Black Mirror is a Netflix anthology series exploring the darkness of technology and its uses in the near future. It’s easy to see why it’s become so popular with mainstream audiences: the tech itself is at once wildly inventive and shockingly close to digital tools in our lives today. In addition, the show touches on familiar life things like dating, politics, workplace culture, and, naturally, social media.
For the majority of its episodes, Black Mirror presents a negative outlook on technology, telling cynical (but largely plausible) narratives. The episode we watched in class, called “Crocodile,” explores how technology and human memory might one day become intertwined, solving problems (arguably) with more efficiency but simultaneously threatening privacy in a way that might cause certain individuals to commit desperate acts.
I was fascinated by the device at the center of this episode, the “Recaller.” It has the ability to conjure up an actual image from people’s memories; however, it’s also at the whim of the person’s biases and often unreliable perceptions. If such a device existed today, I wonder how helpful it would truly be. I’m not sure I would trust someone’s memory much more than I do now just because I can see it in an image form. Sure, if the person is lying (and is aware of their own lie) one could have a better chance at figuring that out through the Recaller. However, if someone’s memory and biases melt into one another (and their testimony is given more weight because the Recaller seems more reliable) then that too could be a problem.
Personally, I would be frightened of living in a Black Mirror-esque world. It seems that we’re headed in that direction, however, so I will do my part to help steer technology in a more healthy direction.
