Only saw up to ep 4 but the Paraguayan, like Carol, does not want to join the hive mind. I take her resistance as coming from being contrarian and wanting to feel independent and in control. That is where I see her writing coming in -- as a writer she is showing a preference for being alone and in control of the world of her books / stories. It sets up the dynamic where she and the Paraguayan are the resistance. She has anger management issue that play into the rules of the new normal. I don't see that we are supposed to condemn her as vapid or wealthy. She lives in a tract home and is only a modestly successful author. She is the first author character that Gilligan has used so I think he identifies with many parts of the character, eg is mixed-sympathetic. But I think we agree on the "trapped in what she considers their vapid reality" part.
That's why I see it as specifically about AI -- the hive mind, too pleasant, irrational ways that the infected act. The grenade episode to me was about AI being irrational about danger. It fit directly with the criticism of AI that says "The problem is that machines are very good a doing exactly what we ask of them but humans are not good at asking for exactly what they want."
I could also see Carol's arc as being that she thought of herself as smarter than most everyone else and then the curse is now that everyone agrees with her, she doesn't like that either.
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