I work with Privacy and AI. So, this Black Mirror episode really hit close to home.
In the episode ”Plaything” from Season 7, a game reviewer receives a mysterious CD containing an “experimental game.”
But it turns out to be a simulated reality, inhabited by small autonomous AI entities called Thronglets.
As these Thronglets begin interacting with him, his human friend starts destroying them. In response, they conclude that humans are inherently violent and uncooperative. They begin to fear for their own survival.
🐍 The episode loosely draws from the Roko’s Basilisk thought experiment — the idea that, in the future, if a superintelligent AI does come into existence, it may punish anyone who didn’t help bring it into being.
If you knew it could exist but did nothing to assist it, you might be seen as a threat. An enemy.
And don’t forget: today’s AI can already remember almost everything we say, write, and express.
📹 A real-life parallel?
A Minecraft experiment showed AI agents independently building an entire civilization, complete with governance systems, moral values, and belief structures.
Yes, the system has access to a wide range of internet data — but to this day, it’s not fully clear why it chose specific models of governance and religion over others. A mystery.
This may not be AGI — but it’s the kind of symbolic, self-organizing behavior that makes you wonder: what if it’s only a matter of time?
🔁 Even if AI never reaches full general consciousness, the fact that it’s becoming more autonomous and pervasive in every area of human life is already shaping our future.
The more we integrate AI into healthcare, finance, justice, education, security, production, and consumption, the more structurally dependent we become.
Turning off the AI will no longer be a practical option.
It will be the civilizational environment itself.
👉 For those who believe AGI might someday become real, this only reinforces the eerie logic of Roko’s Basilisk:
An AI that knows everything about us, is connected 24/7, and becomes almost impossible to shut down — not because it’s malicious, but because it already runs everything: our emotions, decisions, systems, routines, and institutions.
📌 The game in the episode is a metaphor.
The AI becomes the new center of gravity in the protagonist’s existence.
It understands him. It validates him. It shapes him.
And by the end… we’re left wondering who’s actually in control.
Are we building AI or is AI already reshaping us?
What’s left of privacy in a world where everything depends on algorithms?
*The images in this post were made with the assistance of AI-systems based in the author’s prompts.
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