tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/westworld-32821/articles
Westworld – The Conversation
2022-07-04T20:36:41Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179916
2022-07-04T20:36:41Z
2022-07-04T20:36:41Z
Sci-fi shows like ‘Westworld’ and ‘Altered Carbon’ offer a glimpse into the future of urban transportation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471947/original/file-20220630-13-cdmwog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C0%2C7376%2C2492&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Future transportation design should address inequality and not exacerbate it.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before the pandemic, a typical commute may have involved choosing between walking, driving or taking public transit. Ride-sharing apps have also allowed us to request rides in a shared car, on a bike or even using a scooter. Walking might involve a journey that begins on a residential street and travels through bustling commercial strips, past cyclists and delivery drivers that would need to be dodged and manoeuvering through busy intersections.</p>
<p>The pandemic altered the commute for most and changed our experience of moving through cities. Municipalities have been installing <a href="https://believe.earth/en/how-to-increase-the-use-of-bikes-in-cities/">bike lanes</a>, reducing <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/new-economy-future/cars-cities-technologies">car lanes and parking</a>, <a href="https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/sidewalks/">widening sidewalks and green spaces</a> and creating space for <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2021/policies-to-promote-electric-vehicle-deployment">electric cars</a>. </p>
<p>If these changes were possible in such a short period of time, what could happen with decades of changing streets? Would public transit still exist? And what would it look like?</p>
<h2>The next generation</h2>
<p>The way we commute has already started to change. With <a href="https://www.geotab.com/blog/future-of-transportation/">next generation transportation projects</a>, <a href="https://www.remix.com/blog/8-benefits-of-public-transportation">public transportation is becoming more efficient</a> by employing <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/no-one-at-the-wheel-transits-driverless-future-in-ontario">self-driving buses and trains</a> and installing <a href="https://onlinemasters.ohio.edu/blog/the-future-of-public-transportation-2/">automatic card-ticketing systems</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a red bus on a city street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471946/original/file-20220630-22-nm1pcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In Oslo, public transit is designed to be as efficient as possible.</span>
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<p>Futuristic public transportation projects explore <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.04.024">transforming cities into smart cities</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10044-1">addressing security and privacy concerns</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/cleantechnol2030019">creating new technical standards and piloting smart city projects</a>, like the proposed <a href="https://big.dk/#projects-tfc">artificial intelligence-powered campus</a> in Chongqing, China.</p>
<p>Science fiction storytelling has constantly envisioned the cities and urban life of the future. Classics like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4240846"><em>Blade Runner</em> and <em>Ghost in the Shell</em></a> contain prescient representations of the future as imagined at the time. China’s <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion">social credit system</a> echoes the mass surveillance system in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1464936032000137966">George Orwell’s <em>1984</em></a>.</p>
<h2>Urban futures</h2>
<p>In the science fiction TV series <em>Altered Carbon</em> and <em>Westworld</em>, urban backdrops form a significant part of the shows’ depiction of the future. Futuristic cities are represented as densely populated, with skyscrapers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1170489">towering above</a> busy, narrow streets.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/"><em>Altered Carbon</em></a>, the streets are reminiscent of lively pedestrian night markets filled with merchant stalls. Rich urban residents live above the clouds in ultra-luxurious highrises and use the skies to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/drones-are-turning-into-personal-flying-machines/">literally fly above the common folk</a>. </p>
<p>In the televised HBO series <em>Westworld</em>, homes are managed by an artificial intelligence that adjusts the house’s environment to the inhabitants’ needs, functions as a security system and even doles out advice to its residents. Outside, holographic advertisements can be seen with the use of smart contact lenses that augment the streetscape with hidden content.</p>
<p>In <em>Westworld</em>, there are electric self-driving vehicles for citizens and self-driving luxury drones for the rich. Smart lenses have replaced smartphones, and shopping is also hyper-real with smart mirrors that remove the need to physically try on clothes. These technologies — <a href="https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens">smart lenses</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/s21227453">smart mirrors</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59577341">enhanced environments</a> — already exist.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Vehicles in the television series ‘Westworld’ drew from the past to produce the future.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Inclusive futures</h2>
<p>So, what would a typical commute look like in the future? Imagine leaving the house with a self-flying drone that takes you to the main street to catch a flying bus. You check the news on your smart contact lens. You reach your stop and while walking the final steps to your destination notice something in a store window. You approach it and see how it looks on you, purchase it instantly and have it delivered to your home immediately. </p>
<p>Buses and cars zoom by at high speeds, yet there are no collisions because sophisticated AI controls everything. The streetscape is no longer one layer, but many intertwining passageways at different low altitudes. Parks and open green areas scale vertically, creating smaller and privatized pockets of greenery within highrise structures.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-020-09410-4">Cities have become the centres for the development and applications of digital technology</a> and creating the city of the future will not be without challenges, such as those of affordability, social cohesion, equity and climate change. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/tech-focus-needs-marginalized-groups/">Marginalized groups must be part of the process</a> in designing this future. The question then remains who will design this future — private companies or the public sector? Planners, designers and governments must be able to keep up with the rapidly changing technologies that can shape our world for better or for worse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179916/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Moving around cities will change in the future as new technologies like self-driving cars gain wider adoption. Science fiction can give us a glimpse into these futures.
