitchen, Like, Okay, yes,
here's this amazing tool. Like take your first episode. I feel like we can spoil episode one. I hope everybody's already seen episode one, so you take that episode. In some ways, you're optimistic, look at this, We're going to be able to cure, We're going to be able to be essentially replace pieces of the brain. That's exciting and and and in fact, that's that is the story.
In the story, it's absolutely life saving.
It's transferred then and then but then you sort of you go, okay, but what if it has to do what if you're sort of stuck always having to be connected to the cloud, you know.
Subscription model totally they're totally crush.
Yeah, And I can see your your comedian side in you wouldn't that be hilarious, right, You're like, uh no, yeah, upgrade, you got to be on you know plus, you know, or premium or whatever it is. But I could watch that episode and say, you're an optimist about where we're going and to be able to like be you know, with the brain, and you're a cynic because you assume somebody is going to want to profit off of people's pain and suffering.
Well, I mean you could argue that that cynical or unfortunately true. Yeah, it's realistic. And it's it's interesting that
¶ First episode concept came from a podcast Charlie listened to
where that story came about. That came about from me listening to a podcast.
Story. I'm glad you're telling it. I find it fascinating.
Explained so well, So I was listening to a podcast, you know, I listened to a lot of podcasts, and when the host has to do an immediate pivot into a sales pitch, it always it strikes me as it's really quite weird when they go for talking very naturally into a slightly more robotic kind of sales.
This is, of course, is when my producers are going to when our salespeople will insert the ad that's going to do right here, right here.
And I think I'd listened to like a crime true crime podcast and the guy was sort of recounting some grizzly like terrible, terrible incident and then sort of had to suddenly pivot into pitching a sort of food delivery company,
like kind of seamlessly. And this struck me as darkly hilarious, and so going into that story, I thought, Okay, here's a here's a that's a very black merrory idea, because I've been thinking about, well, what if you had a service that could kind of stream part of your brain like you do me if you you lose part of your brain that was a backup and it can streame it to but you've got all these issues to do with coverage, cell coverage, and then the idea of adverts
that became a funny and quite dystopian thought, and and so I approached that story thinking this is going to be a comedy, and it is a comedy until it isn't. And I think that's why it's quite I think obviously in that episode. I think it's a very powerful episode. I think Chris and Rashida and Tracy who are starring it, and Ali Panku the director, I think everybody did an
amazing job. And it's like slightly wrong footsoe because it looks like it's going to be a comedic story, and then the logic of the cold logic of it gets more and more inescapable, and I think that's quite quite often that's my that's not my happy place, but that's my natural I'm trying not to say wheelhouse I don't like that phrase, but well, wheelhouse is what is a wheelhouse.
Where they housed wheels? You're right, I love it. By the way, It's like it's like you know, when you're when when what is it? Uh? What is it? You know when people use undaunted and un daunted, you know what I mean? There was something like that. We have these weird expressions where we never use other parts of the word so I don't know, do we go to the house to put wheels in it? Right?
What is it?
Right? You know it's where Michelin's are made. Right, You're right, we've all.
Been saying, none of us know. It's like uh so so so so I quite like taking a premise that's
¶ The concept of paying for healthcare is foreign outside of America
sort of comic and then you find the sort of sometimes the horror angle. Sometimes we've done episodes that are more optimistic. But I suppose there what am I saying that I I you realize then that you've got a story that is actually commenting on on lots of things, the healthcare, health care and healthcare, general cost of living and.
Of healthcare. Right, like we we all know we come up with these amazing cures or there's medicine out there, but only for those that can afford it.
From perspective, I'm in the UK and I can't imagine, so I have you know, we have the NHS here, which is for the point of view, so all of that, so Breaking Bad wouldn't have really worked here as a show, like if you said it in the UK, because he Walter White would go and get treatment with like he'd now the NHS has also faults, but you would go and get life saving treatment very quickly, and you wouldn't be bankrupted for that here so so so so so
sometimes you did you realize, oh, I'm commenting on that. I didn't. I didn't realize when I when I walked into this sort of room narratively, I didn't realize that it was also full of all of this stuff. And so you kind of realize you're in quite a rich environment in a way, so you can and you can comment on lots of things. And also that episode is am I had to what what's the language like on this on this pod?
We don't.
We don't, but it's not it's not a massively offensive word.
¶ Facebook and X were fun at first, but then they turned up the dials for anger and grievance for profit
If you heard the word in shtification, in.
Shita plication, I have, yeah, yes, So it's not my.
Cory doctor Rose, this writer who coined this phrase in citification. And I was thinking all some of that, which is the process by which platforms or services the experience for the user degrades over time to cause well that's been it has to make a profit, it's the story.
Well, it's well, all these tech companies right they sit there with the big tech, whether it's Facebook or let's take Facebook and X two really fun experiences when they first were rolled out and then they went became public companies, and then suddenly they had to they had to convince shareholders that they could keep people on the site longer, and they were staying up the platform longer, and then they were putting more ads to them. Now, how did
they do that? They cranked up the algorithms of anger and grievance and hey, right, like it is and then you have and then we then you look at what Elon must did and he took all the whatever guardrails there were on X, he took them off. And I think that guy was writing about the gentrification of Twitter if I'm mistaken, like that was one of examples.
Yeah, kind of, and well I'm kind of sort of everything, sort of everything, and it's hard to leave, as you either, it's hard to leave. So actually it's a bit like.
Because you remember, you're right, because you also remember when it was good.
Yeah, when it's like being trapped in a loveless marriage, it's sort of like it's like you're trapped in this you you you entered into it. It was fun and now and then.
My wife is listening to this one very closely. I don't know what that is, Charlie, I don't know what You don't know what I'm talking know what you're talking about.
My wife doesn't know what I'm talking about. No, But as a metaphor, it's it's like a not what you thought you were getting into at the start. And you can't see social media all sorts of platforms, you can't see away. You're addicted to it now as well. I'm smoking smoking, That's what it's like. Yeah, and it's it's Moorish. Yeah.
¶ How long did Charlie have Black Mirror as an idea before it came to fruition?
So so so take me back to the to the creation, because what I love about the background you give a lot of hope to all of us recovering journalists who think that these creative ideas that we're all going to become. You know, we're all going to make some incredible effort that helps it. Yeah, but you know, how long did you have this in your head as an idea for a TV series before you actually could get it to fruition?
