The TV show, which often depicts dystopian technology, has had a knack for predicting future technology before it enters our lives. One such technology it explores is the ability to record and then relive all of our memories. In the episode "The Entire History of You", first aired in 2011, we step into the lives of Liam and Ffion, and watch how this technology leads to dramatic consequences for their relationship. Without any spoilers, let's just say that seemingly small memories can have a big impact when they're available to us on demand, searchable and recorded in minute detail.
In what might be a case of life imitating art, or perhaps just the inevitable march of technology, Wist has created a tool that let's you record your memories, and then experience them again in 3D in either immersive VR or AR, essentially allowing you to step back into your memories.
The use cases for such technology are considerable, whether it be reliving your kids first birthday, a family milestone, or just reminiscing on the good old days. What may be even more interesting is with how it can help with learning and productivity - such as someone memorising how they complete certain tasks so they can come back to it a while down the road, or people could relive others memories as a sort of training tutorials, AI may even be used to generate memories that people can follow. There may even be military applications for such advanced tools, however, this is maybe a topic for later. This technology already can and will be used in ways that we have not yet thought of.
This may sound somewhat creepy and a step too far, but if you break it down it is essentially a far more advanced type of video memory. Whether we see this widely adopted is hard to know, but I think what is certain is that when it gets more advanced, more people will use it. But what is scarier is where this could go, how it can be used, and will people record their whole lives as we see in Black Mirror. While being curious and optimistic about the future, we do need to ask some big questions now about how we want our social interactions, societies and very humanity to evolve.
Questions such as: could people hack into your recorded memories to acquire vital information about you? Are the police going to have unwarranted access to your memory bank? Is your partner going to make you replay your memories if they have concerns? With emerging technology comes new problems that must be considered carefully.
All that said, what a time to be alive!
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