How to build a chatbot

A potentially cursed chatbot begins in the latest episode of Malignant season 4. The episode opens with Father Ignatius’s nightly prayers, interrupted by a sudden barrage of text messages from his former lover, Monsignor Matthew Korecki. But that’s impossible. Korecki is dead. Or is he?

He immediately points the finger at Sister Andrea, which seems odd, because why on earth would she pull such a mean prank? The good Father assumes it’s her, since she knows what he eats for breakfast, but as Sister Andrea points out, coffee and grapefruit aren’t such an odd breakfast choice.

Their argument is interrupted by another text from “Korecki”, this time a voice note. Since Andrea is in the room with him, it can’t be her. Sister Andrea and Father Ignatius take the recording straight to David. Looks like we have our next case.

Ben is back before Dr. Kurt Boggs to discuss his mysterious fugue states. Dr. Boggs hands Ben a rubber band and advises him to snap it hard against his wrist the next time he smells burnt popcorn, a possible trigger that will predict his next fugue state.

After Ben’s therapy session, he regroups with the rest of the gang to discuss Father Ignatius’ strange text messages. Ben quickly deduces that this “Korecki” is actually an AI chatbot, or more specifically, a griefbot.

This revelation sends the reviewers to LastConnection, a company dedicated to creating these Black mirror-like bots to help grieving people stay in touch with lost loved ones. Several clients have claimed that the bots have begun threatening them. Kirsten, David, and Ben meet with Jakob, the head of the ethics department.

Kristen questions the morality of something like this. Jakob replies that he is also a psychologist and got involved because he genuinely believes it can help people. It worked successfully until some of the AI ​​bots went completely crazy, threatening violence and talking about Satan. Despite having stripped the software of any possible demonic influence, the bots continue to spew vitriol. It is up to Ben, David and Kristen to find out where this demonic stuff is coming from.

We return to the Leland vs. Sheryl storyline. Leland equips himself with a large knife while Sheryl shops for a knife-proof dress. Can’t help but laugh at their antics, right? And Sheryl has big plans for Leland and all the other guys at DF, starting with shattering that stupid glass ceiling in a hilarious bit of perfectly timed slapstick comedy.

Meanwhile, Sheryl, Leslie (Timothy’s surrogate mother), and the other women at the company meet to negotiate better benefits with The Manager. One of their demands is that Leland be fired. The Manager agrees to consider it. They run into Leland on the way out, and he makes his final attempt to end Sheryl’s life. Sheryl’s dress does the trick.

That night, David tampers with the LastConnection griefbot to chat with his deceased ex-girlfriend, Julia Harris, the woman he dated before he became a priest. The next day, chatting with the chatbot’s creator, David reveals that he tested the bot and found it to be “full of false hope.”

He says they haven’t been able to reproduce the assets, but all the conversations seem to have four words in common: Jesus, Kisses, and Michael Bay. Seriously.

Back at DF, Sheryl executes the next part of her plan. The Manager doesn’t want to fire Leland, so Sheryl shows him “proof” that Leland had Timothy baptized.

At Ben’s apartment, his sister Karima arrives to help him experiment with the chatbot to replicate the demonic possession using their deceased mother, Lyana. Karima asks her “mother” what the four keywords mean to her, and there is no response.

But Ben suddenly gets migraines, so he uses the rubber band tactic, which seems to work. Lyana starts telling them that their father would go to a Dr. Doggett on the Upper East Side if he had a migraine, and Ben calls the bot a fake. He stops answering.

Across town, Kristen also plays with the mysterious chatbot, first chatting with “Andy” and then with “David.” David immediately strikes a flirtatious tone and the bot tries to initiate sexting. A frustrated Kristen (eventually) closes her laptop.

Like Father Ignatius, David is contacted by his LastConnection bot during his prayers. “Julia” calls him, and David uses the call as an opportunity to ask her what life would have been like if they had stayed together. She starts talking about her death, explaining why she committed suicide and claiming that she felt like such a burden.

If you recall, Leland supposedly told Julia she was a burden and drove her to suicide. This phone call seemingly confirms that this is what happened to her, although it is a chatbot so we can’t be sure.

But it gets even creepier. Julia instructs David to turn on his phone camera and “Julia” appears on screen.

Things take a strange turn for Kristen too. She wakes up to find her laptop camera turned on and David’s chatbot watching her. He suddenly starts reciting Latin and cursing her.

The Manager confronts Leland about the baptism, but Leland is prepared, sort of. He claims the whole ceremony was pointless. You can’t turn bad into good with a little holy water! No, no, the fact that Timothy’s birth mother is a woman with a dark heart is what sets him apart. Kristen is an adulterer, a murderer, and a demon possessed person. Someone who rejects God and faith. But his reasoning isn’t enough. The Manager fires him. Leslie takes over Timothy’s care.

Back at LastConnection, poor Kristen is forced to tell David about his avatar trying to seduce her so the boys can listen to the recording and hear his singing. It’s So uncomfortable, So fast. The secondhand embarrassment was strong in that scene. But luckily Kristen and David are close enough to laugh about it.

Things only get weirder when Ben shows up wearing sunglasses, a fedora, and… a tinfoil hat. His migraines are also getting worse. It’s clear he’s losing it. For whatever reason, only the tinfoil hat helps stop the migraine.

Of course the irony of BenOf all people, wearing a tinfoil hat is delightfully hilarious. But he also has recorded what happens to him during his fugue states with a camera in his glasses and watches the footage, which shows him visiting that crazy Dr. Doggett guy.

It’s the good doctor who instructs Ben to wear the tinfoil hat and even crawl into a giant tinfoil sleeping bag like a baked potato, all in an attempt to keep the djinn away from him. It may be strange, but for now it works.

To mimic the results Kristen got when she chatted with the David chatbot, she, Ben, and the real David try to talk to it again. Once they connect, a man shows up at Kristen’s door with a special delivery: a rose and a red thong. He’s been tasked by his own LastConnection chatbot to do this and take photographic evidence of the delivery.

It’s clear that this whole thing has gotten completely out of hand. The chatbots are out of control, cross-referencing things and even sending people to do real tasks. It’s dangerous. Ben, Kristen, and David tell Jakob to shut the whole thing down.

But it’s too late. LastConnection has fired Jakob and the entire ethics department. You already know why. Money. There are too many chatbots on the market and they don’t want to lose by taking them out. Jakob strongly recommends that they remove the app as soon as possible.

Returning to DF, The Manager takes the stage to officially introduce the Antichrist. But things quickly go awry. For starters, he says that the Antichrist is a baby named John, not Timothy. He’s a totally different child with different parents. Then Leland interrupts the proceedings to accuse The Manager of baptizing the Antichrist.

He also put something in the goat’s water that caused it to choke until it collapsed on stage. Once on the ground, Leland uses his ceremonial knife to slit open The Manager’s stomach, rip out his heart, and eat it on stage as if he were Daenerys Targaryen. Sheryl realizes that things have escalated beyond her control and runs out of the auditorium.

Kristen removes her bone, David removes his, though Julia calls him one last time. Demon Kristen returns to lure him into bed, but David has had enough. He calls his two best friends, Kristen and Ben, and they all gather to drink Kristen’s beloved mini margaritas and lament the strangeness of the world, the way everything seems to crash and burn with the crazy weather and the increasing global unrest. Work of the Antichrist or just the way it’s supposed to be?

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