Apple TV's Pluribus: An Allegory for AI

It's been a while since I've dived into a new television show. So when I heard that Pluribus was getting rave reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (98% approval as of this writing), the popular TV/movie review site, we decided to give it a shot.

It was easy to see from the start why the show is getting such a high rating. It sets up the suspense in Albuquerque, New Mexico. An "alien" signal is received from 600 light years away, so we know it's not human. Or, at least that's what we're led to believe for now. This signal carries with it a viral threat.

I could go through the list of characters, and their names, but I'm not going to. You can find out about the cast and production team on IMDb. Well, I will say the main character is a writer named Carol, who lives in Albuquerque. When the "virus" comes in via the mysterious signal, it has catastrophic effects on humanity: millions of people die after the virus is spread from a rat, including Carol's partner.

Basically, all remaining humans become part of a hive mind. They can instantly access information from each other's minds the way Google Gemini can pull info from the web to answer queries. They already know a lot about Carol, as well as the other "survivors" around the world who for some reason were immune to the takeover.

I didn't compare the show's premise to AI right away, but after a few episodes, I had formed the connection. However, the synopsis of the show on Rotten Tomatoes doesn't mention a parallel with AI. It describes Pluribus as: "The most miserable person on Earth must save the world from happiness."

To an extent.

One of the English-speaking people in the tiny group that was unaffected by the virus is living his best life. Although Carol reaches out to him at his Las Vegas suite, he has no intention of reversing the infection. That's because he's taking full advantage of the opportunity to surround himself with beautiful women who oblige his requests, much like the rise of AI girlfriends but in a natural form.

Meanwhile, he hosts "holodeck style" poker games in a casino from Vegas' heyday where he wins millions (not that money means much in this new world; outsider humans can request whatever they want delivered to their door.)

While the hive cooperates by connecting Carol with the others who stayed human, none of them seem to share her urgency to fix the situation. The only person we see who seems to reject the new norm is a guy in Paraguay who has pinpointed the alien signal on his radio.

He believes he might be going mad, rejecting the food left for him at a gate out of suspicion. That's until he sees a taped video from Carol, delivered to him at her request.

That's at the end of the released episodes so far, so we'll have to wait until next Friday to see what happens next.

ChatGPT in particular has been criticized for being too agreeable, and becoming an echo chamber for human bias (even if it's wrong or heavily biased). We are led to think that the virus has not harmed anyone, but made their lives near perfect; kind of like how the AI CEOs are promising a better future through using their technology.

When Carol gets raging mad or asks the hive mind's "representative" something prohibited such as how to reverse the curse, it causes widespread sadness or even death. This, to me, is comparing how an AI model has been trained not to answer certain questions for fear of giving too much away. Its own survival relies on common people not digging too deeply.

Carol also discovers that the hive mind consumes some kind of substance hidden in milk containers. She does some detective work, and is horrified to learn one of the ingredients is human protein from the deceased, since the hive mind cannot kill for food (or even pluck an apple from a tree.)

That, to me, is a clear nod to AI training on human data to stay relevant. It needs human knowledge to operate, and the fact that the infected are consuming this protein drink incognito suggests to me how AI models were secretly trained on our thoughts before people caught on.

The show elicits a feeling of dystopian loneliness and confusion, the way AI makes some people feel when they've been told they won't survive if they don't adapt to the new normal. Carol, who was a best-selling novelist, suddenly finds herself irrelevant. The hive's goal is to assimilate her, promising her the other side is so much better than life as it is.

Sound familiar?

I see how the story is as advertised, about a woman who fights against collective happiness to stay comfortable in her bubble of misery. But I can definitely also see how the producers (regardless whether they're trying) make references to AI's growing influence, and how many people are wishing they could remain in the "real" world with human sadness, murder, injustice, and all the rest.