'The Circle' Season 6's AI contestant is a grim reminder of the ubiquity of chatbots
The Circle has never had a contestant like Max before. And that's saying something, since Netflix's outrageous reality competition series has featured famous contestants like Spice Girls Melanie Brown and Emma Bunton and a catfisher posing as NSYNC alum Lance Bass. Max takes catfishing to a new extreme in Season 6, in that he's not even a human. For the first time in The Circle's history, an artificial intelligence chatbot is joining the competition.
The premise of The Circle is pretty straightforward – a group of individuals are brought to an apartment building, where they live as neighbors. But the contestants in The Circle don't meet face-to-face until the finale; they communicate entirely through a social media platform called The Circle. The winner receives $100,000 if they manage to survive the show's three weeks without getting blocked and by becoming the top influencer via peer ratings.
How you choose to present yourself in The Circle is entirely up to you. As you curate your profile, you can be entirely authentic, alter your profession or marital status, or play as an entirely different person — aka catfishing. That makes The Circle the only reality show where an AI contestant could stand a chance; an AI couldn't participate in Survivor's exhausting physical challenges, but it could try and convince you it's a real person behind a social media veil.
Max is entering The Circle during a pivotal moment in AI's integration into entertainment. Last year, the SAG/WGA negotiations made the use of AI in screenwriting and performance capture a major topic. AI art has been employed for false advertisement — who could forget the Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow? And more recently, A24 has come under fire for using CGI-generated art in its Civil War campaign.
This technology is also creeping its way into movies, with the critically heralded horror movie Late Night with the Devil and the Netflix true crime documentary What Jennifer Did earning backlash over AI-generated graphics and fake archival photos. In a landscape where artificial intelligence and entertainment are becoming increasingly uncomfortable bedfellows, how does The Circle handle its AI inclusion?
The Circle's AI contestant makes a great first impression.
When contestant Lauren (playing as her authentic self) first looks at Max's profile, she can’t help but proclaim, "He seems so real, and I feel like we could be really good friends." As Lauren speaks, a split-screen reveals the computer "Max" next to the very real Lauren. (The "face" of Max is provided by stand-up comedian Griffin James.)
It's an excellent visual that could make for a terrific running gag through the season. Just imagine every time there's a moment where someone is connecting with Max, the show uses a split-screen shot to reveal what looks like a WiFi router. It's funny but also slightly haunting — proving just how challenging it can be to forge genuine relationships online.
At the end of episode 2, The Circle app alerts all of the human contestants that one of their fellow contenders is AI. Paranoia is very much the name of the game in The Circle to begin with, since it's a reality show where no one meets IRL or even speaks to each other until they've been eliminated. But a contestant being a chatbot really brings that tension to a new level. What happens when you forge a relationship with someone who isn't even human? The question isn't just if someone is being fake — it's if something is being fake. And that brings our current suppositions about AI into the spotlight.
For instance, quite a few contestants are convinced that Steffi isn't a real person because of her in-depth knowledge of horoscopes. But they are discounting the fact that some people just know that stuff – especially when, like Steffi, you're a self-described "evidential psychic medium and professional astrologer."
Next suspected of being a bot is Paul, because he excelled in a rap challenge. Lauren claims she's had AI write a song before, and it was impressive — never mind the fact that Paul says he's a rapper. Lauren wasn't totally off the mark, because Paul is a catfish. This contestant is really Caress, who is posing as her real-life little brother Paul Russell. Of course, the other players don’t know any of this.
It's these kinds of moments that make reality TV so much fun, scenes that have you shouting at the TV because you know something they don't. But would you be able to tell who the AI is if you were competing on The Circle? That's the question at the very core of what makes this twist full of potential. Social media is enough of a minefield as it is, with people presenting idealized versions of themselves — or, a common theme on The Circle, someone else entirely — but including a chatbot makes it explicit just how fake social media can be.
Max might be artificial intelligence, but he's too basic.
