Okay, before we say anything else, let it be known that here there are spoilers for Black Mirror, but honestly, if you haven’t seen this episode yet it’s your own fault anyway. So, you know the episode in season four with the self-driving pizza truck that causes all the trouble? The pizza truck in Crocodile that eventually leads to the death of four people including a baby? Well thanks to Pizza Hut, it’s going to exist in real life as well as in the terrifying world of Black Mirror.
Pizza Hut announced the new, technologically advanced delivery method at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The pizza chain is teaming up with Toyota to trail the autonomous vans, known as the E-Pakette, and plan to start testing them by 2020. “We’re excited to be partnering with an undisputed leader in human mobility with a reputation for innovation, reliability and efficiency, as we define the pizza delivery experience of the future”, Pizza Hut president Artie Starrs said in a statement.
It’s not the first time Black Mirror has “predicted” technological advances to terrify us all and make our lives easier; Season Three episode Nosedive focused on the idea that people could rate each other out of five, which sounds eerily like the ‘Social Credit System’ China will be launching in 2020, while season two episode The Entire History of You prophesied a contact lens-like technology that allows you to live-stream and watch back parts of your life, something Samsung experimented with in 2016.
Admittedly, live-streaming contact lenses and trucks that can deliver food to your house all by themselves as the “pizza experience of the future” sound pretty great, but it’s still spooky.
