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Scientific American
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scientific American
AI Offers Digital Immortality for Deceased Loved Ones—But Should It?
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American 's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. The idea of digital life after death is something science fiction has been exploring for ages. Back in 2013 a chilling episode of the hit show Black Mirror called 'Be Right Back' followed a grieving woman who came to rely on an imperfect AI copy of her dead partner. More recently the idea of digital copies of the deceased even made it into a comedy with Amazon Prime's show Upload. That shift from psychological horror to satire makes sense because in the decade or so between the premieres of those shows, the idea of preserving our dead with digital tools has become way less hypothetical. There's now a growing industry of what some experts call 'griefbots,' which offer AI-powered mimics of users' departed loved ones. But these services come with a whole host of ethical concerns—for both the living and the deceased. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. My guest today is Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska. She's a research fellow at the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. Her research explores how new technologies like these bots are reshaping our understanding of death, loss and grief. Thank you so much for coming on to chat today. Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska: Thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited about this. Feltman: So how did you first get interested in studying, as you call them, 'griefbots' or 'deadbots'? Nowaczyk-Basińska: I'm always laughing that this topic has found me. It wasn't me who was searching for this particular topic; it was, rather, the other way around. When, I was still a student we were asked to prepare an assignment. I was studying media studies and with elements of art and performance, and the topic was very broad, simply 'body.' So I did my research, and I'm—I was looking for some inspiration, and that was the very first time I came across a website called and I was absolutely hooked by this idea that someone was offering me digital immortalization. It was almost a decade ago, and I thought, 'It's so creepy; it's fascinating at the same time. It's strange, and I really want to know more.' So I prepared that assignment, then I chose digital immortality as a subject for my master's, and master's evolved into Ph.D., and after 10 years [laughs] I'm still in this field working professionally on this topic. Feltman: Yeah, I imagine that the sort of technologies behind the idea of digital immortalization have changed a lot in 10 years. What kinds of advances are powering this field? Nowaczyk-Basińska: So actually, 10 years ago commercial companies sold promise ... Feltman: Mm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: And today we have a real product. So that's the big change. And we have generative AI that makes the whole thing possible. We have the whole know-how and technological infrastructure to make it happen. To create this kind of technology, to create your postmortem avatar, what you need is the combination of two things: huge amount of personal data and AI. And so if you want to create this avatar, you need to grant access to your personal data to the commercial company. And it means that you share your video recordings, your messages, your audio recordings, and then AI makes sense of it ... Feltman: Mm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: And [tries] to find links between different pieces of information and extrapolates the most possible answer you would give in a certain context. So obviously, when your postmortem avatar is speaking, it's just the, it's just the, the prediction of: 'How would that person react in this particular moment and in this particular context?' It's based on a very sophisticated calculation, and that's the whole magic behind this. Feltman: So what does this landscape look like right now? What kinds of products are people engaging with and how? Nowaczyk-Basińska: Mostly what's available on the market are postmortem avatars or griefbots or deadbots. We use these different names to cover, actually, the same type of technology: so virtual representation of yourself that can be used long after your biological death. I often use this phrase borrowed from Debra Bassett that we live in a moment when we can be biologically dead but at the same time virtually present and socially active. So there are many companies, mostly based in United States—and United States seems to be, like, the epicenter for incubating this idea and distributing this whole narrative around digital immortality across the world. So we have different start-ups and companies who offer this type of, of services, either in the form of bots or holograms. Feltman: And are we seeing any differences culturally in, in how different people are reacting to and engaging with these products? Nowaczyk-Basińska: So that's the main question that I am trying to pursue right now because I'm leading a project that is called 'Imaginaries of Immortality in the Age of AI: An Intercultural Analysis'. And in this project we try to understand how people from different cultural backgrounds perceive the idea of digital immortality, so Poland, India and China are our three selected countries for this research, because it's not enough to hear only a perspective and to know