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When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.
I think we can agree that technology is overall a positive thing. After all, technological innovations are what allow you to travel to other countries in under a day, have your current job, and post all your life updates on social media. But sometimes the technological cart runs before of the horse, and the results can eye-opening and, at times, disturbing. That’s the limbo CNNgo’s Mostly Human explores, technological advancements that are as impressive as they are shocking.
Hosted by Laurie Segall, the six part docu-series is like watching a real-life version of Black Mirror and Westworld. The first episode, “Dead IRL,” is essentially a plot directly from Charlie Brooker’s warped creation. The episode focuses on a program that takes the entire social media histories of a person along with their texts and translates that into a bot. Through this bot, users are able to communicate with versions of their loved ones who have died, which is the exact plot of Black Mirror’s “Be Right Back.” The concept is so disarming and the program created to mimic Segall’s voice is so believable, you can almost forgive the host’s over-the-top reaction to the story. The idea of a bot replacing another person starts to question the nebulous idea of what does and doesn’t constitute humanity, but apart from its dark, moralistic undertones, the story behind the program’s creation is sadly sweet. Eugenia Kudya, the co-founder of Luka, created her AI copycat program out of a desire to make her deceased friend’s dream a reality. In the episode, Kudya admits she still talks to her friend though the bot.
That’s what Mostly Human does. The docu-series explores the unexpected side of the technological equation, for good and evil. Some episode the series takes a technological story that initially seems creepy and shows the human element side to this advancement, like when the show explores sex dolls and falling in love with robots in “I Love You, Bot.” The series also inverses its formula at times, taking an established and seemingly innocuous innovation and exploring its dark side. For example, “Hacker Down: ISIS’ Twitter Star” explores the shocking ways the terrorist organization has utilized the social media platform.
Mostly Human doesn’t give much more than a surface level look into the advancements it explores. If you’re in the mood for a deeply disturbing journey into the dark corners of the internet, Showtime’s Dark Net is a much better fit. However, Mostly Human does a good job of transforming the seemingly insane stories of each episode into something that’s relatable, understandable, and highly addictive to watch. Also, with all six episodes of the show’s first season available for free on CNN Go, it’s an easy show to throw on in the background.
