Black Mirror's AI Episode 'Joan Is Awful' Got Its Villain All Wrong

With its technophobic plot and the 'humans versus machines' theme, 'Joan Is Awful' feels like a classic Black Mirror episode — well, one of those rare few that end on a happy note. But does this Season 6 episode really get to the heart of the matter and ask the right questions?

Let's dive in to find out.

The episode's protagonist, Annie Murphy's Joan, discovers one day that Streamberry, the fictional analog of Netflix, has made a show based on her life, starring Salma Hayek. It turns out that by accepting the agreement, all Streamberry users give the network permission to follow their lives through their phones and other devices and use them for content. Joan's life becomes a story, her secrets are now plot twists, and her screw-ups provide comedic relief.

It is further revealed that the show is being generated by a powerful artificial intelligence, Quamputer, which is using Joan's life and the CGI image of Hayek, who sold her face to Streamberry without knowing what they were going to use it for. When things go haywire, the two women team up to overthrow Quamputer, infiltrate Streamberry's office, and destroy the evil machine with an axe. The happy ending follows — but many fans are left confused, and with good reason.

There's no doubt that the Black Mirror episode hits close to home, as criticism of AI, especially in the entertainment industry, is a hot topic right now. Many creative professionals feel that their work is being threatened by programs that are rapidly learning to do what humans spend years mastering, and you don't even have to look far for evidence: one of the Writers Guild of America's demands in the ongoing strike is to regulate AI and protect writers from the dangers it poses.

But has 'Joan Is Awful' raised this issue in a way that feels pressing and urgent? Unfortunately, it didn't.

The episode sets up Quamputer as the main villain of the story, the villain who can be destroyed fairly easily, leaving the protagonists to go on living happily ever after. But the real evil is not the machine but the people who created it and ran it. It's the giant corporation that fraudulently obtained the characters' consent to use their lives and images. It's the executives who are driven by profit above all else.

Black Mirror doesn't focus on that, and that's disappointing. But is it really unexpected, given that the show is broadcast and produced by the real-life Streamberry?