the perspective from the West and this dominant narrative. So we are still in the data-collection phase, so I can only share some observations, not yet findings. What we know for sure is that for experts and nonexperts that we work in these three locations—when I say experts I mean people who work at the intersection of death, technology, grief: so people representing very different fields and industries, like palliative care professionals, academics, people who work in funeral industries, spiritual leaders; so people who could help us understand what digital immortality may mean in this context. Feltman: Mm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: So definitely, what we know for sure [is] that digital immortality is perceived as a technology that can profoundly change the way we understand and we experience death and immortality. And experts agree on that we need much more discussion on this and we need much more ethical guardrails and framework that will help us to make sense of this new phenomenon, that we need much more [well-thought-out] regulations and responsible design. We also need protective mechanisms for users of these technologies because at the moment there is no such thing, and it might be surprising at the same time, super alarming. And also that we need collaboration, and we need collaboration because there is no such thing as in one expert in digital immortality, [one] person who can thoroughly address all the issues and dilemmas and questions. And we need shared expertise, or collective expertise, to better grasp all the challenges that we are facing at the moment. Feltman: Yeah, obviously this sounds like a really complex issue, but what would you say are some of the biggest and most pressing ethical concerns around this that we need to figure out? Nowaczyk-Basińska: So the list is pretty long, but I would say the most pressing issues are the question on consent. Because when you create postmortem avatar for yourself, so you are data donor, the situation seems to be pretty straightforward because if you do this, we can assume that you explicitly consent to use your personal data. But what about the situation when we have a third party engage in this situation? So what if I would like to create a postmortem avatar of my mother? Do I have the right to share my private correspondence with her and to share this with the commercial company and let them make use of and reuse this material? And another variation on the question of consent is something that we called the 'principle of mutual consent.' We use this in the article that I co-authored with my colleague from CFI, Dr. Tomasz Hollanek. We introduced this idea because I think that we quite often lose sight of the fact that when we create postmortem avatar, it's not only about us ... Feltman: Hmm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: Because we are creating this for specific users, for the intended users of this technology, which is often our family and friends, and the thing is that they may not be ready to use them and they may not be so enthusiastic about this. For some people it can definitely bring comfort, but for others it can be additional emotional burden, so that's why we think we should be able to create a situation when different engaged parties will consent to be exposed to these technologies in the first place so they can decide whether they want to use these technologies in the long or short term. The other thing: data profit exploitation. Digital immortality is a part of commercial markets. We have the term 'digital afterlife industry,' which I think speaks volumes where we are. Ten years ago it was a niche—niche that has evolved into fully fledged industry: digital afterlife industry. Our postmortem relationships are definitely monetized, and we can imagine situations that commercial companies will go even further and will use these platforms, for example, to sell us products. And these griefbots can be a very sneaky product-placement space. So data profit exploitation, but also I think we should bear in mind that there are particularly vulnerable groups of potential users that, in my opinion, shouldn't be exposed to these technologies at all, like children, for example. Feltman: Hmm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: We don't have empirical-based research that could help us to understand how these technologies influence grieving process, but I think that in this particular case, we should act preemptively and protect the most vulnerable because I don't think children are ready to cope with grief or to go through grieving process being accompanied by AI…. Feltman: Hmm Nowaczyk-Basińska: and a griefbot of, I don't know, their parents. It may be devastating and really hard to cope with. Feltman: Yeah, absolutely. We've talked about the obvious ethical concerns. Do we know anything or do you have any personal thoughts about whether there could be benefits to technologies like these? Nowaczyk-Basińska: I think they could serve as a form of interactive archives. It's very risky to use them in a grieving process, but when we put them in different context, as a source of knowledge, I think that's a potential ... Feltman: Mm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: Positive use of this technology: so that we can learn from some scientists that were immortalized through this technology. Feltman: Sure, and maybe even in personal use, less like, 'Oh, this is my grandmother who I can now have personal conversations with while grieving,' and more like, 'Oh, you can go ask your