Actually not so. I My my career path is weird, and again it sort of slightly makes sense in retrospect. So I was a I was a cartoonist. First of all, I was a cartoonist. Then I was a video games journalist. Then I was sort of doing a website. Then I was working in comedy and I was writing for The Guardian, but I was doing like TV reviews, and I never
considered myself a journalist. I would write columns and I would write TV reviews, but I always considered myself a bit of a bound really like I was a or I was. I was attempting to do comedy bits. I was always okay right comedy. And then I had an idea for we did a show. I had an idea for a show in the UK which took a comic
premise and then played it straight. It was a zombie show, and the premise was that there was a series of the TV show, the season of Big Brother, the reality show, which at the time was absolutely massive in the UK. And the premise was there was a season of Big Brother, and what if there was a zombie apocalypse broke out during this and the people in the Big Brother house, who had been chosen by producers to argue and fight and not get along are sort of the only people
left alive in the whole of written. And then I thought the other funds that was a fan of sort of horror and zombie things. I thought, well, what if we and then what if we play it's straight? Was the other sort of the idea, and we did that and it went down really well. It was like really successful.
¶ Parallels between Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone?
And then so THEA it was Channel four in the UK, said well what else would you like to do? And I'd always been an admirer of the Twilight Zone, and we had a show in the UK Tales to the Unexpected, which was short Rob Dahl stories. The BBC often used to when I was growing up. They put out these really bizarre sort of one off plays, sometimes about that you couldn't kind of you'd go into school the next day and did you see that thing? Wore? A man fell in love with a tree or whatever. You know.
It's like a crazy sort of avant garde place. And then really terrifying films about nuclear war and stuff like this, and so I so I sort of that was what I pitched, and it was originally the idea. It didn't have the technological focus so much the original pitch. It was more I was interested in I read about Rod Serling, who created the Twilight Zone, and I read so I read a sort of biography of about him, and I didn't. I hadn't appreciated the trial Zone was away niche in
the UK. You had to see it was like on late at night, I sort of like ten thirty pm or eleven pm, like tucked away on a channel and at random times, but it would still really stand up and speak to me. And I hadn't appreciated that Rod Serling was a I'd only known him was the guy from The Twilight so that he was. When the Twilight Zen was first announced, people were going, why on earth is he debasing himself doing the show. He's a serious playwright,
he's a serious writer. Why is he doing a silly show about it looks like this is going to be about UFOs and little Green men and aliens and different dimensions. And of course it was because it meant he could talk about the issues of the day without being censored, because he could he could address things as metaphor. But also to a kid watching it, it was just that's cool, a chilling sort of story, or it's got a mind
mangling twist, and that's just really cool. And I kind of and so that that was the impetus was to do something that was a bit like that. But about now and then I kind of the more I thought about it, I thought, well, what would Rod be writing
¶ We thought social media would be great for society... then it turned out quite differently 37:00 How worried should we be about AI?
about now? What it would be technology? And it would be it would But again, at the time, at the time, it was so at the time the show first, at the time the show was first conceived, the view of technology was very, very positive, very positive. I think generally we thought these were these iPhones and smartphones were brilliant, and social media had helped bring about the Arab Spring, and it was going to rusher in a new era of diplomacy and democracy, and we're all going to talk
to each other. And the biggest complaint anyone had about social media was that it was full of people posting photos of their breakfast and talking about my nature in their life and being a little narcissistic, not unhinged. So it wasn't this sort of unhinged vortex of anger and hatred. But because it seemed so rosy, the portrayal of it seemed so rosy, and that it made me that the anxious, neurotic person in me was immediately distrustful and scared, right if because you kind of think.
Well, now we've all flipped, right now, everybody's now everybody's negative on tech, right, there's a general this is you know, there's a general concern right there. Immediately just look at just look at how I think we're all approaching AI.
There's this immediate art. Yeah, sure, you know, because there's always a lot of we don't want to do what we did with social media, where we were sort of yay, this is awesome, right, like you know this we're taking down dictators and only to find out whoa dictators figured
out how to use this themselves. Oh oh do you now do you think you're going to find yourself if you're a zagger and it sounds like you're a zagger, right, if everybody's going one way, you're like, okay, this is probably the time we need to show people what the what the other path might look like. Are you going to go optimist on us?
I'm probably more of a boring centrist in a way in terms of like, so I can worry again, I can. I have a natural ability to worry about anything. I can leap over five linipads over to immediate destruction and the apocalypse very quickly. You could show me a spoon and I would worry about terrible things that someone could do with that spoon, and so I can totally sit with AI. It's I can absolutely understand all the terrifying implications and it's the unknown, isn't it really is?
We don't know.
But you can also see, Okay, there are there's meread opportunities. That is an amazing tool, and we're not going to we can't really put the genie back in the bottle. We've invented this. Yes, I worry. I worry about you know, if you've got if you're in a kind of AI arms race, then obviously there's a an impetus to like and and people start thinking that guardrails are slowing them down, then there's a this is the reason to you know,
dismantle any guard rounds that there are. I think, kind of like anything, the printing press was an amazing, like one of the most amazing inventions in history. Caused all sorts of people because suddenly you had this way that ideas could be disseminated. Obviously, no one would say the printing press was a bad invention.
Right, Well, my favorite you know what the second you know, if if the printing press was the single greatest invention to expand literacy to civilization. The number two most important invention were eyeglasses. So and I it's not my idea. This was a fellow journalist who I was at this. You know, we were talking about all these technological transformations, and you know, somebody was mentioned the printing press, and then somebody mentioned the internet and computers and all this stuff.
And it turned out like if you if you look back, the second most hot invention for essentially literacy, right eye glasses, you know, was the people would actually see Yeah, I was in front of you could read right, you know, and it was one of those moments you were like, well duh, but you don't think sometimes we don't think
¶ The worry with AI will be two things. Will it take my job, and will it be my boss?
of a No.
Actually, that's a good example of a extremely in a way, very positively disruptive technology but probably obviously clearly did a lot more harmor good. Unless you can bet somebody put on a pair of eyeglasses and went right, I don't like that guy over there.
Man, I didn't realize how much I didn't like. It ended a lot.
I don't like my neighbors. Yeah so so, But like I guess, with any of these, with AI, you can see that the potential is incredible. The potential for it as a tool is incredible. The obvious worry I think that we all have is is that guy going to take my job? Is that that? Is that guy going to take my job? And then is that guy going to run things from that? Is that guy going to be my boss? Not just take my job, but going to be my boss? And how how do we manage that?
