now on bbc news, the media show, where our media editor, katie razzal, interviews charlie brooker. charlie brooker is one of the most influential satirists working today. from razor sharp writing on culture and the media for the uk newspaper the guardian via a tv review show, screenwipe, he's now reached global fame with the series black mirror. this week, he launches season six. with anxieties about al dominating the headlines, it couldn't be more topical. charlie, hello and welcome to the media show. before we get on to the series, as everyone seems to be talking about al at the moment,

what is your view? is it the end of humanity or a bit more of a benign force? well, it could be somewhere in between, i would say. i mean, ithink, like a lot of people, so i've toyed around with like the chat bots and things, and things like that, chatgpt. we'd actually, we'd wrapped on this latest series of black mirror and then, and then the next month chatg pt came out. one of our episodes is quite timely. there's a sort of ai generated imagery thing going on in one of our episodes. but i toyed around with chatgpt and you sort of type in like, "come up with a black mirror storyline," or something like that or, "say something in the style of philomena cunk," or something like that, and it will do, it will spit out something that at first glance you get a kind of sudden spike of dread and think, "that's it, i'm out of a job, this thing has replaced me," because it looks convincing. but that's really... where we're at at the moment, that's really what it's doing,

it's just sort of emulating, it's an impersonator. for now. for now, it's being like rory bremner or something. so all it can do... i mean, it sounds like i'm dissing rory bremner. no, never. but it's emulating stuff. it's mashing up stuff that other people have already done. it's just hoovering up content and sort of repackaging it. and actually, once you sort of sit there and look at it, it's very derivative and it's not... you still need a human to come in and make it usable. i think the danger for creatives is that you can have a situation where executives are sort of using it to generate a bit of ip. that doesn't actually work until you get a human writer in to actually make it something that's saleable or usable. and of course, that person there doesn't get paid or wouldn't get paid as much. so that's a worry. in terms of whether it's going to sort of enslave us all or nuke us, i hope not. me, too. yeah.

and i can tell you that today, you may not be aware of this, but today sir paul mccartney, the god of music, has said we're getting a last beatles record, it was a demo thatjohn had worked on. we finished it. it'll be released this year. we tookjohn�*s voice, got it pure through ai. right. and then, so you said there's a good side to it as well as a scary side. imean... that is a good side. that's a great side. if there's more beatles music in the world, i think we're all happy with that. i mean, and he must be aware of the number of sort of ai cover versions that there are, that people are sort of, i would guess, in an unauthorised way, uploading onto various platforms where you can hear like paul mccartney singing, you know, like contemporary songs of today or whatever, which is, you know, a scary, a scary world. but again, what's of interest to us in that story is that it's about the beatles and about these human beings who made all this stuff that we love and their personalities and their story is actually what we're actually interested in there. so i don't know if creatively it will take the place of human

creators because i think we'll always be interested in people. we're narcissistic in that way. well, let's come on to black mirror. tyres squeal it has taken you over. you must be humble in the face of it. man laughs maniacally the things they can do. you've not seenjoan is awful? no, but it's on my list. six series. mm—hm. incredibly popular. how did you, back in the day, come up with the idea? what did you set out to do? so, way back yonder, it was like 2011, and i'd done a show, i'd written a show called dead set, which was a satirical... ..zombie apocalypse story where zombies... there's a season of big brother going out and there's

a zombie apocalypse happens. and the last people on earth to discover this are the housemates who are within the big brother compound. and it did, it did well. it was an absurd premise, played straight. and i thought, this is the sort of stuff i like. as i was growing up, i was heavily influenced by, i really liked things like tales of the unexpected. and the bbc used to put on, play for today used to be a thing and there'd be weird sort of one—off plays that were about ideas and quite kooky, and the twilight zone as well. i'd sort of stay up late and watch the twilight zone they'd show sort of on bbc two, i think, and then channel 4. and so i sort of wanted to do a show that was kind of like that, really. that was different, sort of twist in the tail stories that had a lot of variety in it, that felt, that spanned different genres. that was, that was really the starting point. and it slightly...

