Tag: Science fiction | Page 3

Neurotechnology and Neuromodulation - Conceptual Illustration

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News
Date
May 26, 2023

Categorized
Technology

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Brain implant, Elon Musk, Neuralink, Science fiction, transhumanism}

Neuralink All Set for Human Trials

_{What could go wrong?} _{News
May 26, 2023

2

Technology}

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s bio-engineering company that launched in 2016, received approval from the FDA to begin human experiments with its brain implant technology. The company has struggled for years to gain such approval, and up to this point, has been investigated on occasion for potential dangers the implants might pose. Musk, however, is optimistic about the technology, and thinks it may have the potential to heal a range of disorders and illnesses including autism, depression, and schizophrenia. However, the organization is being “probed” by various governmental agencies. According to a Reuters report, The Department of Transportation is separately probing whether Neuralink illegally transported dangerous pathogens on chips removed from monkey brains without proper containment measures. Neuralink is also under investigation by the U.S. Department Read More ›

Futuristic dystopian city with flying cars and dark green atmosphere - digital 3d illustration

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Gary Varner
Date
May 20, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Arts & Culture, Consciousness, Dystopian, Gary Varner, Movies and TV, Robots, Sci-fi, Science fiction}

Ghost in the Shell, Part 3

_{There will always be a ghost in the shell} _{Gary Varner
May 20, 2023

7

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

In the previous review, Major had realized the horrible truth. Ninety-eight people died so she could live in her new body. Horrified by this, she retreats to the ocean just outside the city and floats under the water for some time. When she emerges from the depths, she finds Batou waiting for her on the boat. Major asks if he’s here to kill her, and in his own charming way, Batou says tells her he’s not. After a brief conversation, Major asks Batou to take her back to the city because she needs to know more. Batou agrees and the Major returns to shore only to be arrested by the Hanka cooperation’s men. After this, Hanka’s CEO, Cutter, discuss the Read More ›

Technology in human and machine concept as advanced tech or robots taking over humanity and people merging with a cyborg or computers idea

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Gary Varner
Date
May 13, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
AI, Arts & Culture, Consciousness, Science fiction}

Ghost in the Shell, Part 2

_{What’s the harm in human hacking?} _{Gary Varner
May 13, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

In the first review of Ghost in the Shell, the Major had just escaped Kuze’s attempt to hack her mind and had found his location. She, Batou, and another member of Section 9 rushed off to find Kuze before he could escape. Major tracks Kuze’s signal to a Yakuza club, and after fighting some thugs, they find the source of the signal in the basement level of the club, but Kuze isn’t there. All he’s left behind is a hologram which threatens them and disappears. Major then realizes the basement has been rigged to blow and pushes Batou out of the room. However, she isn’t fast enough. Major is caught in the explosion, and Batou looses his eyes in the Read More ›

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Gary Varner
Date
May 6, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Sci-fi, Science fiction}

Ghost in the Shell, Part 1

_{It's the remake of arguably one of the most influential sci-fi moves in the genre} _{Gary Varner
May 6, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

[Warning: Spoilers ahead] In the last review, we discussed Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. That got me thinking of another movie starring Scarlett Johansson, the 2017 remake of Ghost in the Shell. The original Ghost in the Shell is arguably one of the more influential sci-fi movies in the genre. The dramatic visuals found in The Matrix have been attributed to the 1995 anime, and given the culture’s increasing fascination with AI, the concepts discussed in the original and the remake are more relevant now than when the anime was first released. Sadly, the 2017 remake was bogged down in a trite controversy regarding race-swapping which is when a character’s race is changed to appeal to American audiences. Read More ›

Man and flames, inspired by Fahrenheit 451. Gegenrative AI.

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Peter Biles
Date
April 21, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
1984 (book), Aldous Huxley, Arts & Culture, brave new world, Dystopia, George Orwell, Literature, Ray Bradbury, Science fiction, Technology}

Revisiting Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

_{How can we read and remember the past with the influx of digital noise and distraction?} _{Peter Biles
April 21, 2023

5

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

Which one was right, Brave New World or 1984? Are we living in a hedonistic mirage or a totalitarian face-stamping global regime? The conversation over prophetic twentieth-century texts often homes in on these two admirable books, but another classic dystopian novel pokes its head from behind the curtain, asking to be regarded: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It’s the riotous, mega-talented sci-fi writer’s most famous work (though I’d argue not quite his best) and follows the life of a fireman, Guy Montag, whose main job is not to squelch housefires but to burn books, and the houses that hold them. This fireman is a member of a brigade tasked with the destruction of literature. With the destruction of meaning. In the Read More ›