If that's the case. And I don't know, Jim, I don't. I think like any writer, you you look at like something like chat GPT and you are it's worrisome. It's it's a it's a it's a worry, and you worry about replacing any if we end up replacing I mean I could I'm talking creatively if you end up replacing if any creative work is is one human attempting to
¶ Has Charlie used AI to help with writing on Black Mirror?
communicate with other humans. If you take the cuman out of one end of that hype, I don't know what, You've got a different I think you've got a different form. You've got a different thing that I asked you.
That is, have you used any Have you used AI to workshop or road test any of your ideas? Have you used a chat GBT as sort of like a tenth writer in your writer room.
¶ Charlie's writing
I think if you start replacing writers in your well, weirdly, we don't have a we don't actually have a writing room or black mirror.
We say, what do you do? Like, tell me about like the pitch meetings, Like how does that work?
Well, now it's just I'm walking around occasionally. So I've collaborated with right, so we've done there's there's two of the episodes this season are co written. But we don't have like a formal writing room where people are sort
of pitching ideas and stuff. Usually what's happening is I'm wandering around thinking I've got nuggets of idea, and then they'll sort of coalesce at some point if that makes it like a sudden nature, I'll think, Oh, I know, I want to do a story about this, and I want to do a story with and here's a cool scene. I've got this. Well, here's a moment I want to do, but I don't. I don't know what the story is. And then I'll see something else or I'll think of
something and that will bause me to knit those ideas together. Now, whether I could regurgitate all those ideas into an AI and go can you see connections between them. I probably could do that.
Would it? Would it?
That's a scary Again, there was a good roll dull story about that, about an automatous writing machine with pedals for that's a scary Are you hatening your own demise by doing that? Certainly? I can see obviously when when chat gpt first launched, the first thing I did was you say to it, com then tell me a black mirror a type idea, and it started coming out with something that initially you go, oh god, that's that's okay.
That sounds plausible. It's sounded plausible, but it was also the more so you get the immediate as just watching the sentences come in. You haven't a media like Jesus Chris. You know, oh my god, this is I'm watching myself get dismantled. I'm watching the death of my career in
¶ People will be willing to pay more for human customer service rather than dealing with AI 46:30 Is Charlie obsessed with privacy?
real And then you go, actually, oh, actually, now this isn't that good. This is very this is generic, and it's for me like, oh, when I see this feels like a lukewarm, right, not very interesting pitch that actually is just bubbled together from fragments of because it's a.
Bit like the it's it doesn't and I think it doesn't work if there's not a human creative elopment. I think that's what we're going to learn.
I think so, but I hope so. And I think that we'll always want it. That's the other thing. I think we'll always want that.
The thing is, I'm convinced we're going to have to start paying extra for human customer service, like I've been. I hate AI customer service, right. You feel like they don't know. You get the automated chats or the automated this, and then you're like representative or ah, you know, you hit your zero whatever it is, and you have to wait longer to get a human being. I actually think some business is going to say, hey, why don't we charge people as a human to talk to a human?
But how will you know you're talking to a human? That's the problem, then, rates because you get well at the moment, it's because you get the equivalent of a sort of novelty be fob that impresses, that makes four sound effects. That's your like when they're rubbish and you're talking to one and it's just going I'm sorry to hear that. You feel that you're cross. Have you tried
looking up on our website. It's sort of chatbot that's frustrating when you've got one, but you're within By next year, you'll probably have one that within six minutes you'll be telling it your deepest, darkest secrets and confiding in it, because I mean, they're basically like Eliza, which was the that was the first sort of AI chatbot. Was this
thing Eliza, wasn't it? That was the sixties, late sixties something of that, and it was designed to be a sort of to just do what a basic psychologist would do, and it would just mirror back what you said to it. And there's a sort of famous anecdote about the guy who created Eliza asked his secretary to test it out, and within about twenty minutes she asked him to leave the room because she was telling it things that were private.
And all that was was a very basic bit of code that would go hello, what's your name and you'd say my name is Charlie, So how are you feeling today? And you go quite sad and would go, oh, Charlie, why are you feeling quite sad? And then before you know it, you're regurgitating yourself. And so they'll probably get to that point where you'll pay it not to speak to a human and you'll you're being speaking to her.
You'll be you'll be being psycho. You'll be sharing your deepest secrets with an AI therapist who's available twenty four hours a day.
So if I didn't know you, I would assume you were a privacy nut, like you're obsessed with privacy, because a lot I would argue a lot of your episodes deal with the issue.
I think you're right, but also, like people get shocked when I say I've like we've got like an Amazon Alexa device in the house.
No, you're right, I am already shocked at how much of a tech advocate you are. Because you're right. If I didn't know you, you're this is what you do, and you be like, well, this guy is probably off the grid. He probably has the aluminum foil on the doors.
You know. Oh, I'm like that. I'm not the unibomber. No, people often think it's like me in a yes, in a wooden shack with foil. Yeah, like you say, foil around.
Always spoil, there's always boil always.
But that would if I was sitting there, my computers wouldn't work, I'd be so sad and so I mean, I wouldn't say. I mean the problem is I don't think that I really do worry. I really worry about obviously in the creative industries, I massively worry about what AI could do as in terms of it's already a tight time, it's already a you know, challenging environment, you might say, and it could wreak real human habit very quickly. I can also see why, why why it's going to be.
¶ Technology will always put someone out of work
I mean, someone's going to do a movie that's using this generator, Like like when Toy Story came out and it was the first CGI animated cartoon, and everyone went, oh, you can do that, Wow, okay, and it sort of, you know, we didn't lose the art of hand drawn animation, but it meant that, you know, the default the animated films became.
Doesn't it? In fairness, doesn't every technological advancement put somebody's career get rid of some sort of you know, refrigeration. We used to have people that worked in the ice block industry, right, you know, literally blocks of ice. Right, we had refrigeration, and you didn't need the block of ice people anymore. Now there was probably a lot of people lamenting that those jobs were gone. Oh my god, where we automation is replacing jobs?
Right?
I'm being a I mean, I would argue this is sort of a repetitive cycle when it comes to any technological advancement.
It is, I supposed to the why he comes when it's when it's when it's it's all jobs, that's the problem. But it's basically when it's when it's all careers or jobs or not not all careers or jobs, because again I don't I have no idea how this stuff will pan out. Do you know what I mean? I don't actually know. But it's how we find It's beyond even the financial obviously, the financial impact on how you run, Like purpose, just what's our how we find purpose and
meaning in what we do. If a lot of what we do is replicated tirelessly by a system, I don't really know what that does to us psychologically. So it's so I think it's it's it's it's And again you could argue, well, maybe I only I am worrying about it now because you know, I'm a writer, and I feel like that's under three. And again I can see the value in it as a like you say, as a tool. I can see the value in as a tool. You know, we don't take an artist. We don't think we teach, we don't.