great-grandmother about her childhood in more of a, like, family history kind of way.' Does that make sense? Nowaczyk-Basińska: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So to,to change the accents and to not necessarily focus on grieving process, which is a very risky thing, but rather try to build archives ... Feltman: Mm. Nowaczyk-Basińska: And new sources of knowledge, accessible knowledge. Feltman: Yeah, very cool. What do you think is important for consumers to keep in mind if they're considering engaging with griefbots or deadbots? Nowaczyk-Basińska: So first of all, that it's not universal remedy. It works for some people, but it doesn't necessarily have to work the same way for me because I'm a different person, I go through the grieving process entirely different. So definitely, that's a very personal thing, and grief is also a very personal and intimate experience, so we should keep in mind that it's not for everyone. Second, that these technologies, [laughs] it's only technology. It's not on the other side. It's not your deceased loved one. It's a very sophisticated technology that impersonate this person. And also that this technology can be addictive—I mean that this technology is designed in a way to keep you engaged, and you can be quite easily manipulated. So I think commercial companies should ensure that users are aware of the fact that they contact with technology through, for example, disclaimers. But at the same time we see that we have very conflicting interests here because what commercial company wants is to engage us and, like, keep us in this [relationship]. Feltman: Thank you so much for coming on to talk through this with us. I'm really looking forward to seeing your future research on it. Nowaczyk-Basińska: Thank you so much for the invitation. It was pleasure. Feltman: That's all for today's episode. We'll be back on Friday to talk about why the world needs to start paying more attention to fungi. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
Boston Globe
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Black Mirror' showed us a future. Some of it is here now.
Here's a look back at a few themes from past episodes that seemed futuristic at the time but are now upon us, in some form or another. Down the rabbit hole we go: Advertisement 'Be Right Back' Season 2, Episode 1 Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up AI imitations, companion chatbots and humanoid robots When Martha's partner, Ash, dies in a car accident, she's plunged into grief. At his funeral, she hears about an online service that can help soften the blow by essentially creating an AI imitation of him built from his social media posts, online communications, videos, and voice messages. At first, she's skeptical, but when she finds out she's pregnant, she goes through with it. She enjoys the companionship she finds by talking with "him" on the phone and starts neglecting her real-life relationships. She soon decides to take the next step: having a physical android of Ash created in his likeness. But as she gets to know "him," a sense of uncanny valley quickly sets in. Advertisement The same year that this episode aired, 2013, the concept was also the focus of Spike Jonze's Oscar-winning movie "Her." These days, AI companionship is quickly on the rise. Services such as Replika have millions of users. Replika started when its founder, AI leader Eugenia Kuyda, lost her best friend. After his death, she fed their email and text conversations into a language model, and in a way resurrected him via chatbot. Last year, Kuyda told the Verge that being "married" to your chatbot isn't necessarily a bad thing. In January, a New York Times story titled "She Is in Love With ChatGPT" explored the depths that people are bonding to their artificial companions, the lengths to which these partners can be customized and the ways these relationships can isolate users from their real lives. "Within the next two years, it will be completely normalized to have a relationship with an AI," Bryony Cole, host of the podcast "Future of Sex," said in an interview for the article. 'Metalhead' Season 4, Episode 5 AI control problems, drones and autonomous robots When this episode aired in 2017, Boston Dynamics had already created its four-legged mobile robot referred to as a "dog," a muscular Terminator-like entity that inspired the episode. In 'Metalhead,' Maxine is being hunted in a postapocalyptic hellscape by similar robot dogs that have seemingly malfunctioned and are now fixated on tracking and destroying humans. The sophisticated killing machines can't be outsmarted for long and are stunning in their ingenuity, relentlessness, and efficiency. Boston Dynamics has continued evolving its products, including the creation of humanoid robots that can even dance. The company's Spot model of a robotic dog has been available for purchase for a few years, but when the New York Police Department implemented the machine in 2021, fierce backlash ensued, quickly cutting its run short. Now, the city's fire department uses two for precarious missions. Advertisement But most of all, the episode serves as an allegory on increasingly urgent anxieties around autonomous AI and control issues as they relate to the use of drones, whether they're delivering packages or engaging in warfare. In March, Times tech columnist Kevin Roose made a chilling point: In the next year or two, there's a very real possibility that AI will end our species's monopoly on human-level intelligence — and that we are completely unprepared for it. 