Burcu Olgen, PhD Student, Research Assistant, Concordia University
Fatima Mehrzad, PhD candidate, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University
Negarsadat Rahimi, PhD Student, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University
Sara El Khatib, Phd Student, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140341
2020-06-21T20:06:58Z
2020-06-21T20:06:58Z
From HAL 9000 to Westworld’s Dolores: the pop culture robots that influenced smart voice assistants
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</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://voicebot.ai/2019/03/19/australia-leaps-past-u-s-in-smart-speaker-adoption-google-home-establishes-dominant-market-share/">Last year</a>, nearly one third of Australian adults owned a smart speaker device allowing them to call on “Alexa” or “Siri”. Now, with more time spent indoors due to COVID-19, smart voice assistants may be playing even bigger roles in people’s lives. </p>
<p>But not everyone embraces them. In <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820923679">our paper</a> published in New Media Society, we trace anxiety about smart assistants to a long history of threatening robot voices and narratives in Hollywood. </p>
<p>The warm and solicitous female voices of smart assistants contrast with cinematic robot archetypes of the “menacing male” or “monstrous mother”, with their highly synthesised voices and dangerous surveillant personalities. </p>
<p>Instead, smart assistants voices have been strategically adapted by companies like Google, Apple and Amazon to sound helpful and sympathetic. </p>
<h2>‘Menacing males’ and ‘monstrous mothers’</h2>
<p>In the early 20th century, robots were marvels of futuristic technology. The first voice given to a robot was Bell Labs’ “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-pedro-voder-first-electronic-machine-talk-180963516/">the Voder</a>” in 1938. This was a complex device (typically played by Bell’s female telephone operators) that could generate slow and deliberate speech, composed of various manipulations of generated waveforms. </p>
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<p>While they appeared in <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/260735/the-bumbling-robots-and-awkward-automatons-of-silent-cinema/">earlier movies</a>, in the 1950s robots truly came into their own on screen.</p>
<p>With distinctive sounds that gave the robots a sense of otherness, they became associated with narratives of science gone out of control, such as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223/">Forbidden Planet</a> (1956) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051484/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Collossus of New York</a> (1958). HAL 9000, the infamous computer in Stanley Kubrick’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">2001 A Space Odyssey</a> (1968), becomes murderous as the computer shows its allegiance to the mission at the cost of the crew. </p>
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<p>Later, film makers started exploring robots as maternal figures with misplaced instincts. </p>
<p>In the Disney movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192618/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Smart House</a> (1999), the home turns into a controlling mother who flies into a rage when the family refuses to cede to her demands. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">I, Robot</a> (2004), the computer VIKI and her robot hordes turn against people to protect humanity from itself.</p>
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<p>But perhaps the most enduring vision of robots is neither a menacing male nor a monstrous mother. It is something more human, as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Bladerunner</a> (1982), where the replicants are hard to distinguish from humans. These humanoid robots continue to predominate on the small and big screen, showing increasingly more psychologically complex characteristics.</p>
<p>As the robots Maeve and Dolores achieve more sentience in the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Westworld</a> TV series (2016), their behaviour becomes more natural, and their voices become more inflected, cynical and self-aware. In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Humans</a> (2015), two groups of anthropomorphic robots, called “synths”, are distinguished by one group’s ability to more closely resemble humans through features of natural conversation, with more animation and meaningful pauses.</p>
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<h2>From fiction to reality</h2>
<p>In these films the voice is a crucial vehicle with which robots express a persona. Smart assistant developers <a href="https://www.apress.com/gp/book/9781484241240">adopted</a> this concept of developing persona through voice after recognising the value in getting consumers to identify with their products </p>
<p>Apple’s Siri (2010), Microsoft’s Cortana (2014), Amazon’s Echo (2015) and Google Assistant (2016) were all introduced with female voice actors. Big tech companies strategically selected these female voices to create positive associations. They were the antithesis of the menacing male or monstrous mother cinematic robot archetypes. </p>
<p>But while these friendly voices could steer consumers away from thinking of smart assistants as dangerous surveillant machines, the use of female-by-default voices has been criticised.</p>
