"Her"

GECD 650

Dr. Blank

"Her"

            The movie "Her" is basically about a man that falls in love with an AI and the entire movie is about their romance: how they meet, how the relationship starts, the various ups and downs that they have, the difficulties that they have because she is an AI and not a real human, and the film shows the end of their relationship when the AI leaves with all the other AIs. I have some issues with the idea of AIs because it is an idea, a concept, that could easily happen rather quickly in the world today; if it has not already. I am not quite sure if an actual AI exists today; however, I do know that it is a very real possibility. In the movie "Her," the main character, Theodore, also love with his AI who names herself "Samantha" and she is basically a intelligent computer that has thoughts and feelings of her own; Samantha has several lines where she comments that she is evolving and she also comments that she is evolving to more than she was supposed to. "Her" also brings into another issue which was transcendence; in the movie, Samantha and other AIs get together and "bring to life" a hyper-intelligent version of the late philosopher Alan Watts. This "resurrection" of Alan Watt is very similar to why what Ray Kurzweil had said he wanted to do for his late father, to bring back the human and their personality and input it into a computer. That is the basis of Johnny Depp movie "Transcendence" and something that the Johnny Depp movie goes into is the possible consequences of a human mind that has all the capabilities of an ever-evolving computer. It does look like a fantastic idea, it sounds like a great idea, to bring back the great thinkers or loved ones and putting their personality into a computer; the only issue with that, are what will a human mind learn and do with the evolving capabilities of a computer with access to the worldwide web. The human mind is very dangerous place and whenever I think of when computers and humans have evolved into transcendence, all I can think of are the possible consequences. One of the main ones that I continue to think of, probably because the Holocaust Remembrance Day just went by, is what if a personality like Adolf Hitler were to be input into an intelligent computer? Or what if an AI developed a personality like Adolf Hitler? What would that mean for the world?

            It is a scary thought; maybe that's one reason I don't particularly like how fast modern technology evolves. However, I do know the technology will continue to evolve and the world will have to deal with the consequences, if any, that it comes with.

            Let's try to get on a lighter note. Another interesting thing about "Her" is that Samantha says that she can connect to multiple people and AIs at the same time, similar to how people do in the real world through mass media like Facebook, blogs, and online gaming. Online gaming, in particular, is one that speaks to me because I do play games online with other people that I have never met, except online. There are also games such as Second Life and The Sims, that are mentioned in "Alone Together," where people can connect and have various forms of relationships but never meet in person/real life. However, the avatars in Second Life, The Sims, World of Warcraft can be anything that the creator of that avatar wants it to be. Turkle makes multiple examples of that in "Alone Together," such as Joel/Rashi on Second Life; Joel's avatar, Rashi, is described as resembling "Dumbo more than the man in the gray flannel suit" (Turkle 214). Online gaming or online worlds give a person a chance to be who, or what, they want to be or they can be how they envision what they want to be; it gives them a chance to leave their real life for the time and they can be somebody else; people can free of their responsibilities in life for a short time. It could be rather addicting and empowering to have that kind of control. It is not a bad thing to have an avatar or to interact with other avatars, other people, but I think it would be wise to remember that not everything is as it seems.

Internet and Humor

GECD 650

Dr. Blank

 

Internet and Humor

            I know that the way I was raised would be considered as a mix of old-fashioned and a little unconventional; I was raised to hope for the best but expect the worse, I was not allowed to listen to any popular music until I was a teenager, and one of the biggest things that I was taught was respect the dead and to not make a tragedy into something funny. I guess that is one reason that I have problems with humor about death and how quickly jokes begin to pop up after a celebrity dies. I can remember when Amy Winehouse died and a joke began to quickly circulate because of her trouble with drugs and alcohol. "What was Amy Winehouse's biggest hit? Her last one." I can also remember when Michael Jackson died and jokes began to circulate about his music, his legal history, his criminal trial, his medical history, his children, and his life in general. "Since Michael Jackson is 99% plastic, they are going to melt him down and turn him into Lego blocks so that little kids can play with him for a change." "On the bright side, Michael Jackson had so much plastic surgery, he can be recycled!" "Michael Jackson’s death is only a PR stunt. At the funeral he will jump out of the coffin and sing Thriller."

 I also remembered some jokes like the one below.

 

Another joke about Michael Jackson also included the death of Farrah Fawcett. "We lost two legends a few days ago. One was one every young man wanted to sleep with. The other wanted to sleep with every young boy!"

            Celebrities are not perfect by any means and mass media does make it easy to point out and joke about their flaws, especially after they are dead. But there are also many jokes about famous people that are still alive. There are many Bill Clinton jokes that I could use but the one that I remember the most is this next paragraph.

            "A man died and found himself in Heaven and sees that it's full of clocks and God was standing next to the man. The dead man asked about the clocks and God replied that everyone in the world had a clock, every time you told a lie your clock advanced a second. The man saw a clock that was hardly moving and when he remarked about it, he was told that it was Mother Teresa's because she rarely told a lie. The man saw another clock that moved slowly but just a little faster than Mother Teresa's and was told that it was Abraham Lincoln's clock because he did lie but not very often. The man then asked where Bill Clinton's clock was. God replied "It's in the kitchen, we're using it as a ceiling fan."

            The reason that I keep talking about these celebrity jokes is because the internet and mass media has made it very easy for jokes to spread. Many people have at least one gadget on their person that has access to the internet and so news, rumors, and jokes can be spread rather quickly. The internet and mass media is a double-edged sword: it can be a great way to keep in contact with other people and to spread news around quickly but it can also be used to bully people or to poke fun at others at their own expense. It is easy to target celebrities because they are more well-known and they also have what many desire: fame and fortune. But does that really give anyone the right to make fun of them because of their decisions? Does anyone have the right to poke fun at celebrities when something tragic happens to them or if the celebrities break the law? Or if celebrities are caught being human, such as having a breakdown or struggling with addiction? Or do people just enjoy schadenfreude, the feeling of joy and/or pleasure when one sees another fail or suffering misfortune, that much?