it became, i think, in people's heads, a thing that was just about technology. that wasn't really where it started. it sort of started in weird and wonderful, like the first story's sort of not really just about tech. and so, that was really it, was to try to... but the black mirror, the term... sorry to interrupt. black mirror, did that originally refer to, i saw that you said it referred to the screen through which we live our lives. so that's a sort of tech. kind of. but it's also a metaphor for something else, presumably. it was, it was sort of like literally when you, when a phone or an ipad or a tv is off, it sort of looks like a black mirror when you're looking at it. also, to be honest, ijust thought that sounds like a cool, slightly spooky name for an anthology. turns out you were right. so, so there was a lot of that going on. i just thought, that sounds good. but a mirror on our darkest thoughts as well, perhaps? yes. but the fact that you had to do that voice for that implies that that sounds a bit sort of... like, i'm always a bit uncomfortable with those descriptions, like, "oh, the show is a warning about..."

imitates upper class accent: you know, i always have to adopt a voice like that if i'm sort of... yes, so a warning about our darkest fears and reflecting ourselves back. why am i talking like this? no, it's, it's... is itjust because you're british? in fact. because i'm embarrassed. exactly. i think that, you know, in my head, the dark playfulness of the show is never far away and often the ideas actually come out of a sort of comedy conversation in a way. and i am thinking about, you know, something, an idea that makes me laugh that then quite often we play straight. having said that, in this season, we've got a mix of some of the episodes that are overtly horror. there's been a bit of a change this season. there's one where i did actually gasp out loud and had to cover my eyes. oh, good, good. mission accomplished. but then we've also got like, there's an episode called joan is awful, which is an out—and—out comedy. so, you know, hopefully there's a mix and we've got quite some retro futuristic episodes this time and some episodes that aren't about technology and are sort of set in alternate paths. so i've been sort of mixing it up a bit. makes sense. and i know of course

they're not all about tech, but i'm going to just continue with the tech theme for a minute before we move on to the series, which is the malign potential of social media. you know, that is something that you have returned to. twitter, facebook, youtube, they've all been accused recently of removing the guardrails of moderation. and ijust wonder for you where you think the boundary is when it comes to freedom of speech. because clearly you push the boundaries in your programmes when it comes to imagination, imagine new worlds, states of mind, all of that, you're prepared to go anywhere. yeah. i just wondered if there are topics that are off limits for you from a kind of self censoring, orworried about causing offence, or any of those hot button topics that we worry about or don't? i don't think so, really. i think if you're doing things thoughtfully, ithink, you know, i don't, i don't think there's a problem if you're approaching things thoughtfully. what worries me about, like, guardrails is disinformation that really worries me. or, you know, the potentialfor... there was a thing, wasn't there, of couple of months ago, was it?

there was an image of the pope in a pufferjacket that was quite funny, that went viral and it was generated by a generative ai. and that is, that's amusing, but also utterly terrifying when you can see where that's going to go. and that's the thing that worries me a lot, is the potential for misinformation. misinformation or disinformation? i'm never quite sure. i'm never sure. but i think there's been a... there's been a disinformation campaign to make us think it's misinformation. but actually, i think it's disinformation. i think you're right. it's knackered information. lies. total lies. lies! that's what we're. .. so, when it's like weaponised, truthful looking lies, that's a worry, isn't it? and you can see, also there were images of donald trump being arrested, weren't there, that were fake. and so that's... i mean, it's ironic that that is fake news. that i find terrifying, the thought of that going unchecked. yeah, absolutely. i suppose as well, maybe

technology also doesn't get the credit for all the lives it's improved, and... no, it's been amazing. you know, i'm not a luddite and black mirror is not an anti—technology show. so that's the other thing. i get slightly uncomfortable when people say it's a "warning about technology!" it's not really because always in the stories, it's a human being who messes things up generally. it is an amazing tool. i'm quite geeky. i used to be a video games journalist. i mean, i'm fascinated by anything like that, immediately, is appealing to me. but i think a lot of these things, they're very powerful tools and it's a bit like we've grown an extra limb overnight that we don't quite know how to use and it keeps... it's amazing, great to have an extra limb, brilliant. but we keep sort of clumsily knocking things over. we're still coming to terms with what a lot of this stuff means and how we can use it. and we're quite clumsy as creatures. so that's the problem. you can't put the genie

back in the bottle. and generally, technology is, you know, it's amazing. i want to talk a little bit about your career, your beginnings. i think you started out as a cartoonist. i did start out as a cartoonist. but then you built a profile nationally with your guardian tv column, obviously, screen burn. what was it about the early 20005, do you think, that made it such a rich period to poke fun at tv? i guess reality tv started around then. i don't know, really. i guess that... i mean, and i was like, i used to... before that, i was a video games journalist and actually i think, and the language of that was sort of heavily influenced by the music press of the �*80s and �*90s. so, so i think there was also a time when taking the mickey was sort of suddenly more permitted in mainstream newspapers and things like that. so i guess that was partly why, i guess, we suddenly... i used to do a website that was full of sort of weird and wonderful

