The part I don't like about it is that the premise is too often:
"Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology."
For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there would not be people sneaking into warehouses. In a society where people can play back and re-live prior memories, it would not suddenly come up that one can relive experiences with past lovers. In a society where one's consciousness could be contained inside a "cookie," being unexpectedly in a strange place with no explanation would immediately have one questioning whether that's what happened.
It just feels ham-fisted. In their defense, I'm sure it's tough to introduce an entirely new concept and world and sell a brand new story all in the scope of a single episode, but the formula felt a little stale, at least while I was watching it.
> Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology
This is precisely why I love Black Mirror. Despite the warnings, we're allowing companies to build killer robot and are running a large scale experiment to build a god. For a long time, I thought ethics is what prevented us from cloning human but recent years are showing balance sheet will outweigh it. As Netflix is 99.9% garbage, watching something like Black Mirror is refreshing
We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers. They were there for first person shooter games, the Internet in general, dating apps, etc.
That’s not to say those things didn’t have significant downsides. They do. But it took years to get there and they weren’t an overnight surprise, like they seem to be in the Black Mirror episodes I saw.
Imagine what a few Black Mirror episodes would look like if they were made in the 50s or 60s about some technology we have today. It’d be silly. Our culture and values have changed so much since then over time as the technology came about.
“Tonight's story on the Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States and there's a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched, or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing. The cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines, because they displeased him. And he moved an entire community back into the dark ages, just by using his mind.”
>We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers
Have we? There's a de facto moratorium on gene editing in humans that all nations have so far adhered to (except for one person who promptly went to prison), there's a general moratorium on gene terminator seeds that so far all nations have adhered to, and we're in discussions for a deep sea-mining moratorium. Not all technologies move forward without impediment.
The problem is I feel is that the "value system" tied to tech. innovation is very simplistic and often doesn't really have any forcing functions other than short term profit for a small number of people.
Things like AI, surgical bots etc. can definitely be useful and can better our condition. They probably are doing that too but the amount of serious long term thinking from a traditionally ethical standpoint is limited compared the amount of research that goes into making the technology more powerful.
Feels like a car with an overpowered gas pedal but very rudimentary brakes and steering.
It isn't like it didn't happen. Here's an example [0] where a factory owner started replacing the workers with automation/robots. This was in 1964. There's another episode [1] where a scientist creates a computer that can converse with him and it goes all wrong.
These kinds of plots were actually quite common as people wrestled with the unknown future of the coming nuclear age.
> We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers.
We nowadays always introduce technology no matter what. Focused on 'users' as a small subgroup for which we rationalize and validate the introduction. Success measured by profit and damn the externalities. It got reasonable outcomes in terms of (technological) progress for a long time. Today if the technology isn't outright owned by a billionaire class who get their hands on the innovations first, it is stock market driven development that not necessarily serves society. Today all the externalities are compounding into a real Black Mirror mess.
That's a very simplistic and deficient way of stating a half-truth. The dangers of technology and their ethical implications have historically been a serious consideration in the way we regulate a lot of stuff, from TikTok to nuclear development.
You are also biased in the way you only see what came to be and ignore what did not.
> Imagine what a few Black Mirror episodes would look like if they were made in the 50s or 60s about some technology we have today. It’d be silly.
It might be silly, but that doesn’t mean it would be wrong. We depend heavily on a number of technologies with significant downsides, which are downplayed or ignored or can-kicked into the future.
There have been enough declassified "close call" stories that I don't think "we haven't had nuclear war yet" doesn't carry much water for me. Kind of like "I have never died", which is technically true but I have lots of info that makes me think extrapolating my past doesn't mean I'll never die in the future.
>We always have moved forward technologically despite doomers. They were there for first person shooter games, the Internet in general, dating apps, etc.
You say as if they weren't right about those things, and they aren't the toxic to society crap they're today.
> Despite the warnings, we're allowing companies to build killer robot and are running a large scale experiment to build a god.
I am doing everything I can think of to stop AI companies from building a god (to borrow your words). Last year and this year I've donated five figures to nonprofits that are trying to slow down AI development. I write letters to legislators whenever the opportunity arises — I wrote a letter to Gavin Newsom urging him to support SB-1047, which unfortunately he did not do; also wrote a letter to Scott Weiner offering support and encouraging him to keep trying.
You could do the same. I'm not confident about what's the best thing to do and I think the things I've done probably didn't help, but they are worth trying anyway.
> […] and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology."
Which is basically how most technologies appear{s,ed} in society: without prior thought / discussion.
There's certainly a lot of talk while it's being rolled out, but rarely prior.
> For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there would not be people sneaking into warehouses.
People do crime because they think† they can get away with it, because if you knew that you'd probably get caught why would you do it in the first place? How many people purposefully do crime in order to get caught?
In your specific example people will think they've figured out a way to get past the automated system. (Not even getting into the fact that in some jurisdictions it's illegal to set traps, e.g., Canada Criminal Code §247.)
† When they think at all, and it's not just a heat / spur-of-the-moment action (often when drunk).
> Which is basically how most technologies appear{s,ed} in society: without prior thought / discussion.
> There's certainly a lot of talk while it's being rolled out, but rarely prior.
This is a semantic argument about timing. One could argue the Internet is still "being rolled out" today, but it's certainly widely available and we've had decades to reflect on its impact on society. It's not like the Internet was suddenly thrust on 1950s Mississippi and nobody considered that hackers might exist until everyone was on it.
