What Black Mirror technologies are already available to people (17 photos)

“Black Mirror” is a cult British series about the future, in which the creators try to predict how events will develop in the future. The satire talks about the life that can await us if technology develops to such an extent that it threatens normal life. We tell you which episodes of the series turned out to be prophetic.





Robodogs



In the episode "Metalhead" of the fourth season of the series, we are shown what the world might look like after the apocalypse. In particular, in the world of the future, all people have been replaced by robotic dogs, which are equipped with a thermal imager and weapons. They themselves are programmed to destroy all living things.

And here I would like to remember that the Boston Dynamics company is already producing such dogs in full swing. They serve in the police, and mainly perform intelligence purposes. The company is confident that these robots should not harm humans.





But there are other companies that present dogs equipped with various types of weapons. Mainly the US Army. So, such killer dogs may indeed soon appear in the arsenal of some troops.

Robot simulators



The episode "I'll Be Back Soon" deals with various philosophical themes. For example, we are asked to think: can a robot replace a deceased person? Can a person live in a robot after death?

At the end we see a robot that has completely copied a person: his habits and communication style remain the same. And at the heart of it all is cloud data. Thus, the robot was able to copy a person’s identity thanks to the data remaining on its devices.



And although such technologies are not yet available to us, the developers have already created an android robot that can conduct a dialogue.



In addition, we have access to another technology from the episode: a chatbot in which a deceased person is recreated. The Luka messenger works like this: it created the image of the deceased Strelka art director Roman Mazurenko. And, according to people who knew Roman, the bot communicates in the same way as Mazurenko himself communicated.

Social rating



In the episode "The Dive" we are shown a future society in which social networks rule the world. There you can assign a rating to this or that person, and based on it you can purchase various luxury items. The heroine of the episode was going to buy a “smart” house, which is only available with a rating of 4.5. The heroine herself has only 4.2.



Ultimately, the heroine's rating suddenly drops, and she cannot buy the house she wants and a plane ticket to attend the wedding of her successful friend.



Social rating is actively working in China: in 2018 alone, 17.5 million people were unable to buy tickets for public transport due to a low social rating. The introduction of such a system became a reality thanks to extensive databases.

Delivery drones



In the episode "Crocodile" there are pizza delivery trucks driving through the streets. They operate without human intervention and are therefore involved in several accidents.



Of course, there are no drone couriers of this size yet. But last year, couriers from Yandex began working in Moscow, and later such innovations appeared on the streets of Houston in the USA.

Moreover, from 2024, the Ministry of Transport will allocate a special lane on one of the highways for unmanned trucks. That is, we may soon get acquainted with public transport on autopilot.

Artificial bees



In the episode "Public Enemy" we are introduced to small drones that closely resemble bees. They copy the appearance and even behavior of real insects, and use the principle of 3D printers to build hives.



And in fact, such bees still exist: they mainly work in agriculture. The first such artificial insect was invented back in 2013, but so far they have limited capabilities. Further developments are currently underway.



For example, in Israel there is a company that is constructing a robotic hive powered by artificial intelligence.

Metaverse



In the episode “Fifteen Million Merits” we are shown life in the conditions of constant shows, the work of VR and the internal accumulation system. The hero himself lives in a tiny room, but for the most part exists in virtual space.



In July of this year, Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company Facebook would henceforth be called Meta and would develop a metaverse. He stated that humanity will exist in a digital space with elements of virtual reality. Various companies and applications have joined the idea.



At the same time, people already have access to various phenomena from the episode: in the Moscow metro, passengers can pay “in person,” and cryptocurrency is no longer something incomprehensible from the distant future.

What do you think about future technologies?