'White Bear' and 'Shut Up and Dance' Season 2, Episode 2 and Season 3, Episode 3 Online vigilantism and social media spectacle These two episodes arguably deliver the most memorable twist endings of the series. In both stories, protagonists are being tortured in one way or another, and viewers, compelled to feel sympathy, don't learn until the end that these characters are, in fact, being punished for crimes against children. Themes around vigilantism, the genre of true crime, the appetite for spectacle and desensitization to violence — and technology's affect on it all — wind their way through. These episodes, from 2013 and 2016 respectively, foreshadowed the rise in online vigilantism. A Times investigation published last month illuminated the evolution of vigilante pedophile hunters on loosely moderated social media platforms, a movement that has accelerated over the past two years. The analysis found that these hunters chase, beat and humiliate their targets — with a surge of violent content posted in just the past year. The content caters to young men, and commenters often cheer on the violence and even suggest new methods of torture. Advertisement This phenomenon of pedophile hunters stands out because it adopts 'a social media influencer model, using real-life violence to build a following online,' the report states. 'Arkangel' Season 4, Episode 2 Child tracking and behavior monitoring There's a popular meme about millennial kids that reads: "We memorized phone numbers. We memorized driving directions. No one knew what we looked like. No one could reach us. We were gods." That freedom to exist unmonitored seems unthinkable today. In this episode, Marie is shaken after briefing losing her young daughter, Sara, in their neighborhood, so she signs up to have a cutting-edge device implanted into Sara via a service called Arkangel. The implant includes location tracking and medical data collection, as well as an audiovisual feed from Sara's perspective that allows Marie to blur whatever she deems too distressing for her daughter (such as sexual or violent images). What unravels from there is a story of a relationship manipulated, warped, and destroyed by the technology. In the end, Marie's compulsion to monitor and interfere in Sara's life as she comes of age ends up being the reason their relationship falls utterly apart. These days, just about everyone is tracked, including (and maybe particularly) children and teenagers. Apple's Find My Friends app and Apple AirTags, which are intended to help locate objects such as keys and bags, are common ways to monitor a person. A simple Google search will serve up numerous lists titled "the best GPS trackers for kids." Likewise, we now have smartwatches that monitor heart rate, oxygen levels and more. Last year, Google-owned brand Fitbit introduced a smartwatch specifically for children. There's also Gizmo, Wizard Watch and TickTalk. Advertisement In 2020, Times columnist Jessica Grose warned parents about these tools, arguing that they hamper little ones' road to independence, preventing them from feeling truly free. Yet, the digital umbilical cord is becoming harder to sever even when children go to college. Apps such as the popular Life360 allow parents to get updates and alerts about the granular details of a young adult's behavior. 'I cannot take it anymore,' reads a post on Reddit about Life360, prompting hundreds of replies and thousands of up-votes. 'It's not worth the crying and panic attacks you will cause your child.' 'Fifteen Million Merits' Season 1, Episode 2 Screen dependence, inescapable ads and AI followers In this episode, a fan favorite that helped establish the series, Daniel Kaluuya stars as Bing, a young man who lives in a society where people must cycle on stationary bikes to earn merits, a type of currency, in order to pay for everyday costs (insert all metaphors about the grind here). He also lives in a room that's encased by screens on which he can play video games and watch shows. The screens wake him up every morning. If Bing tries to look away from an advertisement — and doesn't have enough merits to skip it — he's met with a piercing sound and a voice that repeats 'resume viewing' until he opens his eyes. The plot point serves as precursor to the subscription tiers that many streaming services employ today, in which you can only opt out of ads for a price (and sometimes not at all). As for ads pausing until they have your attention, that's increasingly the case, too. Advertisement But it's the episode's virtual talent show, 'Hot Shot,' with its artificial audience, that has come back around. During the pandemic, virtual audiences were installed for 'America's Got Talent' and 'Britain's Got Talent,' and artificial crowd noise was applied to televised sporting events, dividing viewers. Now, nearly 14 years after the episode aired, there's an app called Famefy that allows users to assemble millions of AI bots that simulate devoted followers and cheering fans. It's an immersive alternate reality that replicates being social media famous, even if no one is real but you. In an interview this month on Times columnist Ezra Klein's podcast, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt — author of the hugely popular 'The Anxious Generation' — called Famefy 'one of the most disgusting apps I've ever seen.' 'This is the most 'Black Mirror' [thing] I've ever heard,' Klein, using stronger language, replied. This article originally appeared in
New York Times
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Black Mirror' Showed Us a Future. Some of It Is Here Now.