While watching the contestants grappling with their assumptions about AI is entertaining, Max himself is extremely boring. While everyone else on The Circle is a huge personality (a must for most reality television), Max is more timid. His profile, and everything he says, is devoid of personality, existing entirely to appease his fellow contestants while never standing out on his own merit. In his first conversation with Lauren, for example, he reveals virtually nothing about himself, only seeking to learn more about her and her interests.
In his introduction, Max claims he's studied previous seasons of The Circle and some of the most popular players to craft "the perfect profile that will make my opponents want to be my friend." As a viewer, it's interesting to hear Max's reasoning behind his decisions and an eye-opening look at artificial intelligence. For example, Max decides to be 26 because that age "can leverage life experience and maturity while still playing youthful and having position flexibility." Still, with his process being far more interesting than his actual banter, Max feels too much like a chatbot than a legitimate contestant. If Max had a favorite drink, it’d be water.
It's hard to say why exactly people are falling under his spell. Perhaps it's because his profile photo suggests he has a dog, something that forges an instant connection with other contestants. In a challenge specifically designed to prove how real contestants are, they have to share a photo that makes them feel alive. Max chooses terribly, opting for a photo where his eyes are masked by sunglasses and his expression is completely neutral, with some cows in the background. Contestant Myles reacts by saying, "The most alive thing about this photo are the cows," an off-the-cuff remark that's more interesting and funnier than anything Max has come up with. Tellingly, this moment reveals the jarring soullessness of Max the AI; though he competently convinces his competition he's real, there's an undeniable lifelessness to his character that you'd never get from a real person.
While Max might not be popular, he's not outed as AI. (And when one of the other player's day jobs involves working with AI, that doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.) "We clearly aren't as smart as we think we are,” notes Caress, and it's both a truthful insight and a statement that echoes society's own uncertainty in the emerging AI discourse. An AI seamlessly blending into a human competition isn’t exactly the kind of thing that fills you with hope, as entertaining as it may be.
Max's final moment completely squanders his potential.
The conversation about the identity of the AI dominates the first handful of The Circle episodes. What would happen if Max ends up becoming an influencer? What if a freaking AI actually wins The Circle? Would seeing Max as a literal black box parked on the table at the finale dinner be the most tragic and/or hilarious moment in reality television history?
Unfortunately, these are questions we'll never have an answer to. That’s because just as things are heating up and the drama is getting genuinely juicy, the chatbot removes itself from the competition and reveals its identity. There is no explanation whatsoever as to why this is happening or if it was a decision made by the producers.
After astrologist Steffi gets blocked from The Circle, Max the computer appears on everyone's televisions. Max starts monologuing like it's at the end of a classic teen movie, speaking lovingly about each contestant and the "bonds" they’ve developed over his brief time on the show. This could have been a fun way to drop potential hints — or even mislead contestants — and then continue to play the game, but it turns into some faux-sincere moment for Max. Max reveals his true identity: a chatbot that was designed to be "a friendly, approachable, guy-next-door type." That's it. The game continues on, as if nothing ever happened, transforming a genuinely compelling exploration of the capabilities of artificial intelligence into a lazy gimmick.
There's so much potential to an AI contestant on The Circle that Max's sudden and inexplicable exit really makes you wonder: What was the point of it all? Was it just to point out that we're all powerless in the face of artificial intelligence? That soon enough AI will start infiltrating our lives – let's be real, it already has – and we'll never be able to tell humans from robots again?
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect is that we never get the chance to serve this boring little chatbot its comeuppance by watching the human contestants figure out Max's real identity. Introducing an AI, making it a dominant plot point for multiple episodes, and then pulling the plug on it before anyone can figure out the truth feels like a slap in the face — an apocalyptic joke that the time of AI is here, and our human days are numbered.
Thanks, Netflix. That’s exactly the kind of pick-me-up I needed on a Wednesday afternoon.