Black Mirror becomes a documentary? [part 1]

Intro

The first season of Black Mirror was launched in 2011, over 12 years ago. Just last month, on June 15, 2023, the sixth season was released, featuring five new stories that delve into the destructive potential of technology in our lives.?

Black Mirror is known for its pessimistic tone, serving as a mirror that reflects humanity’s true nature through the lens of technology. Upon closer examination of each episode, you will notice that human behavior is the primary cause of people's struggles, pain, and death, rather than technology itself. Most of the stories begin with a utopian version of the future but slowly turn into dystopia.?

Six seasons contains 27 original episodes, along with an additional film.

In 2023 I suddenly realized that the future depicted in Black Mirror is already upon us. We are pretty close to the many futuristic technologies explored in the show. It’s remarkable to live in a time when the imaginings of screenwriters are becoming a reality.

In this article, I will review each episode of Black Mirror, provide an overview of the featured technologies and assume how close we are to seeing these stories come true.

Considering the extensive content of 27 episodes, I will split the full review into two parts

Spoiler alert!

If you haven't watched Black Mirror yet, I recommend doing so before continuing to read.

Season 1

Episode 1:1 - no new tech

Episode 1:2 - Eye-tracking advertisements, Gesture control, and Pure digital money

Plot: Set in a future society where people must cycle on exercise bikes to earn virtual currency for basic needs and entertainment. The common people live in small boxes, consume synthetic food, and continuously watch their TVs.?

This is a metaphor for our own society, where many jobs produce nothing useful and we found ourselves drowning in a sea of dull video content.

Actually, gesture recognition technology is not futuristic. In the 2000s, it was introduced for Microsoft Kinect on Xbox and Nintendo Wii gaming consoles.

Humans are naturally inclined towards laziness. Even in the realm of gaming, many consider games as a form of relaxation. Physical activities of moving our bodies are not as relaxing as sitting and merely using only fingers.

Gesture recognition is also used in other fields. For example, in healthcare, it can help to prevent the transmission of diseases and bacteria through touch. Similarly, in robotics, gesture control enables us to communicate commands without physical contact.

Gesture recognition cannot fully replace other forms of interactions such as mouse control or touch screens. However, with advancements in optics and our evolving usage of computers, I believe its presence will continue to grow in our daily lives.

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The same development status can be applied to eye-tracking technology. It is already widely used in various domains, including psychology research, market research, usability testing, and medical diagnostics. Black Mirror highlights its darker side, as the protagonist was unable to skip a repulsive advertisement because his eyes should be open for a system to count it as a view.?

IPhone already has certain functions but users should personally grant permission for an app to use the iPhone camera. I believe democratic countries and companies would not allow situations like the one portrayed in this episode because people would oppose invasive eye tracking. There should be a substantial reason for its implementation, beyond mere marketing engagement.

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Are we close to eliminating cash and transitioning solely to digital money?

- I don’t think so.?

Research indicates that non-cash transactions are increasing worldwide.

For example, Sweden is one of the leading countries in achieving the “digital heaven” with over 95% of transactions being non-cash. Other countries, such as China, South Korea, and Norway have also witnessed significant growth in digital payment usage.

However, I don’t believe we can completely eliminate cash. Cash serves as a reliable alternative during instances of risk management, such as when the Internet is down, phones are out of charge, or when someone is without their device. It can be possible when the Internet will cover each place on the Earth, everyone will have a virtual wallet and electricity chargers will be everywhere but these seem completely unattainable.

Episode 1:3 - Memories replay

Plot: Most individuals have an implanted device behind their ear, functioning as a smartphone within the brain. Its main feature is memory recording and replay. A man investigated the memory replays and discovers that his wife cheated on him and his daughter is not biologically his.?

Humans have a tendency to dwell on memories, often spending more time analyzing the past. In some cases, people even spend more time reminiscing about the past than fully experiencing the present moment. I believe this technology is the most potentially harmful in the entire Black Mirror series because its positive aspects would be overshadowed by human nature if there are no limitations for users.

Furthermore, the storage and replaying of memories raise significant privacy or ethical concerns. Not everyone would agree to be recorded by another person with an eye implant or some records can’t be shared with others. Both scenarios will be hard to manage.

Memory technologies require a comprehensive understanding of how our brain works. As of 2023, we still have much to learn. Here are some numbers that illustrate why brain logic is so hard to decode:

• an adult’s brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons;
• neurons come in various types, and we have not yet identified them all. There are likely over 100 different types;
• each neuron has numerous connections, known as synapses, with other neurons;
• in total, there are over 1 quadrillion synapses, or 1,000,000,000,000,000;
• synapses themselves are not uniform, they possess distinct characteristics
• besides neurons, our brain consists of other cells, such as blood vessels and glia, which are even less understood than neurons.

Nearly 100 years ago, physicist Emerson Pugh famously said, “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.”?