Since 'Black Mirror' debuted in 2011, the dystopian sci-fi anthology series has taken seeds of nascent technology and expanded them to absurd and disturbing proportions. In doing so, it has become a commentary on defining issues of the 21st-century: surveillance, consumerism, artificial intelligence, social media, data privacy, virtual reality and more. Every episode serves in part as a warning about how technological advancement run rampant will lead us, often willingly, toward a lonely, disorienting and dangerous future. Season 7, newly available on Netflix (the streamer acquired the show from Britain's Channel 4 after its first two seasons), explores ideas around memory alteration, the fickleness of subscription services and, per usual, the validity of A.I. consciousness. Here's a look back at a few themes from past episodes that seemed futuristic at the time but are now upon us, in some form or another. Down the rabbit hole we go: Not long after 'Be Right Back' came out, services that digitally resurrect people via recordings and social feeds began to be introduced. Credit... Netflix A.I. imitations, companion chatbots and humanoid robots When Martha's partner, Ash, dies in a car accident, she's plunged into grief. At his funeral, she hears about an online service that can help soften the blow by essentially creating an A.I. imitation of him built from his social media posts, online communications, videos and voice messages. At first she's skeptical, but when she finds out she's pregnant, she goes through with it. She enjoys the companionship she finds by talking with 'him' on the phone and starts neglecting her real-life relationships. She soon decides to take the next step: having a physical android of Ash created in his likeness. But as she gets to know 'him,' a sense of uncanny valley quickly sets in. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Independent
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Has Black Mirror run out of steam? An episode-by-episode guide to the good, the fine and the terrible
A friend recently confessed that he felt Black Mirror had 'gone downhill since the episode with the prime minister and the pig.' That episode, 'The National Anthem' – in which a fictional PM must perform obscene acts of porcine gratification live on television – captured the zeitgeist perfectly. It was a late watercooler moment for linear TV, back in the days when Charlie Brooker 's pitch-black tech satire was still on Channel 4. It was also, it should be said, the show's first ever episode. Has it been in perpetual decline ever since? On the evidence of this latest season, the answer is yes. Once again, the pot-luck nature of the show has given way to an overabundance of bilge. Too many episodes rely on logic-straining mechanics, too few have the emotional sucker punch of 'San Junipero' or 'Be Right Back'. The horror too, of episodes like 'Shut Up and Dance' or 'White Christmas', has given way to a repetitive fear of digital imprisonment. In short, this latest season of Black Mirror just doesn't carry the same punch that it used to. The crown of television's best techno-dystopian series, it feels, has been passed to shows like Silo, Squid Game, and, above all, Severance. Mike (Chris O'Dowd) and Amanda (Rashida Jones) are underpaid and struggling to conceive, yet are still happily married and deeply in love. But their lives change when Amanda is diagnosed with a brain tumour. With conventional medication unable to help her, Amanda's only chance is to use an experimental procedure pioneered by a tech start-up, Rivermind, which removes the cancerous tissue and replaces it with a synthetic version. 