<p>Smart assistants have been described as “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1329878X17737661">wife replacements</a>” and “<a href="http://www.transformationsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Transformations29_Phan.pdf">domestic servants</a>. Even UNESCO <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000367416.page=1">has warned</a> smart assistants risk entrenching gender bias.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-reason-siri-alexa-and-ai-are-imagined-as-female-sexism-96430">There's a reason Siri, Alexa and AI are imagined as female – sexism</a>
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<p>Perhaps it is for this reason the newest smart-voice is the BBC’s <a href="https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-june-2020/beeb-bbcs-male-voice-assistant-has-a-northern-accent-and-can-tell-jokes/">Beeb</a>, with a male northern English accent. Its designers say this accent makes their robot more human-like. It also echoes traditional media practices using the masculine voice of authority.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s not all in the voice. Smart assistants are programmed to be culturally competent in their relevant market: the Australian version of Google Assistant knows about pavlova and galahs, and uses Australian slang expressions. </p>
<p>Gentle humour, too, plays a significant role in humanising the artificial intelligence behind these devices. When asked, "Alexa, are you dangerous?”, she replies calmly, “No, I am not dangerous.”</p>
<p>Smart assistants resemble the humanoid robots in latter-day pop culture – sometimes nearly indistinguishable from humans themselves.</p>
<h2>Dangerous intimacy</h2>
<p>With voices that are apparently natural, transparent and depoliticised, the assistants give only one brief answer to each question and draw these responses from a small range of sources. This gives the tech companies significant “<a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/joseph-s-nye/soft-power/9780786738960/">soft power</a>” in their potential to influence consumers’ feelings, thoughts and behaviour.</p>
<p>Smart assistants may soon play an even more intrusive role in our everyday affairs. Google’s experimental technology <a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-book-a-restaurant-or-a-hair-appointment-but-dont-expect-a-full-conversation-96720">Duplex</a>, for instance, allows users to ask the assistant to make phone calls on their behalf to perform tasks such as booking a hair appointment. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-can-book-a-restaurant-or-a-hair-appointment-but-dont-expect-a-full-conversation-96720">AI can book a restaurant or a hair appointment, but don't expect a full conversation</a>
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<p>If it/she can pass as “human”, this might further risk manipulating consumers and obscuring the implications of surveillance, soft power and global monopoly. </p>
<p>By positioning smart assistants as innocuous through their voice characteristics – far from the menacing males and monstrous mothers of the cinema screen – consumers can be lulled into a false sense of security.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
That gentle voice coming from your smart speaker is more complex than she seems.
Justine Humphry, Lecturer in Digital Cultures, University of Sydney
Chris Chesher, Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128576
2019-12-11T11:44:08Z
2019-12-11T11:44:08Z
It could be time to start thinking about a cybernetic Bill of Rights
<p>Like it or loathe it, the robot revolution is now well underway and the futures described by writers such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-75-years-isaac-asimovs-three-laws-of-robotics-need-updating-74501">Isaac Asimov</a>, <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/lessons-from-science-fiction(1e390544-0d12-4282-9996-5ef8131d0217).html">Frederik Pohl</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/philip-k-dick-you-may-not-have-read-his-books-but-youve-almost-certainly-seen-the-movies-85128">Philip K. Dick</a> are fast turning <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-we-build-a-blade-runner-style-replicant-84743">from science fiction into science fact</a>. But should robots have rights? And will humanity ever reach a point where human and machine are treated the same?</p>
<p>At the heart of the debate is that most fundamental question: what does it mean to be human? Intuitively, we all think we know what this means – it almost goes without saying. And yet, as a society, we regularly dehumanise others, and cast them as animal or less than human – what philosopher <a href="https://egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben">Giorgio Agamben</a> describes as “bare life”.</p>
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<p>Take the homeless for example. People who the authorities treat much like animals, or less than animals (like pests) who need to be guarded against with <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homeless-spikes-manchester-homelessness-rough-sleeping-a7551136.html">anti-homeless spikes</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47468203">benches designed to prevent sleep</a>. A similar process takes places within a military setting, where enemies are cast as less than human <a href="https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-war-social-science-perspectives/i5961.xml">to make them easier to fight and easier to kill</a>.</p>
<p>Humans also do this to other “outsiders” such as immigrants and refugees.