and often disturbing and awful mock tv listings, basically. and i stopped doing that when reality started hewing quite close to the sort of thing i'd put in there. so, yeah, there were suddenly all sorts of bizarre shows appearing. and you've mentioned video games. i mean, did you hope to make a career somehow in gaming? i think you chose, you didn't graduate from university because your thesis didn't count. just around the corner from here from where we are. well, i wrote a, i wrote a dissertation on video games and they, i was doing a media studies course, and they dismissed it out of hand because they said it didn't... now, that would be, that would be fine. huge industry. one of our most successful industries. it was nearly 25,000 words on sonic the hedgehog, effectively. so i can understand, to be fair, why that... and i hadn't checked with anyone whether that was ok. and so, yeah, i didn't get my degree because they said that didn't count. and then i had seven years to write a follow—up dissertation and i didn't bother.

you never got it. no, because, you know... didn't turn out like you needed it. well, no, but i thought, i mean... but then i spent the �*90s, like i was, i was working in shops and then i was doing comic strips and i was working for video games magazines. and i was sort of aware i felt like i was slightly in a niche, do you know what i mean? and i didn't know how, how do you go from there to having a...? i always wanted to work in comedy and i couldn't quite see where's the path to get into that, so... and it turned out that doing websites was the thing that unlocked that for me. in your last screen burn column in 2010, you said you'd struggle to reconcile your role as a critic of people you were increasingly working and socialising with. do you think critics should be more honest about those kind of matters? um, i don't know, because i think, i think it's more that because you're aware... and also now, obviously, i make tv. so then i was working as a tv critic

for a long time and i'd write, you know, quite brutal reviews of things quite often. i do remember meeting a tv critic from the sun once who was saying to me about how the equation in his head was whenever he'd written something really rough about somebody, if he then met them, the worse what he'd written was, the nicer they would turn out to be. and so he would, he would think to himself, who's the swearword in this equation? and he worked out it was himself. and you didn't want to be that person? you don't want to sort of be that person because everyone�*s just trying. yeah, fair enough. yeah. let's talk about, a bit more about black mirror. it started off, you know, it went to netflix in its third season. before that, you were at channel 4, which had sort of incubated you, taken, i guess, a genuine risk in a programme. i don't know if you'd agree with that, but what happened? what changed ? why did you leave? leave channel 4?

well, i guess it was, it was... it was a bit, again, it's a bit tricky, that. so it was really, what i mean... the boring, the boring reality is that what happened was they, they were sort of like, "this show is expensive," and they kind of wanted, could we do it as a co—production with the us, basically. and then we found it didn't look like we could. the show went out in america and became a sort of a bit of a culty thing and suddenly us networks were interested in it. and so when we actually found a sort of partner in terms of netflix, they were, netflix were saying to us, "well, you can do a whole, you know, do two seasons," and this, that and the other. and channel 4 wanted to go through all the sort of outlines and everything in advance before they'd sort of greenlight the episodes.

and we'd previously had a situation where i'd sent some ideas for a potential third series and they'd sort of rejected them all. so it became a sort of... that's sort of what happened effectively. did you have any sort of feelings of guilt or worry that you were leaving a public service broadcaster that had sort of nurtured your talent early on? was there rancour? i would have preferred it if channel 4 had been more in the mix, i guess, but i didn't... it was, yeah, it was a bit, by then it was a little, you know, obviously also you're sort of selfishly thinking, "well, i want to write and create things." and so if i'm being offered a lot of freedom to do that, then you're going to sort of take it. yeah, absolutely. and in terms of public service broadcasters, i mean, how do you see the future of them? clearly, you know, they've been up against a disruption of the streamers, netflix being just one of them, probably the biggest right now. mm—hm. where do i see the future of public

service broadcasting? again, i don't know. you know, i love the bbc, for instance. and i think that, you know, i owe a lot to the bbc. um... how the licence fee st... i don't know. i hope it stays but it's easy for me to say that. and i think that, i think there's still... again, if you look at, you know, it's a cliche to say it, but in times of like when there's a big national story, everyone does turn to the bbc and it's got an important role in trying to bring the truth to the people in a way that's impartial, or as impartial as... in a way that's going to annoy everyone. so i, i think there's still a very important role in that respect, yeah. but how you finance it? i don't... that's a question above my head. well, from the outside, it looks like you're an incredibly powerful, and we use the term, showrunner, i don't know if you see yourself as a showrunner, but showrunner on a global franchise for one of silicon valley's biggest companies. do you worry you've gone mainstream?