The point is that some of the basic questions posed by the show would have been asked, answered, and accounted-for by society long before they seem to be in the societies depicted in the show.
> People do crime because they think they can get away with it, because if you knew that you'd probably get caught why would you do it in the first place?
It's not a binary decision. Of course you don't do it if you think you will be caught, but the likelihood of being caught and the consequences if you do are also significant factors in the decision.
If people were executed for stealing candy bars from convenience stores, we'd have a lot fewer people stealing, even if we put the same effort into catching them as we do now.
I think context matters as well. In your final example of death for shoplifting we would have less shoplifting, all other things being equal. We might also have other unexpected consequences like more embezzlement or more knock offs or more people selling things that "fell off the truck".
Additionally, even if I know you'll kill me if you catch me, I'll still try to steal food if my family is starving and there is no way for me to earn it.
For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there would not be people sneaking into warehouses.
We have a society (in the US) where cops often shoot first and ask questions later, but many people still do crimes. People will take risks about things that desperately matter to them, and indeed stories of such risk-taking are common cultural fodder. Are you not just generalizing from your own behavior?
I am not (see below) and in any case this is not relevant to the question posed to GP, which was why s/he thinks people would abstain from risky behavior just because risks exist.
> In a society where people can play back and re-live prior memories, it would not suddenly come up that one can relive experiences with past lovers.
I think this episode was one of Black Mirror's strongest, because not only would it suddenly come up, it does to a lesser degree with the technology we have today. I've been the guy obsessively replaying painful memories from old photos I have. I don't think it was really presented as though the characters are the first ones to ever think of the idea.
Correct. Kinda like it suddenly came up when Facebook started showing memories of dead friends and relatives to people that didn't want it nor enjoyed it. There's many instances of humanity plowing headfirst into some technology thinking "this will be great!" only to haphazardly run into the unanticipated not-so-great parts.
Not to mention there's literally people creating tech out here _today_ that's recreating _exactly_ what some Black Mirror episodes were talking about years ago. Like interactive chatbots model after dead people from voice samples, videos, and messages.
I liked "Crocodile" too, if I remember the name correctly. The other one that got to me was the one with the two astronauts. It raised a lot of ethical / moral dilemmas in me.
> without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides
In BM's defense, I think it needs to be that way to a point, to have the viewer react and acknowledge these downsides within their current frame of reference.
It can be hard to swallow both a world that has evolved for 10~20 years, and also think about a whole new paradigm that matches that unfamiliar world.
> Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology.
Isn't this the premise for the original Terminator ? Sure it was "unnecessarily" pessimistic, but man oh man it really hit a nerve and it set a tone for (all?) subsequent societal conversation.
> In a society where people can play back and re-live prior memories, it would not suddenly come up that one can relive experiences with past lovers.
I am not much of a TV watcher so this is the only episode of black mirror I've seen but this really got me - for a show that got so much hype - this is the first couple to have jealousy issues around this technology? Really?? And he has to cut it out of his head with a double edged razor? Really??? People want to forget things all of the time.
It's TV and the other shows I watch are mostly because they're terrible, so it was better than those, but it definitely felt like, cmon guys, we can do better.
My take was that it was not about jealousy or wanting to forget, but about the obsession for an objective truth. The main character was rewatching his memories looking for the objective truth of what had happened, only to discover that all his memories were, in fact, a lie (because his wife was lying to him all the time).
I agree with this take, aside from a plot nuance about all his memories, there was one base factual lie (paternity) that propagated through his memories. I also occasionally rewatch that episode to try to convince myself that the Willow Grain would not be a panacea for so many of the worlds ills that it would outweigh any shame-motivated reason to dislike it.
Put another way, easy and on-demand access to objective truth seems to present a resolution to so many stupid arguments that it just has to net out as a positive where people quit dying on rhetorically silly hills.
As you correctly identify the weakness is when you want access to the objective truth of another. They need not be inclined to share it and this presents a social issue, as opposed to a technical or factual issue.
The EYE Tech Zoe implant and the Willow Grain were similar but the Willow Grain was usable by the users while installed and the Zoe was generally only accessible after it had been extracted from the user after the user had died.
"Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology.... It just feels ham-fisted."
So like exactly what is happening with driverless car technology.
A technology that was in its infancy in lab settings; taken out of that context and thrust upon our public roads by capricious impulsive billionaires in "beta" form, which has predictably killed people; but instead of pulling back and having a discussion about the possible downsides, this technology is allowed to plague us; because thought or discussion about possible downsides are short circuited by platitudes about how you have to crack eggs to make an omelet.
Can't get a driverless car future free of car deaths without first killing some people with driverless cars, ya know?
>"Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology."
So, exactly like the real world case with all modern tech advancements?
"Imagine some theoretical technological advancement. Now take it out of context, put it in the worst possible circumstances, and imagine it appeared into a society like ours without any prior thought or discussion about the possible downsides of that technology."
For example: in a society where autonomous security guard robots kill intruders, there would not be people sneaking into warehouses. In a society where people can play back and re-live prior memories, it would not suddenly come up that one can relive experiences with past lovers. In a society where one's consciousness could be contained inside a "cookie," being unexpectedly in a strange place with no explanation would immediately have one questioning whether that's what happened.
It just feels ham-fisted. In their defense, I'm sure it's tough to introduce an entirely new concept and world and sell a brand new story all in the scope of a single episode, but the formula felt a little stale, at least while I was watching it.