Did Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ and ‘Black Mirror’ really predict our future? Tech experts weigh in

“Full-immersion VR like in 3 Body Problem, simulating all five senses, remains a distant aspiration, likely decades away,” says Justin Chan, co-founder and CEO of VR development studio Virtrix.

Technologies like 3D reconstruction techniques, Gaussian splatting, and high-fidelity spatial scanning are rapidly improving our ability to recreate realistic digital environments. But Chan believes the real bottleneck is the brain-computer interface, the system that would allow direct communication between the brain and external devices.

Steven Zhao, founder and CEO of Sandbox VR, agrees: “The underlying tech to do this will not be VR,” he says. “Full unrestricted immersion requires hijacking the mind—like in The Matrix—likely a kind of invasive brain chip that can both read and write. This kind of tech is likely decades away, if not something outside of our lifetime.”

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Even if such technology were possible, should we use it? Chan urges caution. “The idea of a mind-hijacking brain chip immediately raises profound ethical concerns, fundamentally undermining human freedom and identity,” he says, adding that it could enable extreme manipulation and psychological harm. “The effects on privacy and autonomy would be devastating.”

Still, VR is already transforming sectors far beyond gaming and entertainment. “In education, students can virtually explore ancient Egypt or practise complex surgeries,” says Chan.

VR can also enable shared, interactive immersion, ideal for team training and collective learning. Chan sees particular promise in preserving culture, with digital twins of endangered sites offering new ways to archive human history.

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In the animated series Love, Death + Robots, a rogue cleaning robot turns on its elderly owner in a darkly comic episode Automated Customer Service.

So, can your Roomba go rogue? Probably not—at least, not anytime soon. According to Roy Lim, founder and CEO of robotics company Robocore, a fully autonomous home is at least two to three decades away.

There would be a clear adoption curve, he explains, with robotics progressing from military to industrial and commercial applications, and eventually into domestic settings. “When the price comes down and reliability goes to nearly 100 per cent, we will see them in households.”

Lim predicts that it will take at least another ten years to develop humanoid robots with 80 to 95 per cent functionality—but even that won’t be enough. Humans, he says, would not accept even minor failures from autonomous machines operating near loved ones. “Imagine your air conditioner at home, running 365 days a year, but doesn’t work for three and a half days per year, will you return it?” he says. “Humans will still not tolerate a 99 per cent success rate.”

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Outside the home, robots are already changing how we work. But Lim doesn’t believe we’ll see humanoid robots taking over everyday tasks outside of commercial settings anytime soon, unless for niche use cases like tiny spider-like robots that clean hard-to-reach corners.

“We are born to live a life,” he says.

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In the Black Mirror episode titled Hotel Reverie, an AI-powered production casts an actor opposite computer-generated co-stars who believe they’re real. The idea seems far-fetched—until you realise we already have many of the necessary tools, says Minh Do, COO of Animoca Brands. It’s the convergence of several technologies: real-time virtual production using innovations such as the Unreal Engine created by US developer Epic Games, emotionally intelligent generative AI and immersive devices such as the Apple Vision Pro. 

However, making AI characters as convincing as those in the episode—emotionally responsive, contextually fluent and self-aware—has deep challenges. “It demands persistent memory, adaptive behaviour, real-time voice and facial expression synthesis and tight integration with a physics-aware environment,” says Do. “The hardest part isn’t making them look real—it’s making them feel real.” 

There are technical and financial concerns about building persistent memory in AI to enable continuity across massive multiplayer experiences. Then, there’s the issue of emotional safety, such as regulating relationships with AI companions, particularly when users develop emotional dependence or when the AI exhibits abusive behaviour. 

There is also the issue of authorship: “What happens when a user creates a new narrative IP by improvising alongside AI characters? Who owns the co-created content?”

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Despite the risks, Do is convinced this future is arriving fast. The gaming world, he notes, has long been a breeding ground for AI-driven characters, from NPCs in open-world games to emergent storytelling in The Sims. “Within 15 to 20 years, I believe we’ll see consumer-level tools that let people co-create interactive dramas with AI actors, blending nostalgia, creativity and personal emotional journeys,” he says.

For him, Black Mirror’s Hotel Reverie episode is a cautionary tale, where the line between performance and identity blurs as a natural consequence of immersion. “We’re not just building a new entertainment format. We’re building a new plane of existence. That requires not just technologists and storytellers but also ethicists, regulators and, frankly, philosophers.”

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