“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”

I recently completed watching the brilliant science fiction themed television series Black Mirror on Netflix. The episodes were chilling and had me wondering how society will manage to maintain its humanity and compassion in the face of ever-increasing advances in technology.

All of the Black Mirror episodes deal with life in the near future – showing us the potential impact and unintended consequences that new technologies could inflict on our society if they are misused. The series name “Black Mirror” is a reference to the ubiquitous black screen surfaces that stare back at us while we fixate on our smartphone, tablet, television and personal digital assistant devices.

Each episode in the series is independent of the others and can be viewed in any order, similar to the iconic Twilight Zone television series created by Rod Serling. Black Mirror episodes differ however in that they are longer, darker and more focused on contemporary themes related to unease about our modern world.

The show’s creator Charlie Brooker said he wanted Black Mirror to focus on the side effects of technology and highlight the areas between delight and discomfort where it resides. The show touches on important ideas – the false way we sometimes present ourselves online, our growing addiction to virtual lives and even a touching exploration of grief.

Below is a brief synopsis of each of the episodes in the series along with a list of the important issues they raise about how technology could be used in the future:

National Anthem – A beloved princess and a member of the British royal family is kidnapped and held hostage. Her freedom is guaranteed on one condition: The prime minister must have sex with a pig, live on national television.

This episode highlights the increasingly tenuous grasp governments have controlling the information they want to disseminate to the public because of the uncontrollable power of social media, viral videos and internet leaks. Other issues raised are rules for how to effectively deal with terrorists who target celebrities, how all political decisions are being driven using real time popularity polling data and the difficulty of being a responsible journalist in the age of instant communication.

Fifteen Million Merits – Set in a bleak future, where most of society must cycle on exercise bikes to power their surroundings and earn currency called “Merits” that can be used to buy food from vending machines or watch shows from giant television screens. The only way out of being a caged rat on an exercise wheel is to trade-in your merits to enter the talent game show “Hot Shots” (similar to X-Factor) where the winners can escape by choosing to become part of the national entertainment industrial complex – or the attractive ones can choose, under the influence of a drug called ‘compliance milk’, to become stars on one of the national porn channels.

This episode raises the potential danger of technology being used by governments and industries to enslave the people and highlights society’s trend toward glorifying the false and superficial at the expense of the real.

The Entire History of You – Shows a society where most people have computerized ‘grains’ implanted in their skulls recording everything they do – allowing them to play back their memories in front of their eyes or on a screen for all to see. We watch a marriage unravel as a husband forces his wife to play back scenes from her past.

This episode explores the effect body camera technology and memories uploaded to the cloud could have on relationships when it becomes impossible to keep secrets anymore.

Be Right Back – As a woman mourns the sudden death of her boyfriend in a car accident, she learns of a company employing artificial intelligence that can create a hauntingly accurate replica of him, first as a phone app, then as an actual body using synthetic flesh; his personality and likeness created from the output of all his social media communications, emails and everything he ever tweeted or instant messaged or filmed himself doing on the internet.

This episode exposes the limits of artificial intelligence in replacing the human spirit and raises the question about what should happen to our online ‘presence’ after we are gone.

White Bear –  As punishment for a horrific crime, a woman must relive the same nightmare every day (and go through a painful memory wiping process at the end of each day). She is forced to navigate a brutal, merciless world, filled with horrifying imagery, before an audience who pays to secretly watch her suffer.

This episode shows the tendency in society to dress up the humiliation and punishment of others in the name of entertainment and wonders if it is possible to sympathize with someone whose crime was unforgivable.

The Waldo Moment – The comedian behind a blue cartoon bear named Waldo comically interviews politicians and other authority figures – making fun of their hypocrisy and the corrupt political system. As a joke his producer decides to have Waldo run for election to become the town’s member of Parliament. The joke begins to take on unexpected proportions as Waldo’s popularity begins to gain traction with the public.

This episode comes close to reflecting the reality of recent elections across the world that feature cartoon-like anti-establishment candidates who try to win elections by appealing to disaffected voters using social media channels to spread populist messages that play to the fears of the populace and divide the voting public.