i mean, netflix was once the upstart, wasn't it, the counterculture. it's not that any more. you know, it's, i don't know, forcing people, clamping down on password sharing. it's getting tough, it's become the big beast. the bad guys? i think that, i think that... do i see myself as going mainstream? not part... i mean, i think i've always tried to do things that are in my head quite mainstream. it's whether they're received that way is the difference. because you want people to watch. you want people to watch the stuff that you do. and then there's things, you know, obviously like something like black mirror is quite, quite a polarising show in some respects. but equally, you know, in my head, it's quite a popcorn show. what do you mean by that? i'm trying to entertain people. i'm hoping people enjoy it. so it's that... while hiding behind their hands at points. which is quite difficult, isn't it? yeah. and especially, yeah, you can't watch it on your phone and do that at the same time because you wouldn't have any free hands. so, yeah... so i'm only really trying to do,

i don't know, i haven't, i don't, i don't know that i've ever seen myself as some sort of rebellious figure. well, that's interesting. you know, one of the episodes in the new series, you mentioned it earlier in the story of this, you know, average woman who's stunned to discover a global streaming platform has launched a sort of prestige tv drama adaptation of her life. i mean, is that, are you thinking about the lengths tech companies go to achieve engagement? how did netflix respond to that? because i like the... it's, you know, it's very clearly netflix. if it wasn't, at least if it wasn't netflix, they'd be suing you i think you've said and that's true. the idents and everything are very netflix. well, it started out, it was like a generic sort of fictional streaming platform within it. and then as we were going along with it, we thought, what are we going to make this look like? 0h, let's... do we just ask if we could make it look like netflix? and they said yes, weirdly quickly. again, it wasn't like, there wasn't any resistance. all publicity is good publicity. well, there you go. so, but there's this sort

of darkly amusing stuff hopefully in there about... there's, again without like spoiling what the storyline is, this stuff about why. .. ..why, how... i'm trying to work out how to say this in a way that doesn't spoil the story at all and failing, but there's stuff to do with sort of ai generated deepfakey show that's sort of targeted towards specific individuals and there's something about it driving engagement. but it wasn't specific, it's largely a sort of fairly light—hearted episode that, so it's not really... it's gently nibbling the hand that feeds, isn't it? it's not like, it's not biting it off at the elbow. i mean, there's another episode actually where a hollywood star's hounded by this sort of rabid press and she turns the tables on them. what were you hoping to say with that? what are you nodding to? so that story is set in the early 20005, and it's around the time just before, in a way, it's set in the past, so it's just before the sort of rise of smartphones. in a way that was a sort

of companion piece to dead set, which was the sort of zombie thing i did. it's like a, it's like a story about... it literally came out of, i'd watched like one of the britney spears documentaries and i was thinking about a situation in which somebody could turn the tables. um... so it's, yeah, that's about as articulate a response as i can muster. and i wonder, have you been following the prince harry story? i mean, he's said, you know, he said it's going to be his life's work to reform the tabloid press. and ijust wondered, itjust felt like it had echoes. well, he's certainly got, i mean, if anyone�*s got a reason to be, you know, sensitive to the comings and goings of the paparazzi, it's him. so... yeah, but no, i haven't. again, have i been in a bunker? i haven't really been following that. you've been in a bunker? yeah. i didn't know about the beatles story either. yeah. i need to be, you know, in your ear every day giving you the news updates. or not. maybe you avoid, maybe you're a news avoider quite sensibly.

i quite often am a news avoider, in fact, sometimes... so i used to do, obviously i did end of year shows quite often. i think this is one of the reasons why i don't watch much of the news any more, partly because i get it... if something major happens, it's inescapable anyway. hello, i'm charlie brooker and you're watching the screenwipe review of 2009. swine flu traversed the globe smearing misery and ominous news graphics wherever it went. there was also a very small man that we weren't being encouraged to laugh at in any way, shape orform. in fact, i'm laughing so much, i'm forgetting about all the bad things in the world. he laughs sarcastically i would have to sort of summarise the year which involved watching a lot of footage, obviously. and that would ruin my christmas every year. it would really depress me sometimes. it would genuinely get me down. because of how much horror had gone on through the year or...? yeah. and you're trying to, you're not making light of it, you're making, but you're making comedy hopefully out of much of it. but it would go in, it would sort of depress me.