We don't teach spelling anymore, you know. And I was
¶ Will we have to teach spelling in the future? Have we taken away something from society?
like spelling test. I was, I loved and I was obsessed as a kid. I'm in my fifties now. Of course spell check happened probably after college, and then all of a sudden, now we don't care about you can't miss spell words anymore because of autocorrect, like people, and so I don't know what to make of that, but that is something now longer is relevant.
Yeah, no, is not an American thing because that in Britain. My kids, my kids, I remember them, they talked so much about spelling and like phrases. I didn't know what that like. They come home and go, I've got to do this work about try grass again.
Everybody thinks a British are smarter than we are. There you go, guys are still being todd spelling.
I don't know that we are. I think we're probably not being taught all all sorts of other things from British history or whatever.
But you get my boy, like spelling is no longer. You know, there was a time right if you weren't a good speller, you were uncomfortable even writing a letter you would get you know, you would worry that it would create a judgment of you, and and people would, oh, you're not a good speller, you're not educated. And now you know, we got the tools. You don't worry about it, right, And is that a have we taken away something from society? And again seems like a.
No no, because you're probably it means that you can you're not. There'll be people who were held back by the fact that they were dyslexic, or they were just weren't good at one thing and they were excelled at something else. And now it levels the playing field a little more. So that's a good thing. But again, I think the problem is that we we're sort of trained, were naturally sort of analyze everything and think is this good or bad? And the answer is it's kind of both, isn't it?
So it's so again, hands right, it turns out it's neutral. Right, what we don't think of it now? All technology is neutral. It's the humans that use it. Are they using using.
It's a powerful, very useful tool. It can also be.
Terrifying of death or a name in life.
I mean we could list you could you can list every tool in the tools in that wheelhouse and the wheel you know, someone can drive around their house and pick the door in so so it is it's just that it's the pace of it, The dizzying speed with which these things are coming along, I think is the thing that makes people rightly anxious. But it's also it is exciting, but it's also terrifying.
¶ Robocop was an influence on Black Mirror
I'd say another theme. Let me ask you about another theme that does seem to come through consumer You know, consumerism is something you seem to enjoy. Is that more of a of a comedic element to you or.
It's often a darkly committed because one of the I think I mentioned the Twilight Zone, I mentioned sort of weird British TV shows, and I think one of the things that and I've realized recently how much it influenced blackmir RoboCop thee eighty eighty seven. Was it like RoboCop the original?
And I'm so glad you about that is a weirdly brilliant movie. People simpully appreciate it. It's a brilliant brilliant movie ahead of.
Its time, way ahead of its time. It's a brilliant comedy as well. It's like a really dark comedy in a way that when I loved it, when I was like a teenager, I saw it and wore the VHS out watching it over and over again. And I think a lot of the actually a lot of the comedy sailed over my head. But what I really be sort of the dystopian commodification of everything that was going on,
and that was excellently done. I have to say. As a brit it was fairly, very heavily influenced by Judge Dread, which was Aish British.
Coblis, which what do you mean? And they made into a movie a couple years later because of the robotcarp.
Yes, so so. But but but the there's there's always been something I think at heart and again this isn't I don't. This is not what I sit down thinking when coming up with a Black Mirror story. I don't think this is what I want to write about it. Actually it's looking back, you go, Oh, that's what it's about. Almost every episode is about what's real and authentic in some way. You could argue almost every episode we do ultimately,
that's it. Whether it's a story where it's people passed into a sort of VR simulation of something, or it's
¶ The show deals with futuristic concepts, but also feels like it's taking place in the present 56:30 Is Charlie extrapolating the future on his own, or does he talk to experts?
you know, a character who is suddenly having to spout sales pictures in their every day life. It's it's kind of always about what's authentic, and that's something that's kind of under assault all the time.
Well, look, I think one of the other brilliant things you do is here you're dealing with a bunch of feu futuristic ideas, but the setting always feels right now right. You don't. You're always I feel like you're basically saying, hey, this is a little bit in the future, but it's very but we're going to make sure everything else is
as familiar as possible. So you have the beaten up Volvo right in episode one, and things in some ways things were the same, you know, the open place you go get a crappy burger and things like this, But then you have these little grace notes like the honeybees, which I know is a theme, and a few other things. It seemed very intentional. This is a seasonal you've always wanted to keep. You don't ever put people. You don't try to create futuristic landscapes. I've noticed, No, we don't.
I suppose it's because again, it's usually even when we've done we've done stories where there's a hugely you know, we're taking huge liberties with what is. You know, we're showing things that probably will never quite be possible, showing people kind of uploading their stoles or you know. But but you kind of always want to keep one foot
on the ground. I think that's just my personal taste is more the RoboCop end of sci fi than it is the Star Wars end of sci fi, which is more space opera in a far flung future, and it's it's more like it more into fantasy. So I'm more sort of that kind of, oh, this could happen at the end of my street if things go badly wrong. I tend to respond more to that, I think as a viewer, and so that's probably why that's where we probably operate most strongly.
Do you do you take a Do you try to meet with innovators in in in Silicon Valley and tech entrepreneurs to try to find out what's coming in heaving? Or are you is? Are you just sort of saying, you know, it's possible, we'll start replacing the pieces of the brain and this is probably how we how we'll be able to stop you know, geoblastoma or whatever it is. I'll pack it out and be able to replace this.
Is that just you guessing or do you just meek to experts that give you well, this could be what we do.
It's predominantly me guessing. Basically, it's me guessing or extrapolating, or usually you just you're not even thinking of technology when you start thinking about it, you know, you're thinking of something else, and then you realize that you can use you can give It would almost be a supernatural story, except you can give it a sort of technological explanation.
We did an episode last season. We did an episode called Joanie's Awful where it's a woman called Joan play by Annie Murphy, switches on the TV and season of the streaming platform that's showing a drama, a dramatization of
¶ The inspiration behind the honeybee episode
her life starring Salma Hayak, And that's a very Twilight Zone story in many ways. In the Twilight Zone it would have been like magic, or it would have been the uncanny. We can sort of say, it's AI deep fake videos, it's that, So you're sort of coming at it from that angle. I probably should go and speak to more sort of tech because sometimes there's things like sometimes there's things where I've put it in the episode, thinking I'm being very clever here, and then you realize
that it's actually like the honey bees. We did an episode in season three called Hated in the Nation, which is where we first have these grown autonomous drone miniature honey bees that were going around replaced because I'd read something about honeybees dying out and colony collapse and then and then I thought, oh, well, what if you had little miniature drone ones that could fly around and pollinate flowers?
And I thought I was being very clever and then discovered that I think that experiment had been running for.
I would just say, are there stuff that you've done? You're like, oh wow, I didn't you know that. You just either that or you foreshadowed something.
But well, the most unusual one, there's definitely okay. So we did. There's an episode we did back in season two called be Right Back, where it's Hailey Atwell and Donald Gleason and and Hailey plays this woman called Martha whose husband dies in an accident. This is it's almost it's almost a companion piece to common people this season. And anyway she is off the day she's missing him, she's discovers she's pregnant. She's desperate to just be able to if only he knew this, only she could talk
to him. She's offered this service which allows her to communicate with him from and it's an AI that's based
¶ Will we see AI avatars teaching history?
on his social media output. I didn't realize at the time that that was It felt to me like something that would become possible. I didn't realize how closely that mimics what.
Logic and that's you know, oh, not only that, I happen to be very involved in various ways to how do we educate people about the Holocaust and things like that,
And there's a take there. What they're going to do is they've taken all of these historical oral histories and Holocaust survivors have done and they're essentially going to generate even though they've passed on, they're still going to tell you their story and then you're going to be able to interact with them and have a conversation literally speak and respond, and it's going to be a large where you have a back and forth with a Holocaust survivor, you ask questions and the AI based on I mean,
it's it's one of those At first you think it's dystopient, but you know what, that's an interesting you know, are we going to well Albert Einstein, Well, forget Albert Einstein, how about this because this is probably more recent because there's well, Steve Jobs teach a computer science class AI Steve teacher, computer science class in twenty thirty five.
That's difficult, isn't it? Because what you're describing that, that's what, that's the that's the that sounds like the high tech equivalent of it's almost saying. It's like when you you know, you could read the diaries of Samuel Peeps in the sort of whatever century and you get and suddenly that period of history becomes alive and you feel because you're hearing somebody's and then.
What you think his voice might have looked like, and you have his image and then all of a sudden, there you go.
I can see that that he's recounting what happened to him. If you're talking about rebuilt like Steve jobs. Would you would would he have left enough information behind for you to get his how he would innovate ideas and how he would create things. I don't know God really thought about the educational uses uh of that as a platform.
But it's quite mean, I guess I look at the Holocaust survivors telling their story to children who can ask questions. That feels like, Okay, that's a good thing. You could see that tool, you know where does you know?
Where?
Where do you say okay, that's where we use it
¶ People get emotionally attached to AI companions
and that's it right? Like or where does that become weird? Right? Where does especially if you actually know that person, if that's your grandmother, are you having a different reaction?
How do how does it work in terms of like if somebody how does it? What's the parameters for the conversation? What happens if somebody is just sort of talking about it? If for advice in your own life? And then because what you see very quickly when the people talk to like you know, chat mots effectively, is they get attached very quickly. You mean they can become confident very quickly.
So yeah, we wonder why why these By the way, we wonder why these Nigerian princes are so successful at getting money out of people, right, I mean it is it is amazing. We human beings are oddly trusting ah in isolated settings.
But isn't that a good thing that we trust? Isn't that nice? Amound us?
Isn't ye a take advantage of ye?
Well, it's the it's that you don't want to become Why am I saying? You don't want to become too cynical? But it's not so so I can Again, it's it's interesting that you can. That's interesting. That's not that's the use I haven't really thought about. But it's bringing history alive, bringing history live and bringing and making it personal in a way that that feels to me like that's yeah,
that's that's interesting. But again, how do there's so many things to navigate there and so many ways that could kind of vary into places you didn't anticipate. That's that's the sort of you see. That's this is why tech companies I think, like what you were saying. Sometimes when occasionally when I've like spoken at sort of events where there's a bit like my advice whenever I'm asked or what should tech companies do? I think employ comedy writers.
It's my advice. Employ neurotic comedy writers who are going to horror writers or just dramatic writers. Employ them to sit in a room and work out the worst way what are.
The worst ways that people?
What was the worst that could happen? Because I think
¶ Will AI conclude that humans are a threat to progress
often people who people who just people who innovate in a different way, they probably have to blank that out when they're like on. Some inventors probably have to not think about that too.
I think in order to push forward right the good, I always worry about this with Silicon Valley. I think right now there is a movement in Silicon Valley where they think we humans are standing in the way of their progress, right right where we as human beings simply you know, if we just get out of the way, right, democracy awkward.
Breaks on the wonderful digital utopia that they will lusher in. If we could just shut up and lie down right,
¶ Technology brought back the dire wolf from extinction
let the computery steam roller just plow all over us. That's the losing side of what the point of it all is, isn't it correct?
Most of it makes us our lives better rather than essentially replacing us. But let me get one more thing, let me get you out of here. We brought back the dire Wolf, and I'll be honest with you, and that I feel like that story came out just when your season hit and there was a minute I'm like, are we making this up? Is this like sometimes like where we're headed with our abilities here and it's like, granted,
this is Jurassic Park, right, this is Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton was thinking about this stuff, who I also think, weirdly is sort of underappreciated in his sort of ability to sort of see some dystopian things down there.
Again, it's really yes, it's really great speculative like do me like just some great sort of yeah and tied to really actually stories.
But here we are with the dire warmf and you're just said there going, yeah, there's not going to be an unintended consequence to this.
Geesus. I do, I think so, But it's it's you can't again. It's like I am not a Lowe. I can't embrace the I'm not the like I said, I'm
¶ We're living through a period of accelerated technology
probably in a worried centrist when it comes to the tech in the future, and that I am an admirer of technology, I'm a I appreciate it, I'm awestruck by it. I like it, I stear it, and I fear the consequences of us clumsily misusing it. But that's not a reason to not It's it's just really and the problem is we are we're living in it again. It's we're living through if the printing press cause all sorts of ruptures, we're living through a sort of accelerated process of that.
But again, it will feel normal, is it like it's felt? How long would you say things have felt dizzyingly futuristic?
On other lines, on your age, I think we're in addle age, and I think when you're yes, I would say middle age is weirdly peak wisdom, both good and bad. Right you sort of you've learned enough life lessons to know what you shouldn't be doing. But you're not yet. You haven't lost it, like you know, at some point I always want to know what age it is. Is it's seventy two? Is it seventy where you start to you no longer are sort of grounded, right, You're.