White Christmas – Three interconnected stories show a “communication facilitator” who applies psychological based technology in the not too distant future to help desperate men pickup girls, train newly created artificial intelligence slaves and manipulate criminals to confess guilt to crimes that they have committed.

This episode imagines the chilling ways technology could be used in the future against the cracks of human weakness and how such an uncaring world would destroy any possibility of mercy and peace for its citizens.

Nosedive – Paints a picture of a world where all people are judged by their social media rating. Society’s status and benefits accrue to the members that have the highest rating, transforming every encounter with others into an exercise in false playacting, as disclosing your true emotions could negatively affect your “score” – which all people can see instantly by wearing special contact lenses.

This episode warns about the danger of a society becoming overly obsessed with their social media ratings and how developing technology can drive humanity to indulge in its shallowest impulses. It is a little eerie as we can see China experimenting today with using social media ratings as a means to control and encourage good behavior of the people.

Playtest – We witness a video game company testing games using new technology which allows the program to have access to the user’s brain – as well as the deepest and darkest fears of their minds.

This episode shows how the arms race between video game manufacturers to develop ever more realistic and adrenaline producing products could have deadly consequences to those who become exposed to them.

Shut Up and Dance – A hacker who has compromising electronic evidence on  a group of guilt-ridden online users blackmails them into performing a series of increasingly dangerous crimes to avoid having their secrets exposed.

This episode exploits one of the most pervasive nightmares of the modern age: what if someone’s watching you at your most vulnerable? And what if they have it all on videotape?

San Junipero – The minds of the dead or near dying have an option to live alternative versions of their younger selves forever in a simulated reality of their choosing.

This episode shows the hopeful ways that technology could be used in a humane way to ease the passing of those nearing end of life – merciful palliative care designed for no greater goal than easing the suffering of others. But does that mean we would lose the value that comes from accepting that suffering is an essential part of existence?

Men Against Fire – When a future society determines that its soldiers on the front line have difficulty hunting and exterminating the enemy because they look too much like them, they invent new technology that when implanted into their soldiers makes the enemy appear as vile, horrific mutants called “roaches”.

This episode raises the concern about how technology could be misused over time to perfect state-sponsored murder, strip people deemed “undesirables” of their humanity and turn soldiers into remorseless killing machines.

Hated in the Nation – The collapse of the bee colonies forces the government to create hundreds of thousands of mechanical bee drones whose purpose is to help pollinate the country’s crops. Unknown to the populace, the military includes cameras in the bee drones so they can be used secretly to help the national security agencies spy on suspected criminals. A hacker manages to gain control of the bee army and turns them into killing machines that first target hated public figures – before revealing that the ultimate target is all the people spouting hate speech on the Internet and thinking they can hide behind online anonymity.

This episode shows one scenario where the technology that is designed to protect us instead turns against us and how the pressure of hate speech from anonymous online forums can have bad consequences.

Collectively these stories paint a grim picture of technology running amok and bringing out the worst in human nature. It’s a perspective that technology is a trap and is going to change us all for the worse. After all, we are the race that built the atomic bomb and Albert Einstein, the man whose genius helped to make it a reality, expressed his own concern when he wrote:

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”

But I do not see technology as the enemy. I spent my entire adult career in the high technology field, inventing technologies that manufacturers could use to test their circuit board electronics and ensure that they were defect free and reliable. I was on the front lines during the birth of the personal computer, the world wide web, cell phones and smart phones, cloud-based computing and self-driving vehicles. I have witnessed up close the positive impacts these technologies have had on our society.

Technology is not inherently evil, but just like anything else it can be misused and abused if we are not careful to regulate how it can be used in a way that protects people from getting hurt. Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance captured this sentiment when he wrote:

“What’s wrong with technology is that it’s not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and of the heart. And so it does blind, ugly things. Humans are needed to put the brakes on it”.

So, I encourage you all to watch the Black Mirror shows and then go out and do you own part to help put the brakes on technology use that crosses the line.