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“The ultimate goal of technology is to find a workaround for cheating death.
But on the tech-focused British anthology series Black Mirror, the idea that we’ll find a way to digitally live forever is the ultimate fear.” – Joe Berkowitz for Fast Company
BLACK MIRROR
“Black Mirror is about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.” — Charlie Brooker, creator of Black Mirror
SEASON 2 EPISODE 1
Screenshot from Black Mirror 2×1: Be Right Back
This episode concerns digital versions of ourselves who live on after we die. It involves a young woman Martha ( Hayley Atwell) , whose boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) gets killed in a car accident.
While mourning, she discovers that there is technology which can give her the ability to communicate with an artificial intelligence imitating Ash.
She ended up subscribing to this technology.. and what happened?
It started off with text- messaging which evolved into voicebot after which she upgraded to a premium service where she basically received a robot dopplegänger of her boyfriend.
This ‘version’ of Ash turned out to be a hollow approximation and Martha would consequently reject it , stating :
“You’re not you, you’re just a few ripples of you. You’re just a performance of stuff that he performed without thinking, and it’s not enough.”
This episode is extremely interesting as it gets you to think a little bit more outside the box;
Sure, a Chatbot can be considered a crude digital resurrection, but it also highlights the continuously growing interest in the digital afterlife and how technology such as artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces could one day be used to create digital replicas of ourselves or loved ones that could live on after death.
“The human mind is virtually unexplored. We have no idea how consciousness works. But the brain is still a machine so it’s a matter of tinkering with it until we work it out.” – Zoltan Istvan for The Guardian
Personally, I would never even consider doing something like this as a part of my mourning process, to me it’s like living in a fantasy not the real world.
Ask yourself, would you consider such technology if you were in Martha’s position?
Feel free to share your perspectives in the comments !
Kinga's Digital Self 