Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker takes aim at Rishi Sunak with AI jibe

‘If Rishi Sunak had been replaced by AI, I probably wouldn’t have noticed,’ screenwriter joked

Black Mirrorcreator Charlie Brooker took aim at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a new interview.

Brooker, 52, is currently doing press for season six of his acclaimed anthology series, which was released on Netflix on Thursday (15 June).

Earlier this month, the writer-producer admitted he used the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to see if it could write an episode of Black Mirror. The results, he said, were “s***”.

In an interview with Sky News on Friday (16 June), Brooker was asked if politicians were doing enough about AI. In response, Brooker joked: “If Rishi Sunak had been replaced by AI, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Actually, he’d be a good character to pop up like, you know the paper clip that used to pop up in Microsoft Word? I’d like a little Rishi Sunak that pops up and goes, ‘It looks like you’re writing about how depressing the government is – would you like some help with that’?’”

Black Mirror often satirises society’s obsession with new technology. In episode one of the new series, “Joan is Awful”, a character played by Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek) has her life turned upside-down when a Netflix equivalent turns her life into a drama using AI and CGI.

Charlie Brooker (left) and Rishi Sunak (Getty Images)

Brooker was in London this week to support the ongoing writers’ strike that has ground much of the entertainment industry to a halt.

“As a writer, I’m here to show my support,” Brooker had told Variety at the protest. “I worry for a living and I’m very worried about AI and the use of ChatGPT and things like that so that’s a particular concern to me so that’s why I’m here. That was written and wrapped before ChatGPT and stuff like that launched.”

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle entirely, but I do think they’re useful tools for writers in the same way Photoshop is a useful tool for illustrators and photographers and so on,” he continued. “So I don’t know. It’s above my pay grade to know how you regulate it, what sort of agreement there is. But I think it needs to be controlled.”

Pearl Harbor star Josh Hartnett recently spoke to The Independent about his role in Black Mirror, saying that he was drawn to the show due to its satirical take on technological dystopia.

Read The Independent’s three-star review of Black Mirror season six here.