Lonely man in red jacket standing by the lake in winter, with transparent woman figure standing next to him

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Peter Biles
Date
April 17, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Free will

Tagged
Aldous Huxley, Arts & Culture, Brave New World (book), drug addiction, Dystopian, fiction, free will, Futurism, Literature, Science fiction, social media, The New Yorker}

Escape from Spiderhead and the Question of Love

_{Is love more than a chemical reaction and are humans more than machines made of meat?} _{Peter Biles
April 17, 2023

4

Arts & Culture, Free will}

Brave New World, a speculative work by British writer Aldous Huxley, explores a society where people are conditioned via drugs and genetic engineering to live stable, highly pleasurable, but totally meaningless lives. One pop of a pill, and negative feelings like sadness, anger, or envy vanish. In the brave new world, “everyone belongs to everyone else,” and pleasure supplants purpose. A Story for Our Age That book was written in 1932. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and another fictional work, albeit shorter, goes arguably even deeper than Huxley’s magnum opus. The short story Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders is about a group of inmates being tested by mood-altering drugs in a facility nicknamed “Spiderhead” for its nebulous layout. Read More ›

Back view of businessman suit standing at office looking at night city through panoramic window. Generative AI

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Gary Varner
Date
April 15, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
AI, Arts and Culture, Culture, Gary Varner, Movies, Science fiction, society, Technology, tv}

Her, Part One

_{The 2013 dystopian film proposes an intriguing "what if"} _{Gary Varner
April 15, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

When I was reviewing the Orville, Season Three, I spent a lot of time complaining about the robot-love subplot which consumed far too much of the series. I will probably always find the idea of such a relationship ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean the concept can’t be explored in a thoughtful way. One such thoughtful exploration is the movie Her, where a man falls in love with his AI operating system. Unlike the Orville, which demands that the viewer take the relationship seriously, almost going so far as to call the viewer a bigot if they don’t get on board with the fantasy, Her leaves everything open-ended, treating the whole idea of a man and robot falling in love as Read More ›

beautiful bunch cordyceps,mushrooms in neon light. The last of us style. Generative AI.

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Gary Varner
Date
April 8, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Culture, Gary Varner, HBO Max, Science fiction, television, The Last of Us, TV shows, Video games}

The Last of Us: Final Thoughts

_{The HBO series is a mixed bag but is still worth the watch} _{Gary Varner
April 8, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

The Last of Us HBO series is a mixed bag. There are parts of this show I really liked and other parts I despised. The main trouble is that there are two full episodes which are completely irrelevant to the plot. Frankly, you could skip episodes three and seven and not miss a thing. These episodes are just fanfare for the critics and add nothing to the story. Particularly episode three. I’ve never seen such a random addition to a series. What’s so astounding is that the flashback in episode three keeps going. About halfway through, the viewer realizes that they really are going to have to watch these two old men live and die, all so Joel and Ellie Read More ›

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Peter Biles
Date
April 6, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
AI, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, Movies, Science fiction, Spider-Man, TV shows}

Future Films: Written and Directed by…AI?

_{AI's abilities in visual creation are remarkably good and are getting better fast} _{Peter Biles
April 6, 2023

4

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

Artificial intelligence is exploding right now. From ChatGPT to Google’s Bard to DALL-E, these new technologies are forcing the question about the place of human agency in a technological society. That includes the world of cinema. Here’s a Scenario Here’s a cheery scenario: you drop by the local Barnes & Noble before seeing the seventeenth iteration of Spider-Man in theaters. The year is 2040. You buy a hot new bestseller written by a chatbot and are impressed by the linguistic originality, even though the novel still follows a pretty crude narrative structure. Then, it’s off to see the show. You’re in the theater with your ticket and popcorn, both of which were given to you by a non-sentient robotic arm Read More ›

Businessman in creative blue maze background.

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Peter Biles
Date
April 5, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
AI, Andrew McDiarmid, Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, COSM, Discovery Institute (mission), Robert J. Marks, Science fiction, Slate, WALL-E}

AI is a Tool, Not a Solution for Everything

_{Life is complicated and our problems can't always be solved through an engineering approach} _{Peter Biles
April 5, 2023

4

Artificial Intelligence}

AI is a tool. In the words of Robert J. Marks from an interview at last year’s COSM conference, it can’t be a “friend or foe,” because it’s not a living entity. It’s something that can be used (or abused). Such a neutral, balanced attitude toward AI is alien to many Big Tech moguls who are pitching AI as the solution to many of the world’s complicated problems. For them, on the flipside of the doomsday alarmists, AI will usher in a new epoch of human progress. They may be partially right about that, but according to this writer at Slate, their hype reflects a commitment to technological “solutionism,” the idea that tech, once adequately suited for the task, can Read More ›

Self driving car on a road. Autonomous vehicle. Inside view.

