When Apple unveiled its highly questionable (and wildly expensive) new virtual reality headset, the Vision Pro, the almost overwhelming reaction on social media was that the device looked like something straight out of Black Mirror.
Thanks to the headset’s heavy use of augmented reality, or AR, which blends video calls and TV shows or movies with actual reality, the device already presents a disturbing level of dystopian possibilities out of the gate. But don’t take our word of it. Turns out, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker couldn’t help but have the same exact reaction as everybody else.
“It’s weird, it’s really weird,” Brooker recently told Wired about the Apple Vision Pro. “One of my instincts when I saw that was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s so Black Mirror.’ We haven’t got anything quite like that in this season — but then that’s because we did it! We did it all years ago.”
Brooker is, of course, referring to the fan-favorite Black Mirror episode “The Entire History of You” written by Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. The story revolves around an eye implant that allows Toby Kebell’s characters to record and replay everything he sees, which goes bleakly wrong as Black Mirror episodes warning of the perils of tech so often do.
The Vision Pro isn’t the only recent tech innovation that Brooker has had words about. The showrunner recently opened up about his adventures with ChatGPT, the AI technology that’s been touted as an apocalyptic event for the writing world. Brooker, however, was not impressed.
“The first thing I did was type ‘generate Black Mirror episode’ and it comes up with something that, at first glance, reads plausibly, but on second glance, is sh*t,” Brooker told Empire. “Because all it’s done is look up all the synopses of Black Mirror episodes, and sort of mush them together.”
That said, Brooker did appreciate ChatGPT for teaching him that he writes way too many episodes about people being trapped inside a computer. He’s gonna try not to do that so much.
Black Mirror Season 6 premieres June 15 on Netflix.
(Via Wired)