Lost that you've lost that you're not have you not? Haven't got the benefit of findsight and well you haven't got the benefit of wisdom. You're you're just you're just sort of setting your ways up and.
And you because you know you're you're I know you're If you were an animal, you'd already be put up to pasture. I think that's what happens, right, That's something, it's something there you get.
There's a day you wake up one day.
Yeah, that's like you right, like you know, because you know it's.
Like mirror con sense, you're outlining here, it's one day, it's like you you get. But if you actually know what day you.
But if you know the day, like I always say, at what point am I going to want to go to the airport four hours in advance? Like my mother never was that person and then suddenly she's she's listening. Now, I'm sure, Mom, I love you, but you always want to be at the airport way too long. Why you want to sit there so long? But I assume when I'm seventy or so, I'm going to be worried about that too.
I you know what, I've always been. I am that person, and I've always been that. I'm the person who has to get to the airport really really early.
Oh, I'm like, I'm afraid of having any downtime at the airport. I think I'm wasting time.
No you're not, No, because no, because well, I think
¶ The pace of change feels dizzying and destabilizing
it's because I used to be a really nervous flyer and it was the one to me. So I think it's that it's a control.
The acclimator. You needed to get acclimated.
Yeah, one, I wanted to, yes, exactly, so I needed to feel like it wasn't suddenly sprung on me that I had to run and catch a plane. But no, So I again, I think that it's things. It feels like they're sort of Disney and pace of change, and that's incredibly destabilizing that I have no idea how it's going to pan out. But yes, my kids, I've got a thirteen year old and an eleven year old, both boys, and they it's all normal to all of this in their stride. Yeah, they totally like.
Minor eighteen and twenty one, and it's you know, it's all very normal. And I look at some of this stuff, going, boy, this is abnormal. But they don't know my normal. You know, they didn't know this stuff. You know, they didn't know the fax machine. You know whatever it is, you know, yeah.
So they'll be much better at you hope. Well, those are the things so obviously, because the next is that the next thing, apart from AI coming to take all odd jobs or make a super bad like, is you know, a sort of huge wave of sort of misinformation in video just dividing us even more than we are already
¶ Whose to blame for this moment, tech CEO's or politicians?
where there's already competing versions of reality and those are both now going to have twenty four hour visuals to go with them. That would you blame places?
Who's who that actor here? Is it political? Is it political leaders? Or textieos? Like? Who's who's to blame for this moment we're living in where it's been exploited like this the exploiters or the ones that make the tool for the exploitation.
Is it all right to blame everyone? Or bug?
I think it is?
I think it's it's not, because again it wouldn't it's it's But again, will that mean that the next generation? Will it mean just that? What happens when? Because at the same time, also you're seeing videos where you know, someone could you could see a video where somebody turned
¶ Could AI rewrite history?
into as to get your maples sort of thing, So you know that things can be like it can be surreal and strange but completely photographically convincing. But you know it couldn't have so. Well, the next generation just learned to not trust anything at all.
Well, that's my great fear, is that everybody's going to turn it. You know, if you ever talk to a Russian in Moscow, they'll say, I don't know what to believe. People that live in Moscow don't believe anything, right, because they've been so and in some ways they know this though they're educated to know enough to know, Oh yeah, you know, I don't trust anything I read. So I get that, and I worry a I don't know. And my great fear of AI is that we can actually
erase history. Now you know, there was there was supposedly a bunch of Russian propagandas who were trying to infiltrate these chatbots to sort of uh uh replace Ukrainian to try to essentially alter the history of Russia's relationship with Ukraine in history, and then you create it over time. You know, if you right, is it right? Is it right? You can actually erase historical events, right, And it's whether that you know, that's the Holocaust whether that's something something
else that that that distill. Yeah, that's terrifying.
That's terrifying. And I don't know, I don't know how that isn't I hate to say lightly, but I don't know how that.
Well, if you have the Chinese government controls information, so you know there, you know, there's no Tanum and Square, there's no history of what happened to Tianam and Square. If you live in China, well, and there's already a lot.
Of people who believe we're already there and then everything is a lie and then every like so so yeah, I don't uh no, that worries me. If there's no consensus on what is real or has been real, how do we cope with giant cinmate problems that are going to them all the way? How do we cope with when there's a big when a big problem. You know, I'm, like I said, I'm an anxious sort of I could
be an anxious apocalyptic warrior. When the pandemic happened, I was sort of comparatively calm because I thought we were handling it quite well well.
Like I thank you for saying that. I think that too. I know we all look back and there was lots of COVID. It wasn't it wasn't like it was a laugh, but it was. Yeah, but the globe, I mean, here's this, here's this event that all nine billion people on this
planet experienced together. And that's something that's unusual if you think about where we all, you know, everybody had had experienced this in some way, whether you live in a very uh in a very sort of uh frankly urban life, rural life, reclusive life, it didn't matter, right, everybody had to deal with this.
Well, we may we all had a reclusive life, right we you.
Know, we proved it could have been total breakdown of society and we didn't have that, and exact we should be happy with ourselves for that.
It was. It was that side of things, was that we were we were all worried and we all you know, you generally speaking, people were it felt looking out for each other. You had the young staying indoors to protect the elderly. You had sort of you know, you had actually more.
And there was some creaky thus all about it, and yeah, but they didn't like take matters into their own hands. You know, Yes, we had bad arguments and stuff, but within a civilized guardrail.
There's more arguments about it now, it's it's it's but it's it's, it's it's.
So in a way, you're right, it's hopeful that it was a hopeful response.
In a way, it was sort of like it wasn't that it wasn't you know what I mean, We we we So you sort of hope that we when faced because we are result Again, I'm not the voice of optimism, but you know, we are pretty incredible creatures. We do.
I think we're so resilient, were good, and so so you.
So we're just going to have to navigate that wild and so so how we I don't know how we counter, how we counter a sort of cynical destruction of all
¶ How did the COVID pandemic affect Charlie's thinking?
sort of consensus on what reality is. I don't I don't know. You sort of have to hope that we won't just end up tearing each other's flesh and fighting in the streets sort of thing. You have to hope that And again, we did we didn't do we could have done. The pandemic could have been a get load worse than we could have behaved in a much more venal way.
Charlie, I have to say, I'm so happy you have this uptim stick streaking you. I was worried or I just got.
To no, I think we don't get me wrong. I like, I can absolutely have total moments of complete and utter staring into the abyss sort of two and wait awake at four am, you know, the sort of carnival of horrible thoughts going through your head, and you worry desperately about your children, and you worry desperately about the future and where are things going. So I can absolutely do all of that. And and oddly the more of us who are worried, the better.