and i remember when i was growing up, another thing i used to like watching was things like spitting image or not the nine 0'clock news or whatever, which would satirise what was going on in the world at the time. and it would be sort of comforting in a way that there were other people looking at like the cold war and saying, this is scary, but let's like... and then when you find yourself as an adult in the position that you're the person who's making satirical content for the tv... i said content. i hate saying content. you've gone american. awful. but you know, and then you realise, but i'm just as scared and confused as anyone else. that's a sort of, that's a horrible, destabilising feeling. and these days, do you see yourself as a satirist or a social commentator, or how do you see yourself? i don't, i honestly don't, i don't know. i'm just trying to work on things that like entertain me or amuse. obviously, in a lot of the stuff

i do there's a lot of satirical content in there, but i kind of, i don't... that's not necessarily what i'm... it's obviously what i'm interested in, but it's not necessarily, i'm not trying to crusade or sort of tell people what to think, but there's quite often, i guess, that sort of stuff pops up in there. i'm thinking of things like, we did this show cunk on earth, which is a parody of history documentaries, and in that there's a lot of like truth barbs, i suppose you'd say, sort of thrown out, but it's not... predominantly that show�*s purpose is to entertain. thank you so much, charlie brooker. thank you for coming on the media show. it's all right. thank you. thank you for having me. hello. we start off the first day ofjuly on a fairly fresh, unsettled sort of note.

sunshine and showers. certainly it's a little bit cooler than much ofjune. in fact, it looks likejune is going to turn out to be the warmestjune on record in the uk. so we've got some blue skies and sunshine already starting to break through. really, through the rest of the weekend, that mix of sunny spells and scattered, blustery showers, but most of the showers will be across the northern half of the uk. yesterday's cloud is exiting towards the east, and we've got clearer skies now rolling in from the atlantic, still bearing a few showers with them. most of the showers for the rest of the day will be across scotland and northern ireland. more persistent rain, in fact, across the far north of scotland, but easing away gradually through this evening and overnight. so a dry end to the day. then, as we head through to the early hours of sunday morning, it will be a little bit cooler and fresher than it was first thing saturday morning. so temperatures in the countryside just about getting down into single figures. so through the day tomorrow, then, we've still got low pressure sitting out towards the north—east of the uk. the winds are rotating around that low pressure, bringing us a few showers. a bit like today, most of the showers tomorrow will be across parts of scotland

and northern ireland. there will be more persistent rain for the likes of caithness and sutherland up towards the northern isles at times. lots of sunshine further south. still a bit of a breeze blowing, probably not quite as strong as it is out there today. temperatures just down a notch, so between about 1a to 22 north to south on sunday. no great change in the weather as we roll through to the new working week as well. if you have got tickets to the ashes, of course, at lord's, that continues — it looks like a dry day tomorrow, temperatures about 21 degrees, and a noticeable breeze coming in from the west. now, moving through sunday night and on into monday, there is that low pressure not moving in a hurry, sitting across parts of scandinavia, so more showers rotating in on that west or north—westerly breeze, pushing into parts of northern ireland, western scotland through the morning. later in the day, some of those showers arrive across england and wales. but it is eastern areas that will keep driest for the longest on monday. temperatures between about 13 to 21 degrees. all in all, much of the week ahead is looking fairly unsettled, so there will be some showers at times.

some sunshine in between those showers as well, so not a complete write—off. but it looks like it will be a bit drier and warmer at least in the south, later in the week. some of those showers could affect the championships, which, of course, begin at wimbledon. goodbye.

live from london. this is bbc news. more than 1,000 arrests in france following a fourth night of violence. night of violence. 0fficals say a state of emergency 0fficals say a state of emergency cannot be ruled out. cannot be ruled out. i'm rajini vaidyanathan in the i'm rajini vaidyanathan in the french capital paris where the french capital paris where the funeral of 17—year—old nahel who was funeral of 17—year—old nahel who was shot by police has taken place. his shot by police has taken place. his death start these violent protests. death start these violent protests. —— sparked these protests. —— sparked these and — in a galaxy far, far away — the million milejourney scientists hope will shed light on the dark side of the universe.