Viewers of Apple TV\u2019s new science fiction series, Plur1bus, have been quick to point out eerie similarities with modern concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) \u2013 even if that\u2019s not what it\u2019s maker intended. <\/p>\n
Writer and producer Vince Gilligan \u2013 who also created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul \u2013 told Polygon<\/a> he wasn\u2019t thinking of AI when he had the idea for the series: <\/p>\n Because this was about eight or ten years ago. Of course, the phrase \u2018artificial intelligence\u2019 certainly predated ChatGPT, but it wasn\u2019t in the news like it is now. [\u2026] I\u2019m not saying you\u2019re wrong [\u2026] A lot of people are making that connection. I don\u2019t want to tell people what this show is about. <\/p>\n In Plur1bus, an alien-made \u201cvirus\u201d comes to Earth and begins to infect everyone. While the infected are physically untouched, they are stripped of emotion and individual consciousness. They become part of a single collective \u201chive mind\u201d. <\/p>\n This plot might sound familiar if you\u2019ve seen Don Siegel\u2019s 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, remade by Philip Kaufman in 1978 and adapted several times since. It returns in Plur1bus, but with some key differences. <\/p>\n In episode one, we meet Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a cynical, alcoholic romance novelist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the United States army uses an alien DNA sequence to make a virus which infects almost everyone on Earth, Carol (whose wife Helen dies from the infection) ends up as one of 11 unaffected survivors in the whole world.<\/p>\n The infected are not killed, or turned into rabid zombies. They become entirely happy and helpful \u2013 seemingly harmless. Carol might be the last miserable person left alive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Apocalypse as allegory<\/p>\n Just as the Body Snatchers films were read as metaphors for Cold War- and post-Watergate paranoia<\/a>, Plur1bus almost asks to be read as allegory. <\/p>\n The Latin title means \u201cmany\u201d, evoking the collective mass infected by the virus. However, Plur1bus more specifically calls to mind the motto of the United States: E pluribus unum \u2013 \u201cout of many, one\u201d.<\/p>\n Early reviews indicate a plurality of meanings, including a metaphor for contemporary loneliness<\/a>, and an allegory of women\u2019s oppression in abusive relationships<\/a>.<\/p>\n In episode two, Carol tries to convince other survivors to oppose the hive mind \u2013 but at least one survivor wishes she could join them and become like everyone else.<\/p>\n