Black Mirror episode idea: Luxury computer company starts including thermal front-facing cameras, as well as heartbeat monitors in laptop palm rest areas, in their hardware. Releases StressKit, an API which is promptly used by companies to optimize their experiences. At first, it's great: Slack silences notifications when someone's "in the zone," and Netflix has its greatest ever season of hyper-optimized horror movies.
But then our protagonist, a programmer at a large software company, is told to code a feature that subtly influences the behavior of users to drive them towards microtransactions in their moments of greatest stress. Protagonist finds this horrific and threatens to go public, at which point her colleagues, fearful for their own careers, start using the prototype system to manipulate her towards paranoia and madness. In true Black Mirror form, this escalates to neverending existential horror by the end.
But then our protagonist, a programmer at a large software company, is told to code a feature that subtly influences the behavior of users to drive them towards microtransactions in their moments of greatest stress. Protagonist finds this horrific and threatens to go public, at which point her colleagues, fearful for their own careers, start using the prototype system to manipulate her towards paranoia and madness. In true Black Mirror form, this escalates to neverending existential horror by the end.
*mic drop