Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

Gary Varner

dreamy-foggy-dark-forest-trail-in-moody-forest-alone-and-cre-218181114-stockpack-adobe_stock
Dreamy foggy dark forest. Trail in moody forest. Alone and creepy feeling in the woods

AI: Artificial Intelligence Review Part 4

The real message of the movie is “nobody knows what ‘real’ really means.”

The forest scene itself is just shy of three minutes, and the actors both do a wonderful job selling the scene, but in the end, I couldn’t buy it.

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child in danger drowning in the pool, kid girl cannot swim to deep water and raise two hand for help on swimming pool.

AI Artificial Intelligence Review Part 3: Out of the Pool and Into the Woods

What kind of robotic programmers give an android consciousness but then forget to stress the importance of air?

He’s going to pull on your heartstrings to obfuscate from that all-important question: what is the definition of “real,” or to put it more directly, is endowed value real?

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Family with laptop, tablet and smartphone, everyone using digital devices

AI: Artificial Intelligence Review Part 2

A couple has a son in a coma, and it seems unlikely that the child will wake up.

The idea of picking a robot child to replace a real son is very disturbing, but disturbing or not, the parents aren’t allowed to have another child to begin with.

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Modern health care a robot hand holding a love symbol concept, with awesome-looking, nice color combination

AI: Artificial Intelligence Review Part 1

Both the film and the short story question the definition of “real,” not reality

When the scientist proposes creating a robot child who can love, the audience is bound to be asking the obvious question: Is that possible?

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A hyper-realistic depiction of a small explosion caused by fireworks, capturing every spark and color detail in slow motion

2010: The Year We Make Contact Review Part 5

The crew watches Jupiter grow smaller until it explodes, sending shockwaves through the ship.

As long as the aliens’ technology is advanced beyond humanity’s comprehension, then there’s no real way to pick apart how they turned the gas planet into a star.

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open eye in space

2010: The Year We Make Contact Part 4

The decision is made to keep all the details from HAL.

If the robot figures out that he isn’t returning to Earth with the crew, he might object to the plan and decide to continue the mission himself, just like he’d done with Bowman’s crew.

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An astronaut inside his cockpit looking at a cloudy strange land

2010: The Year We Make Contact Review Part 2

The plot is well structured, there are few, if any, plot holes.

Making a story easy to follow isn’t just a matter of artistic preference; it’s tied to the suspension of disbelief and an audience member’s investment.

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abstract illustration of the cosmos on the theme of the origin of life in the universe with stars, comets and nebulae

2010: The Year We Make Contact Review Part 1

When explaining the mystery becomes the real mistake

For the fans of 2001, the mystery is the point, and for those more devoted to secular causes, the concept of aliens as divine beings is the point.

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Movie premiere concept with clapperboard, popcorn on yellow background top view space for text

Can AI Save Theaters?

A YouTuber’s micro‑budget thriller just went the distance against Disney’s latest heavyweight.

The A-list actor has become a thing of the past. Hollywood decided to focus on adapting franchises rather than promoting their actors, and because of this, most of the few A-list actors who remain have been grandfathered in. They are survivors of an old era.

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Child in womb, unborn little baby in utero of mother, development of human fetus during pregnancy, family planning pregnancy planning concept, endure pregnancy and easy childbirth, generative AI

2001: A Space Odyssey Review Part 7: Space Baby

The idea of a floating baby with a force field around it is ridiculous.

The movie ends with the baby staring at the earth, leaving the audience to either wonder what’s going on or what’s going to happen next.

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Concept tunnel of light in near death experience, soul finding their ascension, astral trip, astral projection, people going through the portal of karma, death and birth. Spirituality, esoteric.

2001: A Space Odyssey Review Part 6

Is Bowman a victor for reaching the stargate or has he been caught in a trap?

Clarke seems to be going for something more religious: technology gives mankind the means to become God, and our alien overlords will be there to help once mankind is worthy.

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red eye hal

2001: A Space Odyssey: It Comes Down at Last to Bowman vs. HAL

In Part 5, we see that both Clarke and Kubrick treat AI as a potential threat to humanity but for different reasons

A critical question for assessing the future of AI is, why did the space agency give HAL almost total control of the ship.

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View of the surface of the moon.Elements of this image furnished by NASA

2001: A Space Odyssey: The Brief Story of Heywood Floyd

In Part 4, we look at what the middle story — meeting the Monolith on the moon — is doing

We don’t really get to see enough of HAL 9000 when he is actually a help to the space travelers, which reduces the impact of his turn.

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sci-fi-modern-concrete-cement-futuristic-garage-empty-space-400446759-stockpack-adobestock
Sci Fi Modern Concrete Cement Futuristic Garage Empty Space whith metallic monolith, 3D Rendering illustration

Space Odyssey 2001: Were Clarke and Kubrick at Odds?

Part 3: The ambiguity in 2001 is not the result of artistic muddiness but the middle ground for an unspoken conflict between the two writers

One thing is for certain. In the iconic Dawn of Man sequence, the Monolith is conveying information. The question is how.

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Black stone monolith in ancient jungle, portal or a sign of civilisation. Generative AI

Space Odyssey 2001: Decisions To Make About That Monolith

In Part 2 of my series on the sci-fi great, I want to consider where the Monolith fits in the hard vs. soft magic systems that make for sci-fi stories

Letting the question of who sent the monolith remain a mystery was probably a wise dramatic choice on the part of the writers.

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nature photograph of tall, skinny vantablack monolith on a flat glacier AI-Generated

2001: A Space Odyssey Was a New Type of Science Fiction

The film is perhaps best understood as three completely different stories whose only connection is the monolith

The greatest measure of a film’s success is the test of time. Something about this film works even though it breaks conventions.

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Man on time machine. Best resolution

How To Write a Time Travel Story That Keeps Making Sense: Part 2

In this sixth and final installment, I show how narrowing a rather than escalating it, avoids unwanted paradoxes

Escalation is where the Terminator franchise went wrong. The writers kept enlarging their world until it became contradictory.

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The butterfly sucks mud water in the gemsbok national park, Kalahari South Africa

How To Write a Time Travel Story That Keeps Making Sense, Part 1

Here in Part 5, I offer an approach that allows for time travel without obvious giant plot holes

To keep the story under control, the time machine itself should be a hard system even if the concept of time is soft and pliable.

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