Who Is Awful? Black Mirror and the Dystopian Imaginary of AI Labor

The future of labor has become one of the most urgent topics in the current public debate regarding Artificial Intelligence. Related imaginaries, primarily following the emergence of Chat GPT, have gravitated towards blaming the technology for threatening people’s livelihoods. However, these visions suffer from “sociotechnical blindness” and overlook the human actors who create and hold the decisive power behind AI. One of the most mediatized examples of this was the strike by Hollywood workers in 2023. Pop culture, notably sci-fi television series, has been an influential source of inspiration for these dystopian visions. Despite that, scholars have overlooked representations of AI labor in the area. This case study responds to that, focusing on representations in Black Mirror, a prominent sci-fi television series that has covered topics around AI for over a decade. Specifically, it analyzes the “sociotechnical imaginary” in the episode Joan is Awful, reflecting on the concerns of Hollywood workers. Methods of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analyses reveal mutual interactions between human and AI laboring agents. They highlight the interdependence in the labor process and how societies are vulnerable to the power of tech corporations encouraged by digital capitalism. The analysis demonstrates how AI, as an entertaining sci-fi television trope, might critically reflect on the contemporary issue of capitalist alienated labor, emphasizing the inseparability of technology and human actors.