Transhumanism IV: Digital Consciousness in Black Mirror

The immense wonder and terror of uploaded intelligence

Awake Once More

Hard to believe that it's been well over a year since my previous posts on transhumanism! In these pieces I indulge my fascination with ideas of the human mind and soul beyond the limits of our mortal bodies. Despite the name this has nothing directly to do with trans issues – although that could be an interesting perspective to explore one day – and is instead simply about exploring the possibilities of a post-human condition.

I've previously explored depictions of human consciousnesses surviving beyond their bodies in various forms: magically (in the Cosmere), technologically (in Children of Time) and bio-sociologically (in The Masquerade). A central theme of all three was change: to be alive is to adapt to the world around us, and existing in a new form opens up new ways in which to grow and mutate.

But as I'm realizing I tend to do, in my fixation I mostly skipped over one of the most popular forms of transhumanism in our cultural consciousness: uploaded intelligence (I suppose Avrana Kern was technically uploaded before becoming ants, but still).

So today I'd like to look at a few examples and discuss how they shine a light on our cultural fears and aspirations. After all, who wouldn't want to live forever?

Vintage Posters for 'White Christmas', 'Black Museum', 'San Junipero' and 'USS Callister'

Sentient Playthings

This show may be an anthology series with episodes covering a variety of dystopian uses of technology, but uploaded consciousness has become something of a touchstone for the writers over the years. It first appeared in 'White Christmas', where a "cookie" could be implanted into the brain to learn and eventually mimic a person's thought patterns; eventually becoming an indistinguishable digital copy of their mind.

It's hard to find any redeeming aspects of this technology as it's depicted. The copied mind has no control or way to communicate on their own terms and their perception of time can be modified drastically by people on the outside: Oona Chaplin's character experiences over six months of absolute isolation in a handful of seconds in order to train her out of her rebelliousness, while Rafe Spall's character ends the episode trapped at a rate of 1000 years per real life minute.

'White Christmas' discusses the ethics and effects casually: Jon Hamm's character says that the digital consciousnesses "aren't real" and so the practice "wasn't really barbaric" – though he also suggests:

"The trick of it lay in breaking them without letting them snap completely. Too much time in solitary and they just wig out, no use to anyone, then you sell them cheap to the games industry. Then they become cannon fodder for some war thing."

That last detail doesn't get explored here, but bears some resemblance to an idea in 'Black Museum', where a tourist attraction is made out of the ability to "execute" the digital consciousness of a convicted murderer and retain a personal copy of him, eternally fixed at a moment of peak agony. Both stories imply that consumers get special enjoyment out of destroying the remnants of real lives – just as the people in 'White Christmas' seem to take some pleasure in casually torturing Spall's character for millions of years.

Where 'Black Museum' and 'White Christmas' keep things somewhat detached, 'USS Callister' turns this particular human evil extremely personal by depicting Jesse Plemons' character (Daly) creating digital copies of his co-workers to populate his Star Trek-inspired game. The themes here are a lot more complex, with Daly forging new abusive relationships with copies of people he interacts with regularly. Thankfully the copies do have some agency in the world, which is why their story is allowed to continue in the newly released Season 7 episode "USS Callister: Into Infinity". (No spoilers as I have yet to watch that one!)

'Black Museum' actually offers a second bleak look at uploaded consciousness in its story about a woman named Carrie. Following an accident, her mind is first transferred into that of her husband. When this becomes complicated by his desire to move on she finds herself uploaded into a toy monkey gifted to her son, with only two options to communicate with the outside world: "Monkey loves you" and "Monkey needs a hug". Suffice to say, it's horrifying to see how Carrie is first stripped of all agency then eventually abandoned by her family, only to end up in the Black Museum many years later. On the plus side, it seems like Nish intends to do right by her moving forward!

Nish & Carrie, by barbara-camara

Life & Love

And on that happier note, we can finally get to everybody's favourite lesbians in 'San Junipero'. This episode is an outlier in more way than one, being the first to feature queer characters and offering the rare (sole?) example of an optimistic ending in the series.

Unlike the other stories I've discussed today, 'San Junipero' makes digitally uploading one's consciousness a choice – and an attractive one. The episode's conflict is simply about whether both Kelly and Yorkie – older women in the real world – will agree to live, forever young, in the simulated town of San Junipero upon dying in the real world.

The only real risk seems to be that the server running their digital reality could one day malfunction or simply be unplugged. But is that any different than the everyday risk of our own world ending in a flash? Until entropy does catch up with them, Kelly and Yorkie will enjoy the closest thing to a truly happy afterlife Black Mirror – and indeed most speculative fiction – tends to offer.

Just as 'Black Museum' was clearly a deliberate homage and follow-up to 'White Christmas', Season 7's 'Hotel Reverie' feels like a love letter to 'San Junipero'. (Although so does every episode, in a way: there have to be a hundred Easter eggs in later seasons that reference it in one way or another. Perhaps these stories exist in the same world and the San Junipero server is well known?)

'Hotel Reverie' sees actress Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) enter an AI-simulated world of a classic black and white film starring actress Dorothy Chambers (Emma Corrin). Amidst a variety of terrifying glitches she falls in love with the digital representation, and eventually must struggle to decide whether to return to her own body or try to remain in the world of the film. I won't spoil the ending here since the episode is so new, but suffice to say that it is much more bittersweet than its predecessor.

Does the episode technically feature uploaded consciousness? Not necessarily: Dorothy's mind has been generated by analyzing every surviving video and insight about her, but it is a pale imitation in comparison to the supposedly perfect copies depicted in the other episodes I've discussed. Even if inaccurate, it is this recreation whom Brandy falls in love with and therefore whose continued existence matters to the story.

'Hotel Reverie' poster, by Connie Kang

Control and Connections

If there is a central thesis to how Black Mirror has depicted uploaded consciousness over the years – and indeed many other technologies – it speaks to the danger inherent to surrendering control of our minds and bodies. Once a mind exists in a digital space, it is at the mercy of human whimsy and casual cruelty; 'White Christmas', 'Black Museum' and 'USS Callister' are clear in their message that digital intelligence is easy to dehumanize and treat like a disposable plaything.

Of course, part of the horror of those three episodes (arguably less in 'Black Museum') is that this happened against people's will: all it took was the technology existing and someone being willing to abuse it for either profit or sadism (or both, in the case of the Clayton Leigh). For these digitized characters, isolation and lack of agency leave them doomed to utter madness and despair. At least the USS Callister crew had both each other and some ability to influence their environment.

On the other hand, Black Mirror shows through 'San Junipero' that there could be genuine upside to consenting, end-of-life uploading: a pleasant, human-made afterlife in which to re-capture lost opportunities and fond memories. There's a book I've read that plays with very similar ideas and seems to come to similar conclusions, but that's for another time.

What's your take on Black Mirror and/or digital afterlife? Would you take the upload to San Junipero?

Thanks for reading and until next time <3