Vince Gilligan has done it again. He’s delivered a stellar new TV series that follows a miserable woman named Carol (Rhea Seehorn), who has to confront a hive mind taking over most of Earth’s population and making them happy. Looper’s review called Gilligan’s return with “Pluribus” worth the wait, with everyone speculating online what the deeper meaning of the show could be. Although one theory doesn’t hold water, one of the writers on “Pluribus” isn’t going to fight fans over it.
Many have speculated that “Pluribus” is about AI. A line in the first episode, which suggests that the hive mind doesn’t even really know how its assimilation works, echoes sentiments from those in the AI community baffled at why AI writes what it does. “Pluribus” writer Gordon Smith told The Hollywood Reporter that while the theory isn’t accurate, he’s willing to go along with it. “I don’t think we’ll beat those [anti-AI] allegations,” Smith said. “There’s things about AI that resonate with how the Others operate.”
Ultimately, Smith doesn’t want to be limited to saying that “Pluribus” is solely about how AI could doom life and art as we know it: “It’s less rich to say, ‘Oh, this is a show about fill-in-the-blank,'” he explained. “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.” When watching “Pluribus,” it might be best to view it on its own terms and not try to jam one interpretation onto it.
Pluribus can be about AI (and a million other things)
The easiest way to debunk the idea that “Pluribus” is about AI is the fact that Vince Gilligan came up with the idea 10 years ago. Artificial intelligence certainly existed, but students weren’t using ChatGPT to cheat on their exams at that point. Gilligan just wanted to explore what would happen when the most miserable person on Earth was surrounded by individuals willing to do anything to make them happy.
That’s a big reason why many are quick to embrace the AI theory. In Episode 3, titled “Grenade,” Carol has a drink with Zosia (Karolina Wydra), and rather than talk like two human beings normally would, Zosia begins explaining where the word “vodka” comes from. It’s the kind of tangent one might expect ChatGPT to make, providing a response that’s informative even if it’s not precisely what you asked for. Later in that episode, after Zosia is injured when a live grenade that Carol flippantly requested goes off, another person in the hive mind apologizes to Carol for not giving her a fake one, saying, “Sorry if we got that wrong, Carol.” Again, it comes across much like AI, as the hive mind clearly doesn’t have the best grasp on something as innately human as sarcasm.
The great thing about art is that it can be about many different things, even subjects the author didn’t intend. Gilligan couldn’t have envisioned AI resembling his version of the hive mind, but it makes the show so much richer because of it. We’re excited to see where “Pluribus” goes from here, even if we already have some ideas on ways in which the show is not going to end.