'You're so pretty when you're alive,' Mike tells Amanda, as he drives her home from the hospital, but soon enough, the perils of signing over a portion of your brain to an avaricious corporation begin to appear. In essence, 'Common People' is about the subscription era, and our reliance on easily depreciated contracts. Amanda's life-saving package looks good to begin with, but unexpected add-ons – range limits, excess sleeping times, uncontrollable spoken adverts – are used to push her towards a premium scheme. That's a good target for Black Mirror to set in its sights. But as the narrative progresses, Mike becomes embroiled in a memecoin-style public humiliation livestream, as he struggles to fund Amanda's care, and the whole thing loses focus and moves inexorably towards tragedy. Good Black Mirror episodes set up a premise and then subvert it, but 'Common People' takes an interesting jumping off point and then progresses exactly as you'd anticipate. The ending, in its striking bleakness, feels undeserved. Bête Noire ★★☆☆☆ Maria (Siena Kelly) designs snacks for a confectionery company. At a taste test for her latest design (a miso jam 'hucklebuck') she notices a woman, Verity (Rosy McEwen), whom she used to go to school with. Verity was the class freak: a computer boffin about whom the popular girls, including Maria, spread a vicious rumour. But now Verity is beautiful and self-assured and inveigles her way into the company. As Verity's power over their colleagues grows, small things start to destabilise Maria's reality. 'Please stop shouting at me,' Verity whimpers to an even-voiced Maria, as she confronts her, yet her boss appears to unquestioningly believe anything Verity says. What's going on? There's something quite ambitious about the premise, 'what if technology could make gaslighting real?'. It scratches at two big issues in society today: the prevalence of domestic abuse and the ability of Big Tech to facilitate harm. And yet, despite that interesting core idea, 'Bête Noire' never really knows where to go. Creating the dynamic between two schoolgirl-turned-professional rivals robs it of the impact and urgency that it might've had in a more realistic coercive relationship. And the question with Black Mirror is always whether they can stick the landing: in 'Bête Noire' the central McGuffin is the sort of thing that Stewie Griffin, the fiendish baby inventor, would've cooked up in early episodes of Family Guy. It turns what could've been a compellingly political episode into something entirely daft. Hotel Reverie ★★★☆☆ The golden age of British cinema has passed, but a Hollywood executive (played by Awkwafina) has a plan to revitalise an ageing studio. A new technology will allow an actor to enter the black and white world of a classic film, Hotel Reverie. 'Where's my Casablanca? Where's my Brief Encounter?' hot American actor Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) yells at her agent. Well, it's waiting for her in England. And so, she enters the Hotel to re-film a live version of the movie, alongside Emma Corrin's wistful avatar/actress Dorothy, who played the heroine, Clara, in the original. But quickly the emotional distance required for this exercise gets eroded, and the technology itself proves buggier – and more dangerous – than anyone imagined. Hollywood is well-known for its cynical repurposing of intellectual property. So, again, this is an area ripe for exploration. Corrin makes for an extremely convincing 1940s screen starlet, even if her chemistry with Rae never really has time to bubble. They don't quite unlock the longing of David Lean's star-crossed lovers Alec and Laura, but the whiplash between the modern world of content production ('please don't call it content,' Harriet Walter's studio head declares, 'it makes me heave'.) and the dreamlike landscape within the old film is effective. Less effective is the attempt to ramp up the stakes by introducing convoluted technological nonsense that puts Brandy's life at risk. The technology in Black Mirror has to be plausible, otherwise the eye is drawn to the stupidity rather than the moral parable, and 'Hotel Reverie' finds this a tricky balance to strike. Plaything ★☆☆☆☆ An old man (Peter Capaldi) is arrested for attempting to steal a bottle of whiskey. A routine genetic check reveals that his DNA has been found all over an unidentified corpse dug up many years earlier. Who is this mysteriously gentle murderer? Who was his victim? And what role does Colin Ritman (Will Poulter, reprising his role from Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) and the chirruping digital 'Throng' have to do with all this? The secret lies in this man's past as a video game reviewer who found himself the sole owner of what amounts to an avant-garde Tamagotchi. Having dedicated his life to raising this herd of autonomous 'thronglets' – 'not obscene puppets like Sonic the Hedgehog ', as the man puts it, but cute, mewing digital blobs – what is in store for their final act? It's hard to write about 'Plaything' with a straight face, and it must've been even harder to make it without bursting into embarrassed giggles. It's just so fantastically stupid, yet played with utter po-faced seriousness. From Capaldi's lank, greasy wig to the two completely underbaked interrogators assigned to the case, everything has the air of having been hastily cobbled together to fill a scheduling gap. Black Mirror has always been concerned with how much humanity we show towards Artificial Intelligences, but given this subject is also explored, less madly, in 'Hotel Reverie' and 'USS Callister: Into Infinity', it's hard to imagine what possessed the team to crowbar in this short, deranged slice of digital ham. Cantankerous retiree Phillip (Paul Giamatti) lives alone in a house on Cape Cod. When a package arrives asking him to help create an 'immersive memorial' for a recently deceased ex-girlfriend, Carol, he finds himself sucked into a world of repressed memories. This 'full spectrum memory curation' from a company called eulogy allows Phillip, alongside a guide (Patsy Ferran), to enter and explore photos from his past. Slowly, the time that Phillip spent with Carol – about which he has spent decades stewing – comes back to him, and his eyes are opened to revelations about the truth of their relationship. The standout episode of this series, 'Eulogy', makes good use of Giamatti's everyman charms, not to mention a plaintive premise that makes emotional truth, rather than narrative thrills, its driving impulse. The technology itself stays just the right side of plausible, and while the twists and turns are heavily signposted, they feel earned. The production team on 'Eulogy' have also taken the time to lovingly evoke hippy culture of the 1970s, as present-day Phillip explores the sepia-tinged, smoke-filled photographs of his formative days. It is an unshowy episode – and not one likely to generate much social media chatter – but it demonstrates that Black Mirror can be more effective when placing the blame on humans rather than technology. Back in 2017, Black Mirror released an episode called 'USS Callister' which followed a group of digitised clones as they were enslaved on a spaceship by Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), the tyrannical designer of Infinity, a planet-exploring VR game. Following the events of that episode, the crew are now captained by Nanette (Cristin Milioti) and are cruising the simulated galaxy, fighting for survival against savage teenage gamers. 'It's 30 million players versus the five of us,' Nanette reveals. 'We are fucked.' And yet, as the net starts to close in on Infinity's CEO James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) back in the real world, could Daly's bandits have a chance at a truer freedom? 'USS Callister' is often regarded as one of Black Mirror 's best episodes, creating a strong, female protagonist and not succumbing to excessive despair. This follow-up – the first direct sequel in the show's history, though several episodes in this series carry notes from previous instalments – picks up the story just months after we last saw it. The continuation is well done, though it adds little to a story that was more evenly told back in 2017. With Daly already dead, 'USS Callister: Into Infinity' refreshes its deus ex machinas, inadvertently watering them down in the process. Like so much of Hollywood's sequel-obsessed culture, this is a perfectly watchable episode, though it feels pointless. And for a show like Black Mirror, which has prided itself on a doomsterish prescience, being pointless might be the worst insult of all.
