Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future review – the comic just can’t hide his emotion in this mind-blowing show

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’s 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 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. 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 “a whole new level of independence”. We meet McCausland as he uses his iPhone to pick his clothes for the day. Holding up a navy shirt, the AI app – with an alarmingly human cadence – tells him it’s 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’s a primer to any luddites watching of how far tech has already come and how, for many disabled people, such innovations aren’t just a fun thing to have – they’re life-changing. And with that, McCausland is on his way to see the future, AKA meet Meta’s head of accessibility. There’s a cursory line about the Facebook parent company’s issues with “privacy violations and data management”, 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’s 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’t blame him for putting any concerns to the side. “When you have a disability, you have to be dependent on other people. Sometimes, you feel a burden,” he admits. “AI doesn’t seem bothered.” One feature of the glasses that isn’t yet on the market is “live AI”, which can respond in the moment and – as McCausland poignantly puts it – answer “any of my questions about the world around me”. He points his face to the camera crew filming him and jokingly asks if they look as if they’re 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’s World unveiling a new invention called “the cassette player” and feel the fabric of time fold in on itself. Still, not a minute spare to contemplate our own mortality. We’re 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. “First time I’ve ever been in a car alone that’s moving,” McCausland smiles from the back of a taxi as the front wheel turns itself. 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 “couldn’t give a hoot” 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’t quite hide the fact he is visibly moved, if only for a moment. With the West Coast done, McCausland goes to Boston’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There’s a lovely scene in which he tests out a bionic limb designed by a scientist after becoming a double amputee himself, but it’s the possibilities for healthcare that make for mind-blowing television. As well as treating conditions such as Alzheimer’s, the nano chip – injected into the bloodstream and coming in at a 10,000th of the width of a human hair – could in the near future be harnessed for brain surgery to effectively replace the very photoreceptor cells that cause McCausland’s 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. This is when another presenter would have a teary-eyed monologue to camera. But it’s McCausland. So he proposes they do a follow-up documentary where he lets Sarka inject his brain to give him high-resolution night vision “to beat you all at Laser Quest”. You can almost hear the BBC execs calling their insurance provider. • Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now.