{"id":156602,"date":"2025-11-24T06:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156602\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T06:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:33:08","slug":"chris-mccausland-seeing-into-the-future-review-the-comic-just-cant-hide-his-emotion-in-this-mind-blowing-show-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156602\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future review \u2013 the comic just can\u2019t hide his emotion in this mind-blowing show | Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

If a celebrity wins Strictly Come Dancing, alongside the glitter ball trophy, they can expect the BBC to gift them a variety of vehicles for their newfound audience. Stacey Dooley rung in New Year\u2019s Eve and presented a makeup challenge. Rose Ayling-Ellis got two documentaries and a guest spot on Doctor Who. Now, 2024 champion, comedian and self-declared geek Chris McCausland<\/a> has his first major appearance: Seeing into the Future, a deep dive into the growth of AI and technology and what it means for him and others with sight loss.<\/p>\n

Much of the action takes place in Silicon Valley where McCausland, who gradually became blind by his early 20s, explores whether the land of big tech could give him \u201ca whole new level of independence\u201d. We meet McCausland as he uses his iPhone to pick his clothes for the day. Holding up a navy shirt, the AI app \u2013 with an alarmingly human cadence \u2013 tells him it\u2019s clean but has a few wrinkles he might want to iron out. Before voice-controlled smart assistants, McCausland used to have to cut the labels of each piece of clothing into a shape and use touch to work out what he was looking at. It\u2019s a primer to any luddites watching of how far tech has already come and how, for many disabled people, such innovations aren\u2019t just a fun thing to have \u2013 they\u2019re life-changing.<\/p>\n

And with that, McCausland is on his way to see the future, AKA meet Meta\u2019s head of accessibility. There\u2019s a cursory line about the Facebook parent company\u2019s issues with \u201cprivacy violations and data management\u201d, which feels like describing Hannibal Lecter as having issues with violating personal space. I wonder if producers missed a trick in not exploring the tension of disabled people\u2019s lives being improved by companies who cause so much damage to wider society. But McCausland has got his Meta smart glasses on before we have the chance to get philosophical, and you can\u2019t blame him for putting any concerns to the side. \u201cWhen you have a disability, you have to be dependent on other people. Sometimes, you feel a burden,\u201d he admits. \u201cAI doesn\u2019t seem bothered.\u201d<\/p>\n

One feature of the glasses that isn\u2019t yet on the market is \u201clive AI\u201d, which can respond in the moment and \u2013 as McCausland poignantly puts it \u2013 answer \u201cany of my questions about the world around me\u201d. He points his face to the camera crew filming him and jokingly asks if they look as if they\u2019re doing a good job. The AI scans and confirms the men do indeed look professional, as they are using high-grade cameras and appear to be concentrating. It is at this point that viewers of a certain age may find themselves experiencing a flashback to Tomorrow\u2019s World unveiling a new invention called \u201cthe cassette player\u201d and feel the fabric of time fold in on itself.<\/p>\n

Still, not a minute spare to contemplate our own mortality. We\u2019re on to a car that drives itself! San Francisco was one of the first cities in the world to roll out public self-driving vehicles. \u201cFirst time I\u2019ve ever been in a car alone that\u2019s moving,\u201d McCausland smiles from the back of a taxi as the front wheel turns itself.<\/p>\n

McCausland is a highly likable and engaging host but is not the sort to give producers any set-pieces of emotion. Staring out at the bay with his smart glasses on, he later claims he \u201ccouldn\u2019t give a hoot\u201d about bodies of water (he wants to use the glasses to go vinyl shopping and order a cheeseburger). But as he looks up at the blue sky and AI describes how a plane is flying across the clouds, he can\u2019t quite hide the fact he is visibly moved, if only for a moment.<\/p>\n

With the West Coast done, McCausland goes to Boston\u2019s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There\u2019s a lovely scene in which he tests out a bionic limb designed by a scientist after becoming a double amputee himself, but it\u2019s the possibilities for healthcare that make for mind-blowing television. As well as treating conditions such as Alzheimer\u2019s, the nano chip \u2013 injected into the bloodstream and coming in at a 10,000th of the width of a human hair \u2013 could in the near future be harnessed for brain surgery to effectively replace the very photoreceptor cells that cause McCausland\u2019s blindness. Deblina Sarka, the MIT engineer behind the tech, tells McCausland it could not only restore his vision but make it superior to other humans.<\/p>\n

This is when another presenter would have a teary-eyed monologue to camera. But it\u2019s McCausland. So he proposes they do a follow-up documentary where he lets Sarka inject his brain to give him high-resolution night vision \u201cto beat you all at Laser Quest\u201d. You can almost hear the BBC execs calling their insurance provider.<\/p>\n

Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If a celebrity wins Strictly Come Dancing, alongside the glitter ball trophy, they can expect the BBC to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-156602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}