Charlie Brooker on tech's next terrifying Black Mirror moment

Charlie Brooker talks to WIRED about future real-world dystopias

28 Dec 2017
Britt Spencer

Black Mirror has gained a reputation for its biting - and creepily accurate - portrayals of the dark endgame of technology, from facial recognition to Uber ratings. But its co-creator, Charlie Brooker, is tired of being such a downer. "If you just did bleak and nihilistic endings every single time then it becomes absolutely metronomically predictable," says the 46-year-old. "It can be challenging and interesting but at the same time have some kind of optimism. That's been sort-of liberating."

Ahead of the show's return on Netflix later this month, WIRED caught up with Brooker to ask: What should we be worried about from the next wave of startup ideas?

Emotional machines

"I suspect that in the near future we'll have sentient packaging that will say 'Hello! I'm a carton of milk, don't throw me away - arggghh!' It will be like hell, with all these people you don't want to deal with. I'll end up having to go to the fridge wearing a pair of fucking headphones because I don't want to get into a conversation with a yoghurt pot."

Britt Spencer

Flying cars

"Why does a car need to fly? The minute it's flying I'm a bit worried about it. As soon as all the traffic is flowing in a completely automated way there will be fewer vehicles full stop, and less congestion. It would be like an episode of The Jetsons with everyone flying around. You'd get collisions left, right and centre, wouldn't you?"

Britt Spencer

The sharing economy

"Countless products are just shit that we've bought that we don't really need. Having said that, I don't like sharing things. Well, food. I'm a bit weird about sharing food, but I don't think anyone's suggesting that yet. That's a kind of kind of Human Centipede thing. I think it makes sense, but it might lead to a complete and utter collapse of the manufacturing industry."

Britt Spencer

Artificial intelligence

"It looks like we're going to have to rethink our position in the world over the next four decades or so, as we begin to cede more and more control to automation and computers. We've got to work out what our purpose is, and if we've got an AI that thinks it knows better than us what we should be doing, maybe we should start listening to it."

Britt Spencer

Personal space travel

"I don't quite get the appeal of flying into space unless there's something actually there. I'm perfectly happy for someone else to do it until there's something there that's worth going for. I can see a future world in which people willingly fucking fling themselves into the depths of space rather than spend another ten minutes on this stinking shithole.

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