As we move towards the end of the semester, we see more assignments and blog posts put up. I’m providing an update for my BCM325 live tweeting. If you happen to have a twitter account, you may even see the BCM325 hashtag trending – with a lot of posts about various films related to our topic. We watch one live screening each week with live tweets and interactions with fellow students in the subject. Here, I will be looking at some of my recent ones since my last blog which took us up to week 5.
WEEK 6 – Blade Runner 2049
Blade Runner 2049 was definitely an interesting week. As explored in my last blog post, we also looked at the original. So, to look at a sequel made a few years later was interesting to compare and connect with films with one another.
Whilst watching the film, I found myself connecting parts of the film with some of George Dvorskyv’s work (who we looked at in our reading materials) – which is what I referenced in my tweets for that week. Dvorskyv is a transhumanist and futurist who advocates for ethical approaches to artificial intelligence research.
I found that the Blade Runner series can relate a lot of its content back to AI and the ethical perspective it portrays. But it more specifically relates to Blade Runner 2049 where the main protagonist is an AI system who explores the reality of having no rights, and what becoming more ‘sentient’ might result in.
WEEK 7 – The Matrix 1999
The Matrix 1999 is also a film we looked at. Having had watched the films numerous times before, I found myself engaging with the film on a more in-depth level, not enjoying it for the overall feel of a movie but rather, the techniques used and the ways it relates to the content we have explored in class.
Personally, I find the Matrix to be a movie that shows a lot more than it expresses in words. So when tweeting during the film I was writing more about the visual techniques rather than the theories behind some of the content in the film.
Of course, watching a movie about an ordinary guy having his life flipped upside down is bound to make you go – hang on, what if this is our reality? My mind is very imaginative and this something that stuck to me. But something that also had stuck out to me was a reading we had done that week by. Nick Bostrom had explored whether it was possible that we were living in a false reality, or is it something that we could inflict upon future generations? His research and (a lot) of formulas of algebra – that admittedly, I didn’t particularly understand, but made sense at the same time, had come to the conclusion it was close to 0% chance we could inflict this – unless we were in a simulation in itself?
WEEK 9 – Alita : Battle Angel 2019
Alita Battle Angel was an interesting screening, because whilst I heavily involve myself in the ‘tech’ side of pop culture, and had heard many good reviews about the movie, I had not seen it before. Whilst it was not particularly my cup of tea in the end (which is fine!) I still was able to look at it from our theory sides.
Looking at our lecture and ready I was able to compare the film a lot to the current day reality of cyborg existence. Which is pretty much here, without the thought, we have humans that are at a similar status as cyborg due to transplants, bionic implants, prosthetics, and many other things.
My tweets were not as connected to the film and I struggled to relate to content in it as I wasn’t as interested in the film as I have for others but still enjoyed it enough to write my tweets about it!
WEEK 10 – Ready Player One 2016
Ready Player One has a special place in my heart. I read the original book when I was younger, it was a connection between myself and my dad. He had read the books and with work friends they had their own little competition to figure out similar puzzles etc. So, looking at the film purely for an entertainment purpose, I had a lot of expectations.
I was able to connect Ready Player One to many parts of our reality that already exist between, virtual reality headsets, integration from life into a virtual reality world, we even have mats that people can stand on while moving in VR but you aren’t moving, just moving the mat/floor system.
Connecting Ready Player One to our reality just shows how close we are to achieving something as close as this and how far off in the future are we really?
WEEK 11 – Robot and Frank 2012
A little similar to Alita Battle Angel, I found the movie Robot and Frank a little hard to enjoy. It was good, and had a more comedic take at times about AI and robots in society, but at the time I was not been able to engage with the movie as much as possible.
I believe that Robot and Frank really displayed the connection that can develop between human and AI. It starts with the standard stereotype of not accepting a change and then learning to accept the relationship between humans and AI. I connected my tweets with Ray Kurzweil, who is an optimistic futurist who had predicted how possible of reality AI can be, his prediction is that we will be surpassed by the year 2045, how will this play? Will AI really pass the human race in the next 24 years?
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Reblogged this on Future Cultures.
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