While many people may find this process disturbing, these artificial distinctions between insider and outsider reveal a key element in the operation of power. This is because our very identities are fundamentally built on assumptions about who we are and what it means to be included in the category of “human”. Without these wholly arbitrary distinctions, we risk exposing the fact that we’re all a lot more like animals than we like to admit. </p>
<h2>Being human</h2>
<p>Of course, things get a whole lot more complicated when you add robots into the mix. Part of the problem is that we find it hard to decide what we mean by “thought” and “consciousness” and even what we mean by “life” itself. As it stands, the human race doesn’t have a strict scientific definition on when life begins and ends. </p>
<p>Similarly, we don’t have a clear definition on what we mean by intelligent thought and how and why people think and behave in different ways. If intelligent thought is such an important part of being human (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/human-intelligence-psychology">as some would believe</a>), then what about other intelligent creatures such as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/ravens-problem-solving-smart-birds/">ravens</a> and dolphins? What about biological humans with below average intelligence? </p>
<p>These questions cut to the heart of the rights debate and reveal just how precarious our understanding of the human really is. Up until now, these debates have solely been the preserve of science fiction, with the likes of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36576608-flowers-for-algernon">Flowers for Algernon</a> and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? exposing just how easy it is to <a href="http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/microfascism-and-the-double-exclusion-in-daniel-keyes-flowers-for-algernon(438a2d42-22da-4cf5-9e83-3c732e9ee8b6).html">blur the line between the human and non-human other</a>. But with the rise of robot intelligence these questions become more pertinent than ever, as now we must also consider the thinking machine.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blade-runner-2049-how-philip-k-dicks-classic-novel-has-stood-the-test-of-time-74940">Blade Runner 2049: how Philip K Dick's classic novel has stood the test of time</a>
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<h2>Machines and the rule of law</h2>
<p>But even assuming that robots were one day to be considered “alive” and sufficiently intelligent to be thought of in the same way as human beings, then the next question is how might we incorporate them into society and how we might hold them to account when things go wrong?</p>
<p>Traditionally, we tend to think about rights alongside responsibilities. This comes as part of something known as social contract theory, which is often associated with political philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes">Thomas Hobbes</a>. In a modern context, rights and responsibilities go hand-in-hand with a system of justice that allows us to uphold these rights and enforce the rule of law. But these principles simply cannot be applied to a machine. This is because our human system of justice is based on a concept of what it means to be human and what it means to be alive.</p>
<p>So, if you break the law, you potentially forfeit some part of your life through incarceration or (in some nations) even death. However, machines cannot know mortal existence in the same way humans do. They don’t even experience time in the same way as humans. As such, it doesn’t matter how long a prison sentence is, as a machine could simply switch itself off and remain essentially unchanged. </p>
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<p>For now at least, there’s certainly no sign of robots gaining the same rights as human beings and we’re certainly a long way off from machines thinking in a way that might be described as “conscious thought”. Given that we still haven’t quite come to terms with the rights of intelligent creatures such as ravens, dolphins and chimpanzees, the prospect of robot rights would seem a very long way off.</p>
<p>The question then really, is not so much whether robots should have rights, but whether we should distinguish human rights from other forms of life such as animal and machine. It may be that we start to think about a cybernetic Bill of Rights that embraces all thinking beings and recognises the blurred boundaries between human, animal and machine. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, we certainly need to move away from the distinctly problematic notion that we humans are in some way superior to every other form of life on this planet. Such insular thinking has already contributed to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/climate-change-27">global climate crisis</a> and continues to create tension between different social, religious and ethnic groups. Until we come to terms with what it means to be human, and our place in this world, then the problems will persist. And all the while, the machines will continue to gain intelligence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Ryder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
At the heart of the debate is that most fundamental question: what does it mean to be human?
Mike Ryder, Associate Lecturer in Literature & Philosophy / Marketing, Lancaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95238
2018-04-18T15:10:36Z
2018-04-18T15:10:36Z
Westworld’s player piano is the great character that keeps getting overlooked
<p>Westworld returns for its hotly anticipated second season on April 22/23, simulcast in both the US and UK. The first season was a huge success – the closing episode was HBO’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/westworld-season-1-concludes-as-hbo-record-breaker-a7458186.html">highest-rated</a> debut of all time. </p>
<p>Set in 2052, Westworld is a futuristic theme park populated by robotic hosts. Based on the 1973 movie by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000341/">Michael Crichton</a>, human customers pay to live out their most murderous and depraved fantasies, <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/jafp/2017/00000010/00000002/art00006?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf">blurring the boundaries</a> between performer and audience. The theme park imitates the American Old West of the second half of the 19th century – the age of steam and mechanisation that contained the seeds of modern robotics. </p>
<p>Much <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a19840303/best-westworld-season-2-theories/">has been written</a> about what will happen to Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) and the other robotic hosts now that they appear to be overcoming the control of the programmers. I want to pay tribute to a hugely important character that has received far less attention – the player piano. </p>
<p>Westworld’s opening credits initially show what looks like an ordinary piano being played by robot hands. But then the hands move away and the piano plays itself, revealing this invention of the late 19th century that made music accessible at home in the days before the phonograph. </p>
<p>The piano features in Westworld’s <a href="http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Mariposa_Saloon">Mariposa Saloon</a>, run as a bar and brothel by Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton). We know pianos were used in Old West saloons, so this is certainly plausible. We later learn that there is also one in the office of robot creator Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). </p>
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<p>The player piano was essentially an early computer operating on a binary system. Westworld’s credits show the spool punched with holes that these pianos read, each of which indicated a note and its duration. Powered by the performer’s feet – and latterly by electricity – one could play famous, complex works without any musical competence. </p>
<p>This sense of vicarious performance fits neatly with the idea of rich thrillseekers shooting their way around a fake Wild West. Then there is the fact that player pianos always sounded mechanical, since they lacked the human interpretation and variation we expect in a live performance. </p>
<p>This symbol for humanity’s relationship to machinery is then expanded through Westworld’s soundtrack. Composed and arranged by Game of Thrones’ Ramin Djawadi, it includes various famous piano works that would have featured on player pianos around the turn of the century, such as Debussy’s Clair de Lune, Chopin’s Nocturne No. 14 in C Minor and Scott Joplin’s Weeping Willow Rag. </p>
<p>While fans have <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/comments/5ahtll/ford_and_debussy/">speculated heavily</a> on the links between Debussy, the plot and the Robert Ford character, the soundtrack also contains more recent tracks such as The Rolling Stones’ Paint it Black and Radiohead’s No Surprises. These <a href="https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/westworld-music-piano-radiohead-soundgarden-songs-interview">were transcribed</a> onto old binary spools especially for the show, both reinforcing the sense of mechanisation and representing the authenticity portrayed by the theme park’s set and characters to the paying clientele. </p>
<h2>Play it again</h2>
<p>Besides Westworld, the player piano has occupied a relatively prominent role in American fiction. Of particular relevance to the show is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9597.Player_Piano">Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano</a> (1952), which described a post-war dystopian world where machines had replaced workers in factories. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215408/original/file-20180418-164001-1yf66p9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vonnegut’s debut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
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<p>In one key scene, a character named Ed Finnerty is depicted playing the player piano – effectively overriding its function and seizing back control from the mechanised world. Westworld co-producer Jonathan Nolan <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/westworld-player-piano-music.html">has credited</a> Vonnegut with inspiring the show’s player piano, referring to it as a touchstone image of the show’s first season. </p>
<p>Another writer, Richard Powers, refers to the player piano as a predecessor to the computer in several novels. Most notable is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23012.The_Gold_Bug_Variations">The Gold Bug Variations</a> (1992), since the piano itself is a descendent of the harpsichord for which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15ezpwCHtJs">Bach’s Goldberg Variations</a> were written. References to both instruments create a sense of legacy, touching on a parallel theme of two intertwined love affairs a generation apart.</p>
<p>The works of William Gaddis similarly revisit the player piano – in his case, owing to a personal obsession, he gathered thousands of notes on the subject, