Black Mirror and the Next 50 Years

It’s not that far away.

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In the latest Black Mirror season, we are presented with six stories that stretch our minds to the edge of what we think is possible. In Common People, a woman undergoes surgery to have a device inserted that lets her stream her consciousness. This goes awry when she and her husband don’t read the terms and conditions. In Hotel Reverie, an AI technology lets actors be played by AIs who are self-aware and lets real actors be immersed in a fully virtual environment with these AIs to the point that they almost don’t know who is real and who is not. In Eulogy, a technology lets people revisit old memories in a fully immersive environment, but this can bring back both the good and the bad.

Black Mirror has always stressed how technology expands rather than limits us. Often, this is done with a sense of dark humor. However, the technology in the series itself isn’t as far away as we think. For example, in Plaything, the AI invents its own language, This season portrayed brain interface technologies the most often, along with AI. These technologies let humans interface with the brain to read memories, implant ideas, and fully immerse a human consciousness into a complex scenario. These technologies already exist, although at a rudimentary level compared to what we see…