Did Black Mirror: Arkangel come true?
Partly. Black Mirror: Arkangel (2017) has a P(n) of 66% on Nearfi's P(n) Board, our estimate of the chance its future arrives within 20 years. Of its 4 tracked predictions, 1 have arrived and 2 are arriving. Its central premise, 'A parent can see a child's live location, health data and surroundings, and replay a record of them, from one device', is partly here. The next prediction is estimated to arrive around 2031.
The episode's surveillance dashboard and its content filter are arriving in pieces, as location tracking, parental controls and on-device blurring. Its implant that streams a child's own sight and hearing has no credible path, and its reverse image search is routine.
Read the review · 6.9/10 →
How this P(n) was calculated
P(n) is the chance that this work's future arrives within 20 years, by 2046. For each prediction we turn our estimate into a probability: arrived is 100%, diverged is 0%, and otherwise the low end of our 80% range counts as a 10% chance, the median year 50% and the high end 90%. Each prediction is weighted 1–5 by how pivotal it is to the story, and P(n) is the weighted average. P50 does the same by 2076. P(n), explained.
| Claim | Prediction · why this weight | Weight | Status · estimate | By 2046 | By 2076 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARK-1 | A parent can see a child's live location, health data and surroundings, and replay a record of them, from one device. Core premise: the whole plot is a parent with a live feed of her daughter's life and the temptation to use it. |
5 | ARRIVING 2034 (2029–2050) | 80% | 100% |
| ARK-2 | An implant in a child's body streams what the child sees and hears to a parent's tablet. Major: the implant makes the story possible, though the drama comes from how Marie uses it rather than how it works. |
4 | FAR 2090 (2065–2125) | 5% | 28% |
| ARK-3 | A system automatically blurs or censors distressing content before a child sees it, and a parent can switch it off. Major: the filter drives the central theme, a child shielded from stress, and its reactivation causes the climax. |
4 | ARRIVING 2031 (2027–2042) | 94% | 100% |
| ARK-4 | A person can identify a stranger from a photograph with a reverse image search. Texture: a plot device that lets Marie find Trick, though she could have found him another way. |
2 | ARRIVED arrived 2017 | 100% | 100% |
| P(n) = P20 = Σ(weight × chance by 2046) ÷ Σ weight = 10.0 ÷ 15 = 66% | |||||
| P50 = 12.1 ÷ 15 = 81% | |||||
Already here today (arrived 1, arriving ½, weighted): 43%.
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ARK-1
A parent can see a child's live location, health data and surroundings, and replay a record of them, from one device.
Weight 5/5 · Core premise: the whole plot is a parent with a live feed of her daughter's life and the temptation to use it.
Location tracking and content monitoring are common. Pew found in 2014 and 2015 that 16% of US parents of teens tracked their phone's location, and 61% had checked sites visited. Wearables add some health data. A single live feed of what the child sees and hears does not exist, and research suggests control apps do not make teens safer. 12
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ARK-2
An implant in a child's body streams what the child sees and hears to a parent's tablet.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the implant makes the story possible, though the drama comes from how Marie uses it rather than how it works.
Nothing reads out a person's visual field from an implant. The closest real work reconstructs what a person was looking at from fMRI scans, which needs a large scanner and long sessions. Pet microchips, which inspired the story, carry an identification number only. US states are passing laws against compulsory implants, so the politics point the other way. 345
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ARK-3
A system automatically blurs or censors distressing content before a child sees it, and a parent can switch it off.
Weight 4/5 · Major: the filter drives the central theme, a child shielded from stress, and its reactivation causes the climax.
Apple's Communication Safety blurs nudity, gore and violence in images and video on children's devices, on-device, on by default for under-18s, and under-13s need a parent's passcode to view flagged content. The UK Online Safety Act requires platforms to keep children from some harmful content. What does not exist is a filter on a child's real-world perception. 67
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ARK-4
A person can identify a stranger from a photograph with a reverse image search.
Weight 2/5 · Texture: a plot device that lets Marie find Trick, though she could have found him another way.
Face-search sites such as PimEyes, launched in 2017, find other online images of a person from one photo, and Clearview AI matches faces against a database it puts at over 70 billion images, mainly for police. Both have drawn regulatory action and lawsuits, but they remain available. 89
- FOR Parents, Teens and Digital Monitoring. Pew Research Center, 2016-01-07. 61% of parents of 13- to 17-year-olds had checked sites visited, 60% social media profiles, 16% used tools to track location (survey in 2014 and 2015).
- AGAINST Apps to keep children safe online may be counterproductive. University of Central Florida (via Phys.org), 2018-04-03. In 215 US parent-teen pairs, teens whose parents used control apps reported more online risks; about 79% of children's app reviews were two stars or fewer.
- AGAINST Tech demo takes brain scan, creates a picture of what you're looking at. The Register, 2023-03-07. Osaka researchers rebuilt viewed images from fMRI with Stable Diffusion; it needs a scanner and about an hour of lying still, and remote mind-reading is not possible.
- AGAINST Washington Joins States Limiting Employer-Mandated Worker Microchipping. LexisNexis, 2026-04-15. Washington's HB 2303 bars employers from requiring a subcutaneous chip, after at least 11 other states passed similar laws.
- CONTEXT Arkangel (Black Mirror). Wikipedia. Records that the story was inspired by pet microchips then being considered for children, and describes the system's features.
- FOR About Communication Safety on your child's Apple device. Apple Support. On-device detection of nudity, gore and violence, with blurring before viewing; on by default for under-18s and adjustable in Screen Time.
- CONTEXT Online Safety Act: explainer. GOV.UK, 2025-04-24. Platforms must stop children reaching pornography and self-harm content and give age-appropriate access to other priority harms; the child-safety regime was due to be fully in force in summer 2025.
- FOR PimEyes. Wikipedia. A face-search site launched in 2017; reported to have been used to identify strangers from their faces.
- AGAINST Clearview AI. Wikipedia. Matches faces against more than 70 billion scraped images; fined in the Netherlands (EUR 30.5 million, 2024) and subject to UK enforcement.
Ledger updated 5 Nov 2026. All works on the P(n) Board · Method