Since “Black Mirror” debuted in 2011, the dystopian sci-fi anthology series has taken seeds of nascent technology and expanded them to absurd and disturbing proportions.
In doing so, it has become a commentary on defining issues of the 21st-century: surveillance, consumerism, artificial intelligence, social media, data privacy, virtual reality and more. Every episode serves in part as a warning about how technological advancement run rampant will lead us, often willingly, toward a lonely, disorienting and dangerous future.
Season 7, newly available on Netflix (the streamer acquired the show from Britain’s Channel 4 after its first two seasons), explores ideas around memory alteration, the fickleness of subscription services and, per usual, the validity of A.I. consciousness.
Here’s a look back at a few themes from past episodes that seemed futuristic at the time but are now upon us, in some form or another. Down the rabbit hole we go:
‘Be Right Back’
Season 2, Episode 1
Not long after “Be Right Back” came out, services that digitally resurrect people via recordings and social feeds began to be introduced.Credit…Netflix
A.I. imitations, companion chatbots and humanoid robots
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When Martha’s partner, Ash, dies in a car accident, she’s plunged into grief. At his funeral, she hears about an online service that can help soften the blow by essentially creating an A.I. imitation of him built from his social media posts, online communications, videos and voice messages.
At first she’s skeptical, but when she finds out she’s pregnant, she goes through with it. She enjoys the companionship she finds by talking with “him” on the phone and starts neglecting her real-life relationships. She soon decides to take the next step: having a physical android of Ash created in his likeness. But as she gets to know “him,” a sense of uncanny valley quickly sets in.
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