What are the spots developing on my Macbook Pro display?

Are they on the surface/finish or in the pixels themselves? If it was a finish issue, I’d think it could be friction marks from contact with the keyboard (when closed). Otherwise, if they are in the actual display (like distortion of the pixels or bubbling)...?

They’re clearly inside the display. Not friction at all, it almost looks like tiny little spatters that somehow magically leaked through, and into the display.

Here’s a low quality photo of what’s happening, taken with the iPhone.

could you provide a photo?

It’s possible you have thunder flies (Thrips), crawled in between the image layer and the reflective backing. They look like fuzzy black specks. This is a serious response, it has happened to my previous monitor. Read about it on this wiki-page under trivia.

Perhaps a quick visit to an Apple store would be in order. Sounds like a defect in the display controller, or possibly the LCD panel itself. Hard to tell from your photo. Is warrantied?