Maybe the \u201cH\u201d in Line Of Duty will turn out to stand for \u201chard drive\u201d? After all, AI has become TV\u2019s go-to villain, as proven once again in last week\u2019s penultimate episode of BBC stablemate The Capture. Sinister puppet-master Simon was unmasked at long last and \u2013 spoiler \u2013 he wasn\u2019t a person.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait, Simon\u2019s a computer?\u201d asked a baffled agent. \u201cHe\u2019s a bit more than that,\u201d replied a smug army bigwig. \u201cWe\u2019re using AI to support, map, execute and command ops. Simon factors in more risks and variables than you lot on the ground are capable of knowing. Tell him your objective and he\u2019ll calculate your mission and recalibrate it for you in real time. The stats don\u2019t lie. Simon saves lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, they call him Simon because they do what Simon says. The third series of the slick surveillance thriller has seen swishy-coated, pensively pouting Met detective Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger) promoted to acting head of counter-terror unit SO15. Our abrasive heroine has continued her crusade against the dodgy digital practice of \u201cCorrection\u201d, which hacks CCTV feeds with deepfake images to incriminate those deemed an enemy of the state.<\/p>\n
Carey has now dug deeper and discovered that Correction is being deployed by military top brass. The British armed forces have handed the reins to a bloodthirsty bot. Simon even ordered the assassination of the home secretary (Paapa Essiedu), while the rogue squaddie who pulled the trigger (Killian Scott) shrugged that he\u2019s \u201cjust a cog in the machine\u201d. In this Sunday\u2019s twist-packed series finale, can she bring down a conspiracy between the deep state and Big Data? And in a series punctuated by shock deaths, will Carey survive to pout another day?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt turns out The Capture is more rooted in reality than I intended,\u201d the show\u2019s writer Ben Chanan says. \u201cI consume a lot of news, so issues in the headlines find their way into the show naturally. Disinformation and deepfakes seem more and more pressing each season. It often feels like the world is catching up with The Capture. There\u2019s a drumbeat of war during this series. I never thought we\u2019d be teetering on the brink of a real one when it aired.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drones, advanced artificial intelligence and software from the likes of divisive data firm Palantir are changing the face of modern warfare. Deployed in conflicts from Iran to Venezuela, from Gaza to Ukraine, this technological arms race is reflected in the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always been triage in hospitals or on battlefields to determine who to operate on first and who\u2019s more likely to survive,\u201d says Chanan. \u201cNow they\u2019re using AI to make those decisions, so the army deploying it to design entire ops is easy to imagine. We\u2019ve taken that to the nth degree. What if a renegade regiment experiments with AI and becomes completely dependent on it? To the point where AI keeps changing their objective and they\u2019re following blindly? If you programme a computer to save the West at all costs, it could lead in all kinds of direction.<\/p>\n
Processing power \u2026 tech billionaire Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) in Paradise. Photograph: Ser Baffo\/Disney<\/p>\n
Chanan\u2019s background as a Bafta-winning documentarian means The Capture is chillingly plausible. \u201cThe tech is all well-researched and we have military consultants but there\u2019s serendipity too. I decided Killian\u2019s character should come from E Squadron, nicknamed The Increment. They\u2019re special forces but operate outside the SAS and SBS, answerable to no one but themselves and MI6. They\u2019re the best of the best and get up to some dark covert stuff. By chance, one of our police advisers had a colleague who was ex-E Squadron, so we were able to get really good insights.\u201d<\/p>\n