
The society in which we live revolves around technology. We rely on cars and planes for transportation, machines run most manufacturing companies, and we fall to our phones, tablets, computers, and gaming consoles in order to achieve a sense of escape from our daily lives. Charlie Brooker’s television show, “Black Mirror,” explores the effects and potential dangers of this dependence on technology that has become so prevalent in our present day. This anthology series builds upon speculation regarding how technology will evolve in the future and how it will affect life as we know it. The episode, “San Junipero,” delves into the possibility of whole brain emulation after death, and questions its implications on the human’s life that becomes emulated through advanced technology. In tandem with the development of virtual reality technology, scientists have conducted research regarding whole brain emulation, the risks associated with it, and the ethical questions that it creates. This episode of “Black Mirror” provides a creative look into the idea of whole brain emulation, and allows viewers to question the ethical and moral issues that go along with the simulated existence it depicts.

An initial concern regarding the topic of whole brain emulation is the moral status behind its research and possible existence. This dilemma is depicted in “San Junipero” when Kelly is unsure and skeptical of her desire to pass over in the virtual world. For Kelly, the main reason holding her back is the death of her daughter prior to the technologies availability and her late husbands refusal to “pass over.”  The article, “Ethics of brain emulations,” from the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, discusses the idea of whole brain emulation, its ethical and moral status, and how humans can speculate its implications even before it is a possibility. The author, Anders Sandberg, devotes a large section to the morality of this sort of emulation. He poses two main questions, can the emulated person be wronged after the transition and can they suffer? (Sandberg 442). In Black mirrors depiction of an emulated world pain is seen as optional depicted through Kelly’s attempted suicide. With references to pain settings within the episode you can see that there are thresholds and controls and with that come security issues if put in the wrong hands. In contrast emotional suffering must also be considered. The quagmire is referred to as the place where emulated subjects who are in emotional destress congregate; because of this you can assume the screenwriter is portraying the possibility of emotional pain in a virtual world. In researching the moral status behind real world whole brain emulations, Samberg’s article discusses the principle of assuming the most. This principle states that one should “assume that any emulated system could have the same mental properties as the original system and treat it correspondingly,” (445). Looking at the situation with a logical and ethical understanding it is suggested that pain experienced in the natural world can be felt and experienced similarly in the virtual world. 

If scientists were to begin researching whole brain emulation, therein lies a moral question of the possibility of a person providing informed consent. The episode of “Black Mirror” takes place in a world where this sort of technology has already been implemented for some time, and does not cover the founding research behind its development. In our world, however, in order to study human brain emulation, “the most likely scanning methods are going to be destructive, meaning that they end the biological life of the volunteer or would be applied to post-mortem brains,” (Sandberg 448). For the first case, given that the research would begin with uncertainty regarding the success of generating anything through the emulation, Sandburg states “volunteering while alive is essentially equivalent to assisted suicide with an unknown probability of ‘failure,’” (448). While suicide as a way of escaping pain is becoming increasingly acceptable in certain areas, suicide for science is a whole other question. In the other case, the situation appears less complicated regarding the legal and ethical implications of the process. However, another concern rises from the emulation of a post-mortem brain, as “current views would hold [the emulation] to be a possession of whatever institution performed the experiment rather than a person,” (449). In the “San Junipero” episode this question could potentially be explored, though it is not completely certain. The final few shots of the episode show a massive factory run by robots that houses numerous computer chips, presumably holding the data of emulated human brains. Resembling a massive server farm full of whole brain emulations, the computer chips are incorporated into walls where they are organized by what appears to be serial numbers. This enormous storage facility is suggested to be the final resting place for the humans who have their brains uploaded into computer software, however, the show does not clearly state what happens to the emulations once they have been stored. Do these emulations become the property of a technology corporation, who then has full control of the chip’s data? Is the storage of these chips somehow paid for by the humans who become upload in a predetermined agreement that outlines the future of their emulations? The “Black Mirror” episode does not go into much detail about the logistics of how people are able to become uploaded, or what happens to the emulation after the humans “pass over,” but if this sort of whole brain emulation were to ever exist in the real world these sorts of questions would need to be fully examined in advance. As for the real world humans that would volunteer for the initial experiments in whole brain emulation, who would most likely not have exact information about the potential outcomes of the process, Sandberg provides a similar example of those who sign contracts for cryonic preservation today. He states people will sign these contracts “although they are fully aware that they will be stored as non-person anatomical donations and might be revived in a future with divergent moral and social views,” (449).

This topic brings me back to the first of the two questions Sandberg proposes in regards to moral questions about human emulation: can they be wronged? (Sandberg 442). The previous example of being unaware going into an early whole brain emulation experiment shows that the process would inherently have potential of wronging the emulated person. Through long term experimentation, and eventually if proved possible, this possibility could become less likely. However, no matter how likely a successful emulation becomes, there always lies the potential for a wrongdoing to occur after the human is uploaded. The article “Embodiment in Whole-Brain Emulation and its Implications for Death Anxiety,” from the Journal of Evolution and Technology provides another example of how an emulated human could be wronged after being uploaded. The authors, Charl Linssen and Pieter Lemmens, discuss at length the relation of whole brain emulation and the existence of death anxiety, or the awareness that human life is finite. One topic this article is concerned with is the necessity for some kind of material substrate in order to perform whole brain emulation, most likely a type of computer chip. The emulation of a human would be stored within this data chip and packed away, similar to the massive warehouse in the ending shots of “San Junipero.” Since computer chips can be easily replaced, as well as the information within if it is properly backed up, the authors state “‘Death’ for an upload can occur only as the result of an irreversible termination of the dynamical model simulation, for example due to loss of the model data,” (Linssen 8). Linssen and Lemmens provide a later quote from Anders Sandberg relating to this potential for wrongdoing: 

“[B]rain emulations are extremely vulnerable by default: the software and data constituting them and their mental states can be erased or changed by anybody with access to the system on which they are running. Their bodies are not self-contained and their survival is dependent upon hardware they might not have casual control over. They can also be subjected to violations such as illicit copying,” (8).

Relating back to “San Junipero,” if the data of Kelly or Yorkie’s emulation chip were to be corrupted, irreversibly terminated, or altered otherwise, the result would be in the “death” of their emulation.

Charlie Brooker’s “Black Mirror” provides a creative and detailed example of the possibilities for whole brain emulation through the episode “San Junipero,” and it encourages discussion regarding the ethical and moral dilemmas behind the process. Although the episode does not fully highlight the development of the emulation, nor the procedure with which humans become part of the emulation, the characters Kelly and Yorkie give viewers insight as to how such technology could impact life as we know it. The possibility for whole brain emulation is far away from our present society, but “San Junipero” gets people asking questions about the moral and ethical implications behind the idea.
