Black Mirror: Five times the sci-fi show predicted the future from robotic bees to rating citizens
As the the dystopian show returns for a fourth season, we take a look at the real-life technology its writers have unwittingly foreseen
As if the terrifying real-life events of 2017 weren't enough, sci-fi thriller series Black Mirror is back on Netflix just in time to cram in a little more dystopian angst into the year before we head into 2018.
As fans will attest, the series is well-loved for its ability to offer cautionary tales of a not-too-distant future when technology is doing more bad than good. What's worrying, however, is how Charlie Brooker and his team of writers also have an apparent knack for predicting the future.
Below are a few of the most eye-opening examples of the show's prophetic take on the world.
The Prime Minister forced to have sex with a pig
In National Anthem, the character of the Prime Minister is forced to have sex with a pig on live TV to save a kidnapped princess.
Three years after it aired in 2011, former deputy chair of the Conservative Party Lord Ashcroft alleged that then-Prime Minister David Cameron had "inserted a private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's mouth as a student during a hazing ritual at Oxford University.
Asked about whether he had known about these allegations, Brooker told The Guardian: "it's a complete coincidence, albeit a quite bizarre one."
A device that documents what our eyes see
Season two's The Entire History of You looks at how devices implanted into our brains that allow us to document and re-visit all that we see and hear would affect our relationships. (Spoiler: the outcome is not good).
In 2016, tech giant Samsung patented contact lenses which feature an in-built camera and take photos when the wearer blinks. These are then sent to a smartphone, creating a livestream of what the person is looking at, Science Alert reported.
They are intended to be used by Alzheimer's patients - but it's not hard to see how they could be adopted for Black Mirror-esque purposes.
Uber-style ratings for people
The Chinese government recently announced plans to roll out a"Social Credit System", which would see people rating each other in terms of trustworthiness. Black Mirror fans were quick to spot the parallels - and potential pitfalls - with the plot of season three's episode Nosedive.
It depicted a society in which characters rate every interaction they have with another person out of five stars, which created a hierarchy of people and relationships based on genuine feelings becoming harder to identity.
Face-recognition characters
— Black Mirror (@blackmirror) September 12, 2017
As part of its iPhone X launch in September, Apple unveiled the Animoji feature which enables users to control the facial expressions of avatars including the emoji poop and monkey.
In season two's The Waldo Moment, a comedian uses an avatar called Waldo to run as an anti-establishment, populist candidate for a seat in a UK by-election. Waldo's unconventional rise to prominence has also drawn comparisons to the election of Donald Trump in the US.
Mechanical bees
Hated in The Nation - an episode of season three of Black Mirror - considers what would happen if the honeybee died out, and mechanical versions were put to work instead.
Unbeknown to the show's creators, scientists at Harvard University have already created a robotoic bee called the Robobee. You can watch its first flight below:
