‘Black Mirror’ creator Charlie Brooker recently spoke at the Edinburgh TV Festival, and outlined a scenario that sounds like something out of his own show: studios using artificial intelligence to generate animated previews of scripts before production begins.

“Basically, the script becomes a prompt,” the British writer said. Brooker stressed that while such developments concern him, he does not believe AI will replace writers entirely.

The writer also addressed long-standing fan feedback about the anthology series’ evolution since moving from British television to Netflix. Some viewers have complained that the show became less bleak and more Americanized.

“Every episode had been bleak and horrible and had a bleak, horrible ending, and then the show was going to Netflix,” he continued. “Sometimes people say to me, ‘I prefer it when it didn’t have Americans in it and everyone had bad teeth, and the worst thing ever happened to them, and then they died. Can you do that please?’ Netflix never said, ‘Could you make this a bit more jolly and American?’ I was just thinking, if I just did nothing but down endings, A, that’s really predictable and B, I’ll get very bored. So the first episode I wrote for Netflix was called ‘San Junipero.'”

Brooker said Netflix never pushed for lighter storylines but admitted he wanted to avoid predictability. His first episode for the streamer, San Junipero, was a deliberate departure.

Black Mirror returned in April for its seventh season, which critics hailed as a return to form.

Netflix has not yet announced whether an eighth season is in development.

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