‘That looks like a Black Mirror episode…’

How many times have you said that when reading the news? Life is increasingly transforming into a Black Mirror episode. The series created by Charlie Brooker (those who haven’t watched it, please do), explore the impact of technology and development by taking it to extreme effects: ocular implants that track everything we see and allows us to visualize our memory by projecting it on our retinas (again and again), artificial intelligence beings to replace deceased loved ones, macabre political figures who manage to attract thousands of voters, replicas of us in cookies, a world in which money is generated by exercising in the gym… After watching an episode you want to delete your Facebook account and get rid of your smartphone.

The phenomena that the series illustrates seems exaggerated, but the fact is that every day there are things happening that could have come from a script of the series. The Google Glasses are the first logical step towards those visual memory chips, there are people addicted to running and ‘fuel points’ already, there are numerous experiments with artificial intelligence derived from data analysis, and an endless etc. No further, the Sony hack story has all the ingredients for a perfect episode: hackers from a dictatorship, a powerful industry (Hollywood) that succumbs to them, secrets aired, debates on freedom of expression …

As an exercise in news curation, I have created a Tumblr, ‘Black Mirrored’, where I am publishing links to real news that could belong to a Black Mirror episode (with no intention of being alarmist, just as an experiment). You are welcome to suggest any articles you may find relevant!

PS: Don’t miss Brooker’s articles in The Guardian.