The New Mind of Technology

Johnny 5 from Short Circuit

In the article Artificial Minds Jason Holt discusses the implications of artificial intelligence. He questions if it does already exists and if we are, as we tend to think, better that it. Artificial intelligence has been discussed for many years, and we have all seen the movies where robots take over the world and destroy humans, although I believe there is a different side to the story. In movie Short Circuit a robot made to be a soldier and to kill gets hit by lighting and gains consciousness. Now I believe that some of you are a ready scared about what this robot does, but it might surprise you to hear that he wanted nothing to do with violence. There is a scene where he is content to do nothing but roll down a road and look around. This is an example of what artificial intelligence could be. Having robots as companions might actually be a good thing, a friend that we can depend to be on whenever we need them. However, I do believe that having robots replace humans would be negative; we do need contact with our own kind. This knew fear of artificial intelligence reminds me of a story that I once heard about the people in Italy being afraid to eat tomatoes, which we know to be in hundreds of Italian dishes today. Humans should not necessarily be afraid of having computers that can think like we do, there may be a silver lining in disguise in the improvements of this science.

The Children of the Future

The opening to the movie A.I Artificial Minds is certainly an attention-getter. The very first thing you see is waves rolling up and down while a man states in a rather matter-of-fact manner that the polar icecaps melted, causing the seas to rise and erase many cities. As natural resources dwindled strict regulations were placed on pregnancy, which led to the rise of robots. Robots seem to be a wonderful solution because they don’t need any resources to sustain them. Soon we see what seems to be a board meeting; the members discuss creating the perfect robotic child, for the couples who now cannot have a child of their own.  Personally I am torn between two opinions. The first is that they should never make a robotic child because it goes against nature; the second is that they should, because it would help the many couples who are sure to desperately want a child. The child that would be created would never age, get sick, or fall and scrape its knee as all children do, which I would find almost eerie. I feel that, in addition, one of the greatest parts of being a parent is seeing what your child comes to be, like watching a seed that you have no idea what kind it will be turn into a beautiful flower. On the other hand, the couples out in the world are sure to feel a loss, a place in the house that should be filled but they can’t but is this really parenthood? Yes the robot love you but it will never grow.

How We Are Cyborgs

Friend or Foe?

In the article "Can You Hear Me Now?" Sherry Turkle discusses how people in general have become dependent on technology and how it has permeated our lives. Now it is common place to see people walking down the street e-mailing or texting away. Our culture now uses technology to make childhood safer, but that could also damage their independence when the children get older. Our culture now uses technology to provide companions and to define us. To contrast, in the article "Gin, Television, and Surplus" Clay Shirky argues that because or technology we now have the time and the ability to be a part or the media. Shirky Believes this is better than merely watching it.

"Can You Hear Me Now?" has a negative tone to it, as if technology would soon become the bane of our society. From her viewpoint technology is bad, but Shirky thinks it is grand. Shirky is positive toward technology and thinks it is better than the alternative.

I believe that Turkle does the better job of arguing her point although I agree more with Shirky.

The veldt

In the futuristic short story “The Veldt” two wealthy parents live in a mechanized house with their two children. One of the features of the home is a computerized nursery that makes the children’s every wish reality. When the nursery starts to display an all too real and death-filled African veldt, the mother starts to worry. Once she finally gets the father to realize that there is trouble they call the psychiatrist  too look at the nursery and they shut they house off, meaning they have to clean, bathe, and even tie their own shoes. The children through a fit and look the parents in the nursery in with the lions, and once the psychiatrist returns, do the same with him.

For some time I have seen children be spoiled rotten. You see them everywhere, in your family, grocery stores, toy stores, most stores, and their tantrums can get on everyone’s nerves sometimes. This story takes it to a new level, murder. I found it interesting how they children, with the help of the house, could be pretty much independent. The children have the means to go places they want too, get their own food, get wash, and live in a very comfortable environment. I believe that this could have interfered with their mental state, making it partially adult, but still very child-like. This is dangerous to the parents in the end and kills them. The abundance of technology in the house makes the children dependent on it, so when the parents go around and turn everything off it is a huge shock and pushes them over the edge. For months before, when the children started to be dissatisfied with their parents, the children had been creating facsimiles of their parents and feeding them to the lions. This shows that having so much given to them had altered the children’s minds and had made them dangerous. I believe in a way this is the parent’s fault, but the parents did it with the best intentions. This story shows that sometimes we can nurture too much, and if we give everything to our children without making them work it damages them in a way. The story shows that you can indeed be spoiled rotten.

“The house is wife and mother and now nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt?” pg. 10

This interested me because the mother is first to see a problem, the father shrugs it off.

“Those screams- they sound familiar.”

 This line was a little creepy to me because the parents didn’t go check out the screams, no matter how familiar.

24 Hours Have Gone By

At six pm today I made it. Twenty four hours without Facebook. I tried to distract myself with other things like real people, food, and YouTube but every once in a while I noticed its absence. To be honest it wasn’t like having my arm cut off or something but I did notice it was gone. I like to post interesting things I here, say, or think of in my status every now and again and this day seemed to have more than usual. I watched a new movie which had impeccable quotes, but I doubt the will ever see their way to my Facebook now, as I forget things quite easily. The hardest part was telling my friend that I couldn’t talk to her on Facebook as we normally do. My friend can’t text, so almost every day we chat on Facebook because she is in San Diego and I am in Northridge. At first she thought I had something to do for English and we could just talk later, I had to explain more of what I was doing so that she wouldn’t be disappointed when I didn’t come back on later. We worked it out but it was very different from every other day. To be honest, I’m not quite sure that I would be able to give Facebook up completely if it still existed in some form because I do rely on it for a good percentage of my communication. It is quite a shock for me to say this because for my years I didn’t have Facebook, and now it has become a fact of my life. I can only wonder, what  would happen if someday it just didn’t exist anymore.

Distractions We Carry With Us

How often do you see this?

In the commentary “Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld” by Andrew Sullivan the author talks about how it seems that the white wires of iPods have cut us off from the world. In the text he gives an example, the author is ending his trip, when he realizes that he has left his iPod behind. He panics, but then realizes what he has been missing out on. As he looks around he notices the little social cues all around him, he sees just how people interact. With this in mind I will admit it, I have headphones in right now and they of course have music running through them in to my ears. Personally I need to have music to work, without it I am so distracted it takes me hours to write two sentences, although I would not call myself addicted in the same way as Sullivan describes. I never walk with my headphones in and half the time I couldn’t tell you where my mp3 player is. I have seen individuals like this though, and it does affect their lives. Whereas I walk places with people and talk to them as we go, they are in their own world the whole way, and this makes them almost run it accidents all the time. It is not because they can’t hear (I know many Deaf people and they don’t almost get run over by bikes every day) it is because the music steals their attention from what matters most, people.