The ‘Black Mirror’ Experience made me sick to my stomach

A virtual reality experience that asks attendees to sign over their biometric data sounds like the start of an episode of Black Mirror. But it’s actually the reality of the Black Mirror Experience, now open at The Shed in New York City.

The experience guides you through the halls of Phaethon Labs, a futuristic company where you can build a digital clone of yourself called a LifeAgent. This AI clone is able to do all the unpleasant tasks you don’t want to do, plus set you up for success when it comes to your life goals. All it and the Black Mirror Experience need from you are your name, your life goals, and your face and voice. You cannot participate in the experience without consenting to the use of your face and voice.

In a world where our personal data is sold and packaged on the daily, you may think, “What’s one more consent form, right?” But for anyone who’s seen Black Mirror, the idea of giving up your likeness is enough to raise red flags. (Or, if you’re like me, it’ll make you full-on queasy.) Plus, there is precedence for concern: Remember when Netflix used users’ photos in billboard ads tied to “Joan is Awful”?

If you feel discomfort about giving up biometric data for a fun VR outing, staffers at the Black Mirror Experience will walk you through what the process actually entails. Your data is stored by UNIVRSE, the VR company behind the experience, for four weeks following your trip through Phaethon Labs. If you would like your data to be deleted earlier, there’s an e-mail address you can reach out to. I did so, and the response to my request was speedy and helpful.

Once you get past the biometric data hurdle and strap on your VR headset, what’s next? Attendees go through a “neural scan” to better understand what their LifeAgent can do for them. This involves playing mini games and telling Sigmund Freud about a recent dream. (Yes, really.) The latter sequence also involves AI-generated responses from Freud where he analyzes your response and cooks up an AI image of said dream.

After that, you finally meet your LifeAgent, a digital replica with your face and voice. The results brought back my nausea in full force. My LifeAgent was a postcard straight from the uncanny valley, one that prompted me to consider the AI technology behind it and how fast it has advanced over the past few years. I had signed up to have this version of me made, but we also live in a world where anyone can make AI deepfakes of anyone else, with examples ranging from viral memes to film and TV studios resurrecting deceased actors. (For its part, the Black Mirror Experience uses human performers. Karina Matas Piper voices Phaethon Labs founder Cody Winters, while James Phillips voices various characters. Elsewhere, Imanol Dieguez serves as the mocap actor.)

After the unsettling reveal of your LifeAgent, the rest of the Black Mirror Experience rings oddly hollow. Instead of truly interrogating the implications of AI deepfakes and concerns of privacy and misinformation, it launches you into a sci-fi action sequence. The VR environments here are impressive, especially a series of labyrinthine tunnels and a vast underground construction facility. However, none of this bombastic action feels in tune with the true spirit of Black Mirror, whose episodes most often build to devastating conclusions instead of rollicking shoot-outs.

The Black Mirror Experience doesn’t let you sit in that dread long enough. It only briefly gestures out to the problems its AI LifeAgents could cause, ranging from alienation from simple human tasks to full-on identity theft. But then it turns around and revels in AI technology, even turning your AI-created LifeAgent into a souvenir video for you to remember this dystopian trip by. Staring at the eerie grin plastered over my AI self’s face in my own souvenir video, I kept thinking of one of Black Mirror‘s most prescient reminders: If you give tech companies an inch, they’ll take a mile.

The Black Mirror Experience is now at The Shed until Sept. 6.