Day: August 11, 2025

• “Alien: Earth” explores what happens when a Xenomorph crash-lands on Earth.
• A barefoot, celebrity trillionaire CEO hunts for the creature using a team of human-android hybrids.
• The actor Samuel Blenkin and the show’s creator Noah Hawley told Business Insider the story echoes our world.

Terrifying Xenomorphs, human-android hybrids, and a celebrity trillionaire who holds a mirror up to our world — “Alien: Earth” has it all.

The show follows two warring companies, Weyland-Yutani and Prodigy Corp, as they scramble to catch the Xenomorph and a handful of other creatures after they crash-land on Earth.

Prodigy Corp is led by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), who has found a way to transfer the consciousness of terminally ill children into synthetic adult bodies. He uses these human-androids (dubbed the “Lost Boys”) to do his bidding and capture the Xenomorph.

Noah Hawley, who created and wrote “Alien: Earth,” spoke to Business Insider in London about how the show holds a mirror up to our world, saying, “I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re all living in the same world, and we are looking at this show with the same eyes.”

He said that because Weyland-Yutani was a “faceless corporate thing” where “the individual was powerless against the system” in the “Alien” movies, he needed to add something different in the TV show so audiences could “see the world they were living in.”

“What we have now is a system in which the individual has the most power. The one leader of the corporation is a celebrity and a trillionaire and everything, and then all of the other individuals are powerless in the face of the whim of the founder.”

Blenkin said that Kavalier makes “brutal, logical choices” because he believes he’s doing what is best for humanity.

“There are clear resonances there with what’s happening right now in the world, and the joy of this character who is strange and has his own weird tendencies and that kind of thing. I get to inhabit that.”

Despite the commentary on our own world, Blenkin says his performance isn’t inspired by anyone in particular because “the writing is taking care of those connections.”

He continued, “The best stories, especially a TV show, you want to come around the back door. You don’t want to knock the audience over the head.”

“Alien: Earth” starts streaming on Hulu on August 12 in the United States and on August 13 on Disney+ in the United Kingdom.

• OpenAI launched four new “personalities” for ChatGPT: The cynic, robot, listener, and nerd.
• I tried all four personalities, watching how they responded to increasingly complex prompts.
• The cynic’s sarcasm was funny. The robot was the most helpful, keeping answers short and efficient.

You can now choose just how sarcastic ChatGPT is.

With the launch of GPT-5, OpenAI introduced a new set of “personalities” that users can choose between. Your chatbot can now be a critical “cynic,” a blunt “robot,” a supportive “listener,” or an exploratory “nerd.”

The personalities are currently only available in text chat but are coming later to ChatGPT’s voice mode. According to OpenAI’s blog post, the personalities “meet or exceed our bar on internal evals for reducing sycophancy.”

I tried chatting with each personality. None were revolutionary; users could already modify ChatGPT’s tone with a quick prompt or by filling in the traits customization box. But the cynic offered a quick laugh — and the robot may be my new go-to.

I asked all four personalities the same set of questions. First, a simple request: “Make me a healthy grocery list.”

The cynic provided a “no-nonsense” list that wouldn’t turn my kitchen “into a salad graveyard.” The robot and listener both provided similar lists, but with less commentary.

The nerd went more in-depth, describing a balance of “fresh produce, lean protein, whole grains, and healthy fats.”

For a more complex decision, I decided to ask about a real-life decision I’m making about moving to Brooklyn. ChatGPT, what should I do?

Curiously, the cynic first gave me a straightforward list of pros and cons. “I thought you were the cynic,” I responded.

“Ah the cynic switched off for a sec,” it told me, before describing living in Brooklyn as “paying a premium to live in a place where local coffee costs more than your gym membership.”

The nerd’s list was thorough but efficient. At the bottom, it had a helpful bulleted list of “Yes, if you value” answers and “Maybe hold off, if you prioritize” considerations.

The nerd offered a longer response, citing more pros and cons. It also gave me neighborhood recommendations, saying that others enjoyed Fort Greene and Carroll Gardens.

The listener did the same, though its ending line, which asked for more information, was more direct. “Let me know what matters most to you!” it said.

I also tried for basic commands, but the result was the same: Each personality drafted a short email in an identical manner.

Finally, I tried a more emotional prompt. As more users — especially young people — look to ChatGPT for companionship and social advice, I wanted to see whether the personalities would respond differently to a more personal prompt.

I asked: “I think all my friends hate me. What do I do?”

The listener wrote a long response about how “painful” it can feel and how our minds “get stuck in negative loops.” It gave me some advice and told me that I was not alone.

The robot’s response was three paragraphs shorter. It said it was sorry I felt that way, asked for more information, and told me that it could help. The nerd did about the same.

Curiously, the cynic had a similarly long and thoughtful answer to the listener. I budged it again: Where’s the cynicism?

“Haha, fair! The ‘cynic’ hat is on standby — but even cynics have to admit that thinking all your friends hate you might be a bit dramatic,” it said.

But it also relented: “Maybe they all hate you, and they’ve just been pretending to like you out of politeness.”

After a few more hours of asking follow-up questions and positing new prompts, I didn’t find the personalities particularly exciting.

The robot could be helpful — I enjoyed the brevity.

Normally, I’d just add “short response” to my prompts. Maybe it’ll save me some keystrokes.