In conclusion, the technology of memory replay appears to be beyond our reach in this decade.

Season 2

Episode 2:1 – AI human simulation and Human-like robot

Plot: A woman lost her husband and decides to replace him by purchasing his complete simulation. The simulation consists of an AI-based personality derived from her husband’s social media and a robotic body that looks and sounds exactly like him.?

What's truly fascinating is that we are on the verge of achieving virtual imitations of personalities. Currently, we can ask ChatGPT to mimic a math professor or a businessman, adjusting its tone of speech and other configurations and ChatGPT will do this quite accurately. So why can’t we do the same and ask it to imitate another specific person? Each individual has unique personality traits that can be uploaded to an AI model.?

I believe the market for creating AI assistants that are complete replicas of real people, will turn our world around. For instance, I want Elon Mask to be my virtual assistant. Elon could share his personal characteristics, such as voice, mannerisms, and conversational style and we could apply these configurations to an AI. It will be as simple as setting a background for the iPhone.

However, AI creators are very careful with implementing this idea due to copyright and ethical concerns as well as the potential for extensive scams. Just imagine if someone were to mimic your child’s voice and personality and call you from an unknown number – it would be too realistic and therefore scary. Another issue would be fake news. With deepfake technology advancing, it is becoming challenging to distinguish computer-generated videos from real ones. This could become a significant problem within the next 4-5 years.

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The development of human-like robots poses even greater challenges. Similar to the human brain, the architecture of the human body is very complex. We have over 600 different muscles and 206 bones. While machines can be simplified to some extent by excluding necessary bones, muscles, and organs, there are still many essential components. Creating a lifelike body requires:

• numerous sensors to replicate human perception and feedback;
• excellent power efficiency to accommodate the energy needs of these sensors and muscles;
• advancements in materials and technologies that can replicate the texture, elasticity, protection, and regenerative abilities of human skin.

Financing also presents a hurdle for robotic bodies. Nowadays, humanoid robots are often seen as funny toys rather than practical tools. For mass manufacturing to become viable, businesses need robots to be financially viable and have a stable demand. On the other hand, Steve Jobs once said: “People don't know what they want until you show it to them.” Perhaps, once I have the opportunity to interact with a humanized robot and realize its necessity in my life. We just need to get that experience first, like it was with ChatGPT.

Long story short, the storyline of “Terminator” is still a far-fetched future, at least for now :).

Episode 2:2 – Memories eraser

Plot: A woman who assisted a murderer is judged and subjected to a unique punishment. A group of individuals uses her for entertainment by organizing a performance where they repeatedly attempt to kill her, erasing her memory each day to make her forget what has happened. Then they repeat the performance again and again.

This episode explored yet another brain-related technology, which is a recurring theme in Black Mirror.

In addition to the concept of memory replay discussed in Episode 1:3, it is important to note that human memory comes in different types and is stored in various regions of the brain. Technically, memory is formed through connections between neurons. These connections remain inactive during everyday life but are reactivated when we recall a memory, engaging the neural networks and reestablishing the connections to retrieve stored information.

We imagine memory erasing as the selective erasing of only a particular part of memories related to our past but retaining the skills like walking, programming, cooking, etc. In other words, we want to eliminate the neuronal connections associated only with unnecessary memories keeping the rest of the connections stable.?

This is a very far perspective. It will require a complete understanding of how the brain works, including its individual characteristics, the ability to selectively target and remove specific neuronal connections, and the implementation of this knowledge into a device that can process such complex tasks on the closed skull.

Episode 2:3 - no new tech

Episode 2:4 - Eye implants and Consciousness copying

Plot: Consciousness copying technology has become widespread. Police use it to get confessions without the need for actual human interaction because they can do whatever they want (especially torture) with the consciousness copy.

Meanwhile, eye implants have advanced to the point where they function like “smartphone in your eye”:

• an implant owner has an in-built brain-computer interface that functions as augmented reality (AR),
• the implanted eye is indistinguishable from a normal eye,
• the owner can use them to make calls, watch videos, surf the internet, etc.?
• also, these eyes can capture everything the owner sees and share it with others.

In our story, the police suspect is a man who has been blocked by his wife, preventing any communication between them. “Blocking” in this context means that both parties are muted for each other and appear as gray clouds.

These eye implants are similar to the memory replay technology from episode 1:3, but from a different perspective and more complex.?

Creating them is a highly challenging task that requires a high level of biocompatibility, miniaturization and must be seamlessly integrated with human vision. However, to achieve all features shown in the episode, the eye implants alone are not enough. They should be combined with a processor, battery, and an internet module for a constant connection to the cloud where all settings are managed and stored.

So, what is the current implants' development state?

I was surprised to discover that we have numerous examples of bioelectronics. For example, there are heart implants that stimulate the owner’s heart to beat or cochlear implants that restore hearing.