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News
Date
March 31, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, Elon Musk, Large Language Models (LLMs), OpenAI, Science fiction, self-driving cars, Slate, Tesla}

The Irony in Musk’s AI Distrust

_{As a leader in AI, why is Musk advocating a pause on its development?} _{News
March 31, 2023

2

Artificial Intelligence}

Elon Musk joined a petition to “pause” AI research, citing concern over its potential harms and overreach. This is interesting, since Musk originally funded OpenAI, which is now at the forefront of cutting-edge AI systems like ChatGPT. In addition, Musk’s ventures with self-driving cars and his confidence in neural technology all cast him as a leader in the AI revolution. So why is he calling for a hiatus? According to a recent Slate article, the warnings against Large Language Models (LLMs) are a distraction from the more dangerous AI inventions like the self-driving car. Musk uses sci-fi alarmism to exacerbate the fear of a machine takeover, while his own experiments in automation have also proved to be dangerous for human Read More ›

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Gary Varner
Date
March 31, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Apocalypticism, Arts & Culture, Gary Varner, HBO Max, Science fiction, Technology, television, The Last of Us}

The Last of Us, Episodes 7 & 8

_{Another flashback for the critics followed by cannibalism} _{Gary Varner
March 31, 2023

7

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

To be blunt, it’s probably best to merge the reviews of episodes seven and eight because episode seven is a complete waste of time. Basically, Ellie moves Joel to an abandoned house and tries to take care of him. He tells her she needs to go back to Tommy’s and let him die, and she almost does it, but then she has a flashback. During the commentary for episode seven, the writers mention that they wanted to make a connection between this flashback and Ellie’s decision to save Joel. But I think the truth is they were more interested in devoting another episode to fanservice for the critics. In this flashback, Ellie remembers Riley, her friend who was attacked with Read More ›

Grand Tetons peak at sunrise with snake river overlook in Wyoming, US

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Gary Varner
Date
March 25, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Arts & Culture, Entertainment, HBO Max, Science fiction, television, The Last of Us, TV shows}

The Last of Us, Episode 6

_{A tale of zombies and...communism?} _{Gary Varner
March 25, 2023

10

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

Episode six starts out strong. We meet an elderly couple who has been living alone in Wyoming. Joel and Ellie break into their cabin and ask for directions in the rudest way possible—at gun point—which is a little over the top, and even the actors playing the couple seem to know it. As Joel sits beside the old pair, holding a gun and acting dour, the elderly man chats with him, sporting a bemused grin. Joel and Ellie get the directions they need and soon come across a group of men and women on horseback who hold them at gunpoint and check to see if they’re infected. Once it becomes clear that Joel and Ellie are fine, the riders ask Read More ›

The surface of Venus, the irregularities of the planet. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

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Peter Biles
Date
March 23, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
C.S. Lewis, Enchantment, Fantasy, Mars, Materialism, Outer Space, Science fiction, Technology, That Hideous Strength (book)}

C.S. Lewis and Science Fiction

_{Sci-fi can reveal that you don't necessarily need to visit Mars to find the bizarre and beautiful} _{Peter Biles
March 23, 2023

5

Arts & Culture}

The 20th-century intellectual, novelist, poet, and popular theologian C.S. Lewis was a rare bird. He spent most of his life embedded in the academic world, to which he contributed greatly, but was also a lover of fairy tales and the dystopian. His long-held affection for fantasy and science fiction led him to write some of the most popular fictional works in recent memory, most notably The Chronicles of Narnia and what’s commonly known as the “space trilogy,” though Lewis himself objected to the term “space” as an adequate descriptor of what he viewed as a vibrant and meaningful cosmos. In a more obscure Lewis title, Of Other Worlds, Lewis writes of his appreciation for science fiction and what makes the Read More ›

Generative AI illustration of underground sewer tunnel

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Gary Varner
Date
March 22, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Apocalypticism, Gary Varner, HBO Max, Science fiction, television, The Last of Us}

The Last of Us, Episode 5

_{The show is back on track and improving} _{Gary Varner
March 22, 2023

10

Arts & Culture}

At the end of Episode four, Joel was being held a gunpoint by a mysterious child. We also saw that Ellie was being held at gunpoint by another man as well, but before episode five reveals what has become of them, the writers first give us a flashback, explaining how the child holding Joel at gunpoint, whose name turns out to be Sam, and the man holding Ellie at gunpoint, Henry, the same Henry Kathleen has been chasing, came to find Joel and Ellie in the first place. The two brothers were on the run after FEDRA fell to Kathleen’s resistance movement. Henry was an informant for FEDRA, and he snitched on Kathleen’s brother, who was the former leader of Read More ›