I agree. That was agree.
I think. I think that was the thing with the pandemic that really struck me was I was. I was. I'm one of these people who as soon as the first reports I remember I was on holiday over Christmas when that happened. There were reports of like the system, there's.
There's something going around, something.
On as a virus, something respiratory illness in China and blah blah blah. And I thought, that's going to come in, that's going to sweep. That's good, We're going to get there. I don't like the look at that, and I was really worried about it. At the point when everyone was worried about it, I can kind of the dread in me drops a little, because there's nothing more scary than thinking everyone else is being blather and complacent about something
that's worrying you. It's the wasp, but the picnic that no one else is. I'm the one who can't relax. If there's one wasp of the picnic, and if everyone's worried about the wasp, you move the bloody picnic blanket somewhere else, or or or someone catches it in a glass, And so you kind of have to hope that its survival instinct will realize that we need more of us, really as many of us as possible to survive, and that I don't know, don't I don't know, I don't know.
Are you Are you going to say? Is this is this ever stop in your head? Do you think you'll always.
Be the show or the I would I'd like to think it's something that can keep going, can keep morphing, can keep We've done we keep you know, I keep changing. I keep doing different types of episodes. We've done a sequel for the first time, we've done an interactive one. A few years ago. You can do a feature length ones and short ones. So I kind of think it's something that can be oddly, that can be very reactive
to what's going on. It's hopefully it's a weird It's like I said, it's a very odd show to do.
I'm aware that also. It's a bit like being in a band where we did a load of punk singles early on, and so you get some sort of fans who just want you to do punk singles, but we also did some that are a bit more like big love ballads or something that we're also really popular, and so now you're kind of trying to so I have to not I think my mental trick is to not think too much about what fans of the show expect and just write and write one.
That audience audience capture. Right, you have to be worried
¶ How long will Charlie continue making more Black Mirror?
that you're worried that are you making something to please the audience versus or you making something to advalance your mind, your thought.
We have we have because we because it's we don't tend to have the same characters from episode to episode. We have less of that and that people don't like. Usually our characters are absolutely broken by the time the credits roll, so people don't quite it's a different dynamic, I guess from on a big you know, like Game of Thrones or or you know, like some huge show.
So it just sounds like you'll always have an ambition to keep this going, and they'll always be and certainly.
As long as people well, as long as that I can keep coming up with ideas and people keep wanting to look at them, and as long as I don't get out competed by some AI, as long as they're not just staring into some folographic box in a few years, like just shouting and it's just staring at them and looking at their facial expression and thinking, here's an image
you'll like to see for the next two seconds. And they're just sort of seeing some kind of constant, deep fake, three dimensional TikTok that's being blasted at them, which is probably ninety five percent certain to happen. As long as.
I'm worried, you're just created. I'm worried somebody is going to start dumb dumbs really soon. I mean, in some ways, only fans is kind of like that.
Again, we did this thing. We did this thing, yeah, in the in the Common People episode, like Chris O'Dowd's character Mike has to pay He just to try and pay for the subscription by kind of debasing himself on this online platform. Within Again, I didn't realize that there was as soon as the episode came out at a bunch of people went, oh, that's this. Yeah, I can't remember what it was called. That's this thing where people
were doing that for sort of bitcoin or something. And so nothing new under the sun.
There's no new ideas. There's just better packaged ones. Right.
That's very cynical but probably accurate.
That's that's what chat TPT will eventually tease it. Hey, without the pandemic, we don't specialize in doing these credible zoom telecast now oh yeah, half of what it is right like, we will look back at this moment it actually created.
It was a moonshot. Yes, it was like a moonshot, but it was like having to come up with ballpoint pains.
And everybody had a come up.
They astaurants need to be right in space. So yeah, and it made Yeah, it made all sorts of things. It was a big but also I don't think we still unpacked actually psychologically what it did to us all, oh.
Well, look, I you know when we see we're seeing in schools with kids. I mean, look, there's no one saying we're saying it was great. No, no, I don't you know. I know there was bad, but it was sort of like, hey, the more important thing is we adapt it.
Right.
We adapted, we survived, and we ought to at least not sell ourselves short on that.
No, we're a bit better than again. It's like the thing that struck me it was how the number of times you'd see it. And I've written a zombie movie where it's like, you know, within society collapses within twenty minutes of this sort of calarity, and that isn't what happened, like in that in the pandemic scenario, that isn't what happened.
We were out in Britain, we were out banging saucepans every Thursday in support of the NHS, although I did read somebody was saying I think that was actually us banging the saucepans to sort of let other people know we were still there, which made me quite sad what I read that it was probably a more accurate read.
Charlie, I will have You've been very generous with your time. Black Mirror is just a you know, it's I don't think there's any aid could have come up with. This is a reminder that it takes, yes, it takes a creative brain to come up with ideas.
I hope, So, I hope we'll always want messy humans in our yes creative soup. I know if that analogy makes sense, but that's what I've said.
Well, it's brilliant and you mean to Whether you mean to have us think in dystopian ways or not, the point is you make everybody think, and that's awesome. That matters. That's all to me. That matters. You're making us think.
Good. Thank you very much, Thank you sir. That's very kind.
¶ Chuck's thoughts on interview with Charlie Brooker
Well there you go. We got to end on an upbeat note. Little hope in an anas all right, thank you, Thank you, a pleasure, great to talk with you. Thank you. Trouble So. I told you you'd enjoy that interview with Charlie Brooker. He is fascinating. That mind is racing. And I don't know if you had RoboCop and twilight Zone. I'm sure many of you assumed twilight Zone and rob Serling Rod Sterling was Serling was one of his one
of his inspirations. But you bet you didn't see RoboCop coming, And the minute he said it, I knew exactly what he meant. Go check it out. The first RoboCop was was sort of more innovative than I think people gave
¶ Ask Chuck
it credit for at the time. So anyway, it was just I learned a lot, and frankly, it only makes me enjoy the show even more. I hope you got a lot out of it too. All right, let's do a little last Chuck as Chuck. All right, here's my first question. This one comes from Chaz Latore and he writes this, You advocate news in every small town community. That's interesting, But if news was generated locally, wouldn't it just turned into an echo chamber for the local community.