Buzz Feed
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Charlie Brooker On Technology Developments, AI, And Why "Black Mirror" Still Mixes New Talent With Big Stars
It's finally that time of the year again. A new season of Black Mirror is upon us! Netflix Another season packed full of familiar and new faces to scare us into adjusting our moral compass as technology develops faster than our brains can comprehend. The newest season of Black Mirror features stars such as Paul Giamatti, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, Emma Corrin, Peter Capaldi, Rashida Jones, and many more. Despite the A-list cast, it keeps the same tone, having the same creator from the beginning: Charlie Brooker. We sat down with Charlie Brooker and producer Jessica Rhoades to discuss the new season, tech giants taking inspiration from the iconic show, and the new approach to casting. Black Mirror is basically a British institution now, since it first launched back in 2011 Charlie Brooker: 250 years ago Haha, so much has changed since then, and so much has changed in tech. Technology is such an integral part of the series. Has there ever been a moment where you've had an idea that seemed quite far-fetched at the time, but then you read about it and you're like 'wait a minute'? Both: Yeah, haha Charlie: Yes, and there's even an idea which I keep picking away at that I want to do but I haven't done yet, and I keep slightly worrying, 'Will this look like a retrospective documentary by the time we do it?' Quite often we've done episodes that I think, 'Oh that's a long way away from happening,' and then like two weeks later, suddenly something happens. Last season, we did an episode, Joan is Awful, which was about a sort of AI-generated video, on some level, and I don't think that at that point, I'd quite seen how quickly it would get like photorealistic. Jessica Rhoades: But we did know we had to do it last season. Charlie: We knew that we had to get this out quickly Jessica: You're always deciding because Charlie has so many ideas, and towards the end of the season, he's writing as we're shooting. So, at the end of the season, it is the first time that you are kind of both looking at the season you have and then, hopefully – touch wood – projecting the season in the future. So every once in a while, at the end of the season, he's like 'this idea or this idea?' and I think Joan was one where we were like we better go now because next season might be too late. Charlie: And this season… I suspect Common People, I suspect the tech in that will be sooner than – even though it's quite far fetched, I suspect the tech is probably happening and about to be launched. Netflix Have you ever thought that one of your episodes has potentially inspired tech? Charlie: Well, occasionally, I know that it has. Jessica: A few people are trying to sell something right now that I think is pretty Charlie Brooker. Charlie: Yes, well I've seen somebody who – this was a couple years ago now – when somebody was doing a sort of AI like chatbot for grieving people, and they said in some interview, 'I watched Be Right Back episode of Black Mirror and thought that looks like a good idea' and I thought, 'I don't think that in the episode we show that necessarily benign a good idea' there's certainly a nuance to that. I can see if somebody's grieving and they derive comfort from something, I don't want to judge them, but equally, there are potential downsides there. They probably only watched up until halfway and thought to ignore the lessons... Charlie: They switched it off! They turned it off halfway through to work on their business plan Before anything went wrong, they were like: 'Okay, got that idea.' Charlie: Haha, bastards monetising my content! Back when the show first launched in 2011, we used to see a lot of new faces, brand new actors were being brought to the screen; fast forward to now, we're getting a lot of household names. Now, when you're writing episodes or start casting, do you already have names in mind, or are you still casting like you were originally? Charlie: Sometimes it's a mix. I mean, honestly, when you're writing, you kind of cast people in your head because it helps you to write. They often aren't the person, but sometimes, occasionally, they have been the person who's actually in the episode. I think we've got a real mix because we've got some really big stars this season, and they're there because they're fucking great actors, but we've also got some people who are possibly less well known, who are emerging talents. I think that's also a very important bit to the show's DNA that I think sometimes gets somewhat overlooked. I hear people saying, 'Oh, it's all celebrities now' well no, fuck off, no it isn't. We've got loads of actors that people aren't aware of yet, but will be tomorrow. I think there's a good mix! Charlie: I think there's a good mix. I'm glad you've said that. I got defensive and angry about it for no reason. I'll back you in the comments! It's a fantastic mix and Black Mirror has always done quite well to bring out great new talent that you end up seeing on screen for years after; it's an attribute to the show. However, bringing in the big names sometimes matches the themes, like in Hotel Reverie, it makes sense to have big names like Emma Corrin because of what it represents. Jessica: Well, thank you ! Charlie: Thank you for that! Netflix All epsiodes of Black Mirror Season 7 are on Netflix from April 10th!