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Gary Varner
Date
March 15, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture

Tagged
Apocalypticism, Arts & Culture, Culture, Gary Varner, Science fiction, The Last of Us, TV shows}

The Last of Us, Episode 3 (Part 2)

_{Why were we subjected to this episode if it wasn’t going to contribute to the narrative?} _{Gary Varner
March 15, 2023

6

Arts & Culture}

Last time, we discussed how episode three started out relatively strong then unexpectedly shifted to another story altogether. It’s important to note that we are not watching a ten-minute flashback or some b-plot involving a couple of supporting characters. Almost all of the episode is devoted to Bill and Frank, and frankly, their story goes nowhere. As I mentioned before, the subject of this random entry into the series is Bill and Frank’s romantic relationship, and given the fact that this little deviation from the source material contributes nothing to the plot as a whole, it is strongly suspected that the only reason the writers chose to tell this story was to gain the admiration of critics who share their Read More ›

Wallpaper of cordyceps fungi, realistic detail photo macro, illustration, like the movie the last of us,

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Gary Varner
Date
March 13, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
HBO, Science fiction, The Last of Us}

The Last of Us, Episode 3 (Part I)

_{This episode serves as a bad omen when it comes to writers’ willingness to stick to the script} _{Gary Varner
March 13, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

In episode two, Tess sacrifices herself after being bitten, and in episode three, we find Joel and Ellie grieving over her death. This scene is another example of the actors overplaying the anger when the tone should be more somber. Joel is hesitant to talk to Ellie until Ellie insists that Tess’s death wasn’t her fault, and that Joel and Tess made their own choices. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with the scene necessarily, but in the first two episodes, it’s already apparent that the HBO adaptation is having a difficult time establishing the father-daughter dynamic between Ellie and Joel that the game is known for. This scene only adds to that problem. However, this might not be an issue Read More ›

Brain psychology mind soul and hope concept art, 3d illustration, surreal artwork, imagination painting, conceptual idea

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News
Date
March 9, 2023

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Blake Lemoine and LaMDA, Consciousness, Google, LaMDA, Michael Egnor, Robert J. Marks, Science fiction}

Blake Lemoine and Robert J. Marks on the Mind Matters Podcast

_{Marks and Lemoine discuss sentience in AI and the question of the soul} _{News
March 9, 2023

2

Artificial Intelligence}

Lemoine thinks AI can be sentient but Marks firmly rejects such a notion. While disagreeing, they maintained a respectful dialogue. Well worth listening to. Read More ›

Man and girl in post apocalyptic city. The last of us style. Generative AI.

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Gary Varner
Date
March 4, 2023

Categorized
Arts & Culture, Science Fiction

Tagged
Apocalypticism, Fantasy, Gary Varner, HBO Max, Sci-fi, Science fiction, The Last of Us, TV shows}

The Last of Us Review: Episode 2

_{A rather slow episode despite the sonar zombies} _{Gary Varner
March 4, 2023

6

Arts & Culture, Science Fiction}

Last time, we looked at the first episode of The Last of Us and talked about how it was well written, but if you are aware of the controversy surrounding this game and its sequel, then you know bad things are on the horizon. Once we reach episode two, the writing quality drops a little but not much. It’s still pretty good, at least, when it’s consistent with the source material. Ellie wakes up to find Joel and Tess staring at her with a loaded gun. Her guardians are having a hard time believing that she is not infected with the virus despite the fact that her wound has healed. There is a brief debate about whether or not to Read More ›

Dinosaur Fossil (Tyrannosaurus Rex) Found by Archaeologists

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Gary Varner
Date
February 25, 2023

Categorized
Science Fiction

Tagged
Dinosaur, Gary Varner, Jurassic World, Science fiction}

Jurassic World: Dominion Part 4

_{A bad movie that makes an okay end to the franchise. But does it actually end here?} _{Gary Varner
February 25, 2023

7

Science Fiction}

After Owen and Kayla survive a plane crash, they begin their search for Claire, evading yet another hungry dinosaur without so much as a limp. What follows is a sequence of random dinosaur encounters, each scene driven by a series of coincidences because all our characters are scattered throughout the valley, and we need them to get together somehow. The most egregious of these coincidences comes when our entire main cast finally meets. Ellie, Alan, and Maisie are on an underground train to an airport, but the bad guy, Dodgson, discovers what they’ve done and turns the train off. This forces them to wander through a series of caves, but they eventually escape with the help of Ian. They drive Read More ›