For example, I come from a very left leaning town in Pennsylvania. Wouldn't their news cast just be an echo chamber where the word Trump would never even make it to a news broadcast. It seems like it would just be a lot of local Fox news channels that echo what the local community wants to hear. I would think
¶ Does local news just become an echo chamber for that community?
a broader national broadcast would be more balanced. What am I missing here? Well, there is no broad cast balance right as we know. If you're looking for national news, you're going to go and you're looking for news, you're going to go where you have a where you share some intellectual whether it's some intellectual agreement. What I'm advocating is not local versions of Fox or MSNBC. That is
not what I'm advocating. What I'm advocating is that we basically need a different you know, what local news was at its best, and I understand that some people probably you know, it's it's been twenty five years since we've had a healthy local news ecosystem. Arguably, so some of you may not have been around or didn't fully appreciate it. But what I would say is we need more service journalism, and local journalism was more in service of the community
than national journalism. National journalism is about essentially, you know, helping you be a citizen, your civics, but local journalism at its best is about helping you live your life. And that's what I mean. What we need is revitalize community journalism that is focused more on helping you live your life, focused on how to save you money at the grocery store, how to save you money at very you know, uh, to take your kids out to eat, you know, if there's a better night of the week.
It's it's being essentially almost like a community liaison. My vision for these small town and all of these community information systems is that you become the information helped ask for your community. And that could mean helping people find out when the high school game, when the high school lacrosse game starts this afternoon, helping people where to find it. I think all I want these places to be the streaming home for all of youth sports and in high
school sports. This is what I believe can be the glue to bring a community together. I also see sports as a way that you can sort of cut through red and blue because most you know, a pothole isn't Republican or Democrat. It's a pothole, you know. So that's that's that's what I'm that's my belief here. That's what I know people tell me that they want whenever you ask, this is what people feel like is missing. So I am a believer a little bit in the field of
dreams here. If we build it, they will come. But it needs to be Journalism that is focused on helping people live their life and as always say where's the cheap food? Give me some micro forecasting for my community versus the one right next door when it comes to the weather, access to all the important youth and local sports that I that I care about, and oh, by the way, who's corrupted my city council? And so. But it's actually that part is the end part of things, right.
You know, people who want to be informed are always going to get informed. It's about everybody else in the community. Those are folks that are just trying to get by, get live their life. Either they're not news junkies, or they've got other things in their life that take priority, like making a living, educating their kids, et cetera. How
about coverage for that? Right, that's the missing piece of this is that it's not about creating more local political news, although I hope we get that too, but I'm starting
¶ If the Republican party fractures, who would remain in the "traditional" wing of the party?*
in the places where I know there's collective agreement and when I know there's collective need. Jack, I appreciate the question and love the skepticism because it gave me a chance to push back. This comes from Josh in Ohio and Josh Wrights You've talked a lot about the possibility of the Republican Party splitting between more traditional Republicans and mega Republicans. If that were to happen, who would be in the traditional wing? It seems like MAGA is completely
taken over the party, So name some names. Look, I think MAGA has taken over the sort of the organizational structure of the party, There's no doubt about it. But I mean, look, the people that are an elective office who are clearly not MAGA Republicans but essentially are trying to be MAGA adjacent, right, And I think many of the MAGA adjacent folks would prefer to be in the
pre Donald Trump party, people like Tom Cotton. That's people like Tom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski for sure, right, Romney, Chris Sununu. So I think it, you know, to me, you you know, I might even say Lindsay Graham, you know, although I think he's a little more finger in the wind of where our South Carolina Republican's going to go is where he's going to go. But and I think some of these Republicans that have sort of gone back and forth with that, But I think there really is
a question about is MAGA bigger than Trump? Right? That's still the basic question. Is it bigger than Trump or not? And does a Trump junior brand hold MAGA together and keep it on its I don't know, right, I think that's an open question and one we're going to find
out sooner rather than later. But I think it's I think, you know, really it does split along the you know, do you believe in the in a sort of internationalist view that ultimately America is an example to set that we ought to spread our ideals of freedom, free trade, democracy, things like that, a free market, that that is something we should spread around the world, which I think is in part some of the free market intellectual thinking in
this sort of more traditional sense of the Republican Party. I do think that where there is alignment is in
¶ Is Trump manipulating the stock market so wealthy people can buy the dip?
cultural conservatism. So I think that that will continue to be the through line that keeps this coalition together. But if you're asking me to name names, those are the names I would go to, all right. This one comes
from Judith Workman. Her question, is it possible that the roller coaster that we have been on for the last few days, meaning the stock market, be simply a way to manipulate the economy for Trump and others in the regime to bring the market down so they can purchase more stocks, etc. And then bring the market back up to increase their personal Well, well, Judith, look, you're not
the only person who thinks this. There's no doubt there are people that are making money manipulating you know, who know who may have an insider knowledge of where things are going. But no, I don't think there is a large chunk of people trying to do that, you know. I do think there's the crypto community, particularly in the
in the twenty four election. I think there's quite a few people that are invest that are long on some crypto investments, that are desperately hoping that they have value and they're worried that it won't have value and are
counting on Donald Trump to give them value. But I'm not sure I'm there on the full fledged stock market manipulation because you know it, perhaps there's some short term traders, and if we had a more functioning SEC, maybe there'd be some legitimate investigations into this, But sadly, we don't have a an SEC that is truly independent right now that I think should be looking at these things, you know, especially in the world of Donald Trump, who you know,
he everybody, everybody sort of has the combination. I always joke Donald Trump is kind of like that Elaine character in Seinfeld when it comes to the vault. If you remember that, and Jerry Seinfeld used to say, Oh, everybody's got the combination. It was Hennessy, you know. I think that was the brand of liquor that all of a
sudden she'd tell you everything she had. You know, Donald Trump, he's made it clear if you want inside her access, pay two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and come be a member of mar Lago or come do this with crypto like, there is always access to him, and you might accidentally get a tip that can help you. But sometimes Trump's saying stuff that he wants to happen and it doesn't happen. And sometimes he says stuff that does
happen and you could have made money on it. But there are so many people that get that have bought access to get close to him at his clubs in particular, that you can't rule out that possibility. I just don't think it's a full organized barras for what it's worth all right. So with that, I think I'm gonna wrap up this this episode. Hope you enjoy the enjoyed the week.
If you haven't caught up on previous episodes, please do because I know we've had some issues with the automatic updating among those that subscribe to the podcast on Apple obviously, even if you subscribe on Apple, come over to the YouTube channel like and subscribe there. The check podcast has a YouTube channel. You can check us out on Spotify or wherever else serves up podcasts. So with that, I'll see you next week until we upload again