Vince Gilligan, the creator of “Breaking Bad”, calls artificial intelligence a “plagiarizing machine” and teases his new series with Rhea Seehorn.
It’s been ten years since Breaking Bad ended, since Walter White shattered his world to completely become Heisenberg and we can’t get over it. On the occasion of this anniversary, the creator of the series, Vince Gilligan, spoke with Variety on his favorite moments from the series and takes the opportunity to tease his next creation.
“There’s no crime, no meth“, laughs Gilligan while talking about Wycaro, his highly anticipated new series for Apple TV+ with Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn.
He takes a 180° turn by creating a science fiction series which has the particularity – like his two previous series – of taking place in Albuquerque, although it is a very different city.
“The world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is very different“, adds Gilligan. “This is the modern world – the world we live in – but it is changing very suddenly. The resulting consequences will, I hope, be the source of drama for many, many episodes thereafter.“
It’s a return to science fiction for someone who cut his teeth on The X-Files. “I wouldn’t call it heavy science fiction, but rather light science fiction. But there is a science fiction element to it. (…) Rhea will play a very different character from the one she played in ‘Saul’.”
The series received a two-season order from Apple TV+ right off the bat, and writing will resume on Monday now that the writers’ strike is over. Fortunately, this writing phase shouldn’t last too long.
“When the strike broke out, we were about to finish the first season. So we’re going to go back and finish the penultimate episode, then tackle the final episode“, explains Gilligan. As for filming, it will begin in New Mexico next winter.
“I don’t know how people are going to react, whether they’re going to love it or hate it, or whether they’re going to be somewhere in between. But I know it’s a story that interests me.”
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A tackle with artificial intelligence
During the interview, Vince Gilligan returns to one of the most vigorously discussed points during the screenwriters’ strike: the use of artificial intelligence. A strict framework has been found that suits the WGA (the screenwriters union), but here is what Gilligan says about the use of artificial intelligence.
“When I learned about ChatGPT, or whatever it was called, I was scared to death. I said to myself: ‘Our species is finished.’ I don’t mean in the Terminator sense, like they’re going to start exterminating us.
But who wants to live in a world where creativity is entrusted to machines? My work is over. I had all these fears. And over the last six or nine months, I’ve been keeping a little informed about this ‘wonder’ that is AI.“
I think it’s a load of bullshit. It is a gigantic plagiarism machine, in its current form. I think ChatGPT knows what it writes like a toaster knows it makes toast.
“There’s no cleverness – it’s a marketing marvel. He may become sensitive and truly intelligent. At some point he may become a threat, but for now he’s just a plagiarizing machine.
It’s about a bunch of billionaires trying to become trillionaires by selling this thing as some kind of sea change. It will certainly have its uses for writing legal briefs and things like that, but I don’t think it will take over for fiction writers.“
He pursues : “I don’t feel like technology in general makes the world a better place, despite what the people selling it would have us believe. I think it divides and distracts us.
Worse yet, she will lie to us. It won’t be Terminator with machines that kill us. We are the ones who will kill ourselves. But this product could contribute in an insidious way.”
“I’m pretty negative about it! If it were up to me, we would all have pockets full of coins for talking on payphones, and the cell phone would never have been invented. I don’t see things with much optimism..”