Every Black Mirror episode that is now real life

When Black Mirror began, it was firmly futuristic. Each cautionary tale about technology felt eerily close to our daily lives, but was still far enough removed from reality. Not anymore.

With every series, the race between the anthology series’ writing team and the rapid advancement of technology gets closer. Fast-growth AI startups are now commonly described as “Black Mirror-like”. And, as we’ll explore fully, one or two might have made some of the show’s most famous plot lines possible.

Series 7 is set to bring yet more dystopian ideas in 2025. Now, though, we’re looking back. We’re returning to the Black Mirror episodes (not the pig one) you thought were impossible, but look close to real-life in 2024 — for better or worse. Spoiler alert, of course.

“The Entire History of You”

The third episode of Black Mirror introduced us to Grains, a wearable device that people could use to replay their memories in their head or on a screen. It goes about as well as you would expect (wife leaves husband, man’s memories get stolen, everyone ends up crying).

Clearly, the inventor of Friend isn’t a Black Mirror fan. The AI microphone-slash-necklace records every interaction you ever have. You can talk to it, and it can offer opinions on what you or your friends say. Founder Avi Schiffmann also apparently wants to add a camera.

“[Friend is] very supportive, very validating,” Schiffmann told The Verge. “It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships.”

Friend is still a prototype. However, if you watched The Entire History Of You and thought ‘wow, what a great idea! What could go wrong?’ you can pre-order a Friend now.

“Be Right Back”

After her best friend tragically died, a tech founder decided to take their online messaging history and use it to ‘rebuild’ him as a chatbot. Yes, it’s almost the exact plot of Be Right Back, episode three of Black Mirror Series 2. But this actually happened.

The founder, Eugenia Kuyda, turned the project into Replika AI, a chatbot that users train themselves. Theoretically, you could plug in your favourite celebrity’s Instagram and chat to their Replika. If you’re a narcissist, you could plug in your own social media.

It might not have worked in Black Mirror world. But thankfully, Replika has been received much more positively. It’s an inventive take on the modern, AI chatbot, and has even been found to help with loneliness (it grew in popularity during the pandemic).

“I don’t think it’s meant to replace a person,” says Kuyda. “[Replika should] be a complement to your social interactions, not a substitute.” Tell that to Schiffmann.

“The Waldo Moment”

The Waldo Moment was more about distrust of politicians than the threat of AI. In it, a discontented comedian who voices the animated children’s bear, Waldo, gets elected as a local MP, as Waldo. It will probably elicit a chuckle, until you learn about AI Steve.

AI Steve is the AI avatar of Steve Endacott, a tech founder. AI Steve ran as an MP for Brighton Pavilion in this year’s general election. And he proved a persuasive candidate.

AI Steve could chat to constituents 24/7. He used algorithms to represent his constituency fairly, and he was devoid of human bias (but he did stop existing if the WiFi turned off).

AI Steve may not have made it into the House of Commons, but Endacott’s point was made. AI political candidates are not a sci-fi invention; they’re on the ballot today.

“San Junipero”

The fourth episode of Black Mirror Series 3 lit up viewers’ imaginations more than others. Set in a beach resort town that turns out to be a simulated reality for the elderly to inhabit, it piqued fans’ interests, as a rare, optimistic prospect they actually want to happen.

San Junipero isn’t possible today, and it will likely be a while before uploading your mind to the cloud remains far-fetched. But DeathTech is developing rapidly. A big new player is Czechia-based, Somnium Space.

The company has created what it dubs ‘Live Forever Mode’. Combining virtual reality and AI, it is trying to create digital avatars of loved ones for future generations to interact with them.

There is no doubt a market for this kind of immortalising tech. Less morally dubious is Story Locker, a Startups-100 listed company that records podcast episodes with relatives for you to store in a family ‘memory’ locker. Who wants to live forever?

“Arkangel”

To most, the story of a single mother who implants a sophisticated tracking technology, Arkangel into her daughter, would have raised some red flags. Others saw it as inspiration.

Two years after the episode aired, Swiss entrepreneur Alexander Clavel gave us the probably-not-coincidentally-named Angel Watch, a ‘child-safe wearable mobile phone’ that lets parents track their youngsters and ‘discreetly’ listen in to what they’re doing.

The Angel Watch has proven popular with nervous mums and dads, and it’s not too far off grown-up watch designs such as the FitBit. Less certain is how kids feel about their privacy being invaded day-by-day. After all, why trust your children when you can track them?

“Crocodile”

Just your regular, run-of-the-mill Black Mirror plot line. Woman kills several people over ten years but eventually gets found out when police use a memory recall machine on a pet guinea pig who witnessed one of the murders from its cage. You know the drill.

Amazingly, this one is arguably already feasible. In 2023, researchers confirmed they had successfully trained an AI model to recreate images based on brain scans. After testers viewed photos of a clock tower and a teddy bear, the AI drew them. And fairly accurately.

The technology is unlikely to be arriving in everyday homes any time soon. But if large institutions, such as medical centres, can get hold of it then the applications are endless.

Doctors may use it to help paraplegics and coma patients, while it could help neuroscientists to interpret dreams. Researchers could use it for brain mapping. And yes, go on then, you could probably use it to see inside your pet hamster’s brain.

“Hang the DJ”

When Bumble founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd suggested that dating app users should have a “dating concierge” who “could go and date for you with other dating concierges,” Black Mirror fans immediately spotted the similarity with series four’s fourth episode, Hang the DJ.

Lead characters Amy and Frank are essentially the concierges. They are virtual versions of real-life singles, and both are matched into relationships for fixed lengths of time by an algorithm that eventually determines if they would be right for a lifetime partner.

Introducing AI to dating will naturally cause some technophobes to recoil. But in an era of ghosting (chat to a lucky someone for two weeks and then disappear) and breadcrumbing (give your date the bare minimum amount of attention to keep them interested) it could be the solution for those who feel their dating life has become a time waste.

“There is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierge … and then you don’t have to talk to 600 people,” added Wolfe Herd. Tempting.

“Joan is Awful”

Barely one year after the Black Mirror Series 6 premiere, Joan is Awful, and it already looks like it could have been set in 2024. Joan is a tech boss ‘shEO’ type who discovers her life has been adapted in real-time into a television series starring Salma Hayek.

It’s a fairly messy episode with a lot of different themes, but the key takeaway is that, thanks to AI, our identities are now for sale. Salma Hayek, it turns out, has signed away the rights to her appearance and has been turned into a CGI-based virtual actor, who plays Joan.

Life imitates art. In May of this year, Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that a new version of ChatGPT, which could respond verbally, had mimicked her voice. Worse, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to confirm the deception.

The episode is just one in a red-hot debate that is raging about how AI sits with creative industries. Far from going away, it could be the first plotline the anthology series returns to.

Black Mirror Series 7 is set to air in 2025. Find out more about six dystopian business trends that we think belong in the next series.