?Another example that has gained popularity, unfortunately, due to the russian-Ukraine war, is neural or myoelectric prosthetics. People who have lost a hand or leg can now get a mechanical replacement that can be controlled just like their own hand or leg.?

In simple terms, the brain generates a command for the prosthesis, the sensor decodes the signal, transfers it to the prosthesis and the prosthesis performs the desired action. The prosthesis can also send feedback signals to the brain whether it can’t perform an action or in response to being touched or damaged, like a real hand.

Bad news about these examples is that they are extremely expensive. The total costs of cochlear implants, including the devices, surgery, and rehabilitation, range from?$50,000 to $100,000. A similar cost is for myoelectric arm technology.

When it comes to vision implants, we are still far from achieving such a high technological level. Just look at the size of cochlear implants. I’m not saying hearing is a simple feature in the human body but vision is definitely the next level. I see two potential ways to simplify the concept and achieve a similar effect to that of eye implants:

First is sending a signal of what a person sees directly to the brain.?

The technology that allows it is called brain-computer interface (BCI). It is not only about vision but covers all human body functions. For example, prosthesis control from the?above picture also uses a kind of BCI. Numerous books can be written about BCI, but for our Black Mirror topic let’s focus on a vision aspect of the technology.

Research in this field is quite active. For example, scientists are trying to give vision to blind individuals by sending signals to their brains. Currently, the visual experience is not perfect. The test subject reported seeing shapes and forms but the clarity was low and can be compared to the image of 25x25 pixels. Sounds great, compared to the full darkness but it is still far from the original vision.

Another fascinating application of such devices could be the visual remote control of other devices. Imagine, looking at the laptop and thinking about turning it on which would send a signal to the laptop. If you live in a smart house, the ability to manage all devices at home with your mind would be absolutely incredible.

Elon Musk's company, Neuralink, is also working in this field. In 2021 they demonstrated a monkey playing ping pong solely with the power of its mind.

Currently, Neuralink has finally received permission to integrate its implant into a human brain, so we can expect significant progress in this field in the next few years. For now, they are focused on helping disabled people to restore moving and vision abilities but using a brain chip as a smart device like a smartphone could be also a good opportunity for the company.

The second option to start living in the BM episode 2:4 is cyber lenses. This area is still in the R&D phase. Major companies like Google, Samsung, and Sony hold a lot of patents for technologies such as small processors, sensors, wireless modules, mini screens, and schematics that could potentially be combined into a promising product.?

However, no real product has been developed yet.

In the next picture, you can see a concept for Mojo Vision smart lenses.

Due to financial issues, Mojo closed its smart lenses project in January 2023 and shifted to the development of microLED displays.

In March 2023 Google announced they had stopped selling their Glass Enterprise smart glasses.

When searching for the development status of other smart lenses projects I failed to find any positive news. The market demand for such devices is still too small and big companies are not investing heavily in this field. Perhaps 2023 is simply too soon for a such device and we may witness its rise in the future

Copying, pasting and other operations with human consciousness – are the ultimate dreams of all futurists. The reason is simple: if we discover how to transfer consciousness, we may achieve a form of immortality, at least, in terms of soul.?

Operating with human memory is like learning to ride a bicycle compared to the complexity of understanding the true origin of consciousness. We still don’t have answers to fundamental questions such as: What is the soul? In which exact part of our body is consciousness located? What is the physical nature of consciousness (electricity, waves, molecules, etc.)? and many others.?

Consciousness is too hard to start experiments with, so scientists are working on more practical questions. In addition to the experiments with vision, hearing, and moving, they are trying to understand what the person is thinking using only information about their brain activity. And they have promising results in it.

A recent report by scientists from the University of Texas showed that their method allows one to understand the topics a person is thinking about. However, this method requires a person to be inside a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner throughout the entire "thought-reading" process. Initially, a mapping of brain activity and its corresponding meaning is created. Then the system can predict topics based on previously mapped brain activities.?

Another experiment with thought reading was conducted on a mouse. The scientists showed the mouse a video while simultaneously scanning its brain and trying to reproduce the video solely based on brain activity. Then they fed decoded information to the AI visualization tool and achieved a remarkable compatibility rate of ~90%! Insane results.

The comparison of the original and the predicted videos can be found here.

The experiments were done without answering the questions about the origins of the soul and the nature of consciousness. They show that it is possible to digitize the complete brain, at least in theory. The only problem is time bounds, because it may require hundreds of hours to record most of the brain’s processes and reactions. Additionally, substantial storage capacity would be needed to store this vast amount of information, and a supercomputer that can convert raw data into a final brain map. In the end, it is quite possible that the digital copy of a person could resemble the original so closely that we might refer to it as an individual "personality."

Right now, super technological small devices from Black Mirror that can copy anyone in a couple of days remain dreams.

Black Mirror looks far from becoming real because only a few futuristic staff exist in reality. But we have 4 more seasons to analyze so see you in the next chapters;)

End of Part 1.