This popular TV series about an alien hive mind is actually about something much scarier

Rhea Seehorn is poised to dominate awards season for her spectacular performance as Carol Sturka in “Pluribus,” the wildly disturbing Apple TV sci-fi series from Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad,” “Better Call Saul”).

On Sunday night, she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama. Earlier this month, she won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series.

In “Pluribus,” both identity and individualism are under direct threat. An alien virus spreads across the world, absorbing almost everyone into a collective consciousness (the hive mind), leaving behind only 13 “lucky” people who are immune. Luck might be the wrong word; bad luck could be worse. These survivors become memories of an old world almost overnight.

Carol loses her wife, Helen (Miriam Shor), during the “defining event.” While other immune survivors savor their new reality, Carol rejects it.

The hive mind does not retaliate against it. Rather, it suits her. He assigns her a constant companion named Zosia (Karolina Wydra), whose role is to manage Carol’s day-to-day life and anticipate her needs. Zosia is attractive, calm and composed to an unnatural degree, and bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the central characters in the best-selling Carol book series. It is the hive’s idea of ​​kindness towards the survivors.

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The show had social media in complete control, not just because of the flashy effects or tricks of the week, but because no one could figure out what the hell the hive mind really wanted. People argued about timelines, motives, ethics, trying to reverse engineer the soul of something so heartless.

On the surface, the goal of the hive mind is clean and seductive: the singularity. He wants a collective consciousness that promises eternal bliss, total harmony, and the end of suffering. No war. No hunger. No lies. Without loneliness.

The disturbing thing is that most 13s don’t actually hate the new reality. One even joins the hive voluntarily. The hive mind “loves” them in its own strange way. He can’t lie to them. It gives them everything they want, whether it be comfort, security, pleasure or power. Even an atomic bomb, if you ask. Imagine that.

That’s the quiet horror in which “Pluribus” sits so comfortably. The entire world in “Pluribus” kneels before you, anticipates your desires and completely eliminates friction from your life. That sounds like a dream, until you realize the cost.

Behind all that generosity is the unconscious objective of the hive mind: to absorb you and strip you of your identity.

That is the real conflict of “Pluribus.” Do you trade your individuality for eternal happiness as a member of the hive? Do you accept the hive’s ultimate servitude as one of the immune, living as royalty atop an empty world? Or do you try to save humanity by returning it to what it was: wars, hunger, inequality, contradictions, beauty, disorder and everything? None of the options are clean. None of them feel heroic. And that’s what makes the show last.

I can’t help but see the parallels between the hive and artificial intelligence. In a world where AI is “perfecting” our writing, our speech, our images, our bodies, and now even generating idealized versions of humans themselves, a question arises: how exactly do we benefit from this, and what silently takes that benefit away from us in return?

Gilligan, the show’s creator, said the series isn’t actually a direct response to AI. Polygon editor Jake Kleinman asked Gilligan if the program’s Hivemind is supposed to be equivalent to ChatGPT.

“I wasn’t really thinking about AI because this was about eight or 10 years ago. Of course, the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ certainly predates ChatGPT, but it didn’t appear in the news like it does now,” he said.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he continues. “A lot of people are making that connection. I don’t want to tell people what this show is about. If it’s about AI for a particular viewer, or about COVID-19, it’s not really about that either, more power to anyone who sees something ripped from the headlines.”

But that doesn’t make the parallels disappear.

Why fight when the biggest, smartest agent in the world can do it better, faster and cleaner? That is the same speech that the hive mind makes in “Pluribus.” A perfectly ordered life. Without suffering. No inefficiency. No disagreement.

And no me.

That’s what scares me about AI. Not the technology itself, but the silent trade we are asked to do. Comfort for identity. Ease of authorship. Blessedness for humanity.

“Pluribus” does not warn us about aliens. It’s holding up a mirror and asking ourselves if we would recognize ourselves if the world worked perfectly.

And whether we would even care if we didn’t.

“More” is streaming on Apple TV.