Pluribus writer and director Gordan Smith has spoken out about whether the show carries an anti-AI message.
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The Apple TV series arrived on November 7 and stars Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul) as historical romance author Carol Sturka, who appears to be the only person immune to an unexplained virus that has transformed the world’s population into optimists.
During the show’s most recent episode, Grenade, Sturka invites Zosia (Karolina Wydra) inside her home for a glass of vodka, and Zosia, who has access to everyone’s thoughts, memories and know-how, proceeds to rattle off some factoids about that specific brand of alcoholic beverage.
Unimpressed, Sturka shoots back that Zosia learned the aforementioned trivia by “stealing it out of his [the vodka distiller’s] brain.”
Scenes like this have led fans to suggest that the show is anti-AI as a result.
Addressing those claims, Smith said in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “I don’t think we’ll beat those [anti-AI] allegations. There’s things about AI that resonate with how the Others operate.
He added: “But it’s less rich to say, ‘Oh, this is a show about fill-in-the-blank.’ There are AI proponents that are going to watch the show, and they might feel attacked or they might feel supported.
“But for us to say, ‘No, it should just be this one-to-one correspondence’, it limits both the storytelling and the availability of the show to ask questions. This is such a conceptual show, and my hope is that it makes people think about and feel different things in different ways.”
Apple TV has already ordered a second season of the show, which is the first new series from creator Vince Gilligan since Better Call Saul, which ran for six seasons from 2015 to 2022. Further episodes will arrive on a weekly basis until the finale on December 26.
Gilligan recently confirmed in a recent interview with NME, that Pluribus is not connected to Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul despite it being set in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“Pluribus is not Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul,” he said. “Even though – and I know it’s confusing – it’s shot in Albuquerque. Even though it stars a very important actor from the Breaking Bad universe, Rhea Seehorn. It is not in any way, shape or form either of those shows.”
