By now, Black Mirror is essentially shorthand for the fear and uncertainty we feel about our modern, fast-changing world. Any time a new technology is unveiled, references to the dystopian anthology series flood the comment sections on social media. Elon Musk is putting his monkey-killing brain chips into humans? “Big Black Mirror vibes.” OpenAI’s CEO is asking you to trade scans of your eyeballs for crypto? “We’re literally living in a Black Mirror episode.” A Snapchat AI designed to talk to children started grooming its users and spouting racial slurs? “Black Mirror is a documentary now.”

In part, this adoption of the show as a metaphor for our fears about technology is a testament to Charlie Brooker’s uncanny ability to extrapolate tech trends and predict their effects on humanity. Sometimes, though, his predictions can get a bit too close for comfort.

Yes, this includes the time that David Cameron was accused of putting his “private parts” in a pig’s mouth, mirroring a plot point in the show’s first ever episode, aired four years before. But there are other episodes of Black Mirror with a much scarier resonance today. All around us, new inventions echo the series’ eeriest themes – from killer robot dogs, to 24-hour surveillance devices and experiments with synthetic biology – as if their creators mistook Brooker’s cautionary tales for an instruction manual.

Below, we explore five of the Black Mirror storylines that – for better or worse – ring true in 2023.

RECORDING AND REWINDING YOUR LIFE

Rounding out the first series of Black Mirror, the episode “The Entire History of You” took place in a world where humans are equipped with technology that records what they see and hear in real-time, allowing them to review their memories. The result? White lies are a thing of the past, but relationships are infused with a new degree of paranoia, and the main character obsesses over details from his partner’s past right up until the gruesome climax.

Now, you can have all of that too! Just this week, a wearable device called the Rewind Pendant was announced, allowing users to capture everything they see and hear throughout the day. Described as the “next step toward [...] giving humans superpowers”, it also comes with an AI assistant, which the company says you can ask to... remind you what your partner told you to pick up at the shops, or what funny things your kids said earlier that day. (Because God forbid you actually pay attention to your family!)

Of course, the downsides have already been spelled out by Black Mirror, but others – such as Grimes – have chimed in with their own fears, like the implications of constant surveillance for people in an abusive relationship, or the effects on child development. Just two days after the announcement, though, the Rewind Pendant already had 3 million social media views and 3,272 preorders. There’s quite a good chance this is a reality we’ll have to live with in the future.

AI BRINGING LOVED ONES BACK FROM THE DEAD

As hinted in the title, “Be Right Back” revolves around a young woman who resurrects her boyfriend, who died in a car accident, using artificial intelligence. The online service uses his online communications, such as emails and social media posts, to reconstruct his personality, and mimics his voice from past videos. This progresses to sex with an identical android (naturally) but she’s eventually put off by the one-dimensionality of her synthetic boyfriend’s personality, which is constructed to serve her, with no flaws or ambitions of its own.

Bringing loved ones back from the dead using deepfake technology has been around for some time – remember that uncanny Kardashian hologram? More recently, though, deep learning technologies have also unlocked the ability to recreate a person’s voice and thoughts. Speaking to Dazed last month, Dr Dongwook Yoon called these “digital doppelgängers”, explaining that they’re built on a subject’s digital footprint, just like the virtual boyfriend in Black Mirror. He also pointed out that they can lead to a number of problems, like the formation of parasocial relationships, or stopping people from moving on after a break-up or the death of someone close to them.

KILLER ROBOT DOGS

Filmed purely in black and white, 2017’s “Metalhead” was one of the more straightforwardly apocalyptic Black Mirror episodes, following Maxine Peake as she fled from a pack of robotic dogs following the breakdown of human society. Robot dogs, of course, have been a sci-fi staple for some time, also appearing in stories such as Snow Crash, but this one was explicitly influenced by the mechanical canines of robotics company Boston Dynamics.

IRL, of course, we’re not being stalked across a barren wasteland by robot dogs... yet. In the past, in fact, Boston Dynamics has openly opposed the weaponisation of its robots, saying that it would raise “new risks of harm and serious ethical issues” (well, yeah). That said, we’ve now seen Boston Dynamics dogs adopted by the NYPD, as well as the French military. A different robot dog, developed by the US firm Ghost Robotics, even comes equipped with a custom gun. Thought XL bullies were bad? Wait until you’re up against a metal hound with military training.

UPLOADING YOUR MIND TO THE INTERNET

One of the most celebrated episodes of Black Mirror, “San Junipero”, revolves around two young women, who meet in a nightclub in the year 1987. Only (spoiler) it’s not actually 1987. They’re actually living in a simulated reality, which has been invented to give the deceased – who upload their minds to the system – a place to live on for eternity.

This story is still pretty farfetched, of course – we haven’t figured out how to upload our brains to the cloud just yet. The scientific drive behind it, though, is very much a reality. Back in July, Dazed spoke to a researcher in the field of mind uploading, about the allure of leaving “meat space” behind, and the “whole brain emulation” technology that could make it happen. However, there are also plenty of perils involved, she warned, from fatal glitches to “mind slavery”. Read more here.

FINDING LOVE IN A HOPELESS PLACE (AKA THE METAVERSE)

“Striking Vipers” is a touching story about two old friends, Danny and Karl, who bond over the eponymous video game, a virtual reality fighting simulator that allows players to interact in the bodies of virtual avatars. After fighting for a while, they end up having sex, then keep on having sex, which has some obvious knock-on effects on Danny’s happy marriage to a woman named Theo. In the end, though, they all pretty much work it out. See, technology can be good sometimes!

Virtual reality, of course, has a growing presence in the real world, as tech companies keep on trying to make the metaverse a thing, and hardware becomes less clunky and more affordable. More importantly, though, dating is increasingly moving into the virtual space, with VR dating apps and hook-up-based chat rooms popping up across the aether. With the help of emerging sex tech like teledildonics, you can even (kind of) sustain a sexual relationship. Watch out, though, or you might just find that your new partner’s run off with an AI sex bot.

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