While science fiction is typically futuristic, The Feed is based on currently developing technology designed to use brain implanted chips to interface with the Internet. Some are already comparing The Feed to Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World. ⁃ TN Editor
Channing Powell, the creator of the hit horror television series “The Walking Dead”, is not someone who is easily spooked.
But Powell is scared, “terrified actually” of what big tech might be up to.
And critics were too after watching her spine-chilling new series, “The Feed”, premiere in Cannes this week.
The Amazon show is set in the near future when we can share emotions, thoughts and what we see with our eyes on a social network embedded in our brains.
If that sounds as far fetched as the post-apocalyptic zombies of “The Walking Dead”, Powell has news for you.
“Elon Musk and Facebook are already trying to develop the technology portrayed in the show,” she told AFP at the Canneseries festival in the French Riviera resort.
The Tesla boss and sometime Twitter warrior “is developing a neuro lace (computer) that covers the entire brain that you would control with thought,” Powell said.
“Facebook has been working on something similar in some place called ‘Building 8’ where it has all its secret projects.”
Both are very quiet about what precisely they are doing, said Powell.
– Chips controlled by thought –
However, “people at MIT have already created something you can attach to your ear that is controlled by thought.
“It can tell you the time and how much groceries are when you walk through the aisles of a supermarket,” she added.
“The Feed” — which will screen later this year — is based on Nick Clark Windo’s 2018 novel of the same name.
Told from inside the fabulously wealthy family who invented “The Feed” and now effectively control the world, the story doesn’t end well.
Given what we have learned about the harvesting and misuse of personal data from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and how Google can seem to predict our needs before we search for it on our smartphone, that should not be too surprising.
“We have seen dystopian shows before but never like this,” Powell insisted, who cast British actor David Thewlis as the tech guru patriarch of the seemingly well-meaning clan.
“It was a very realistic portrayal of what happens when we let technology control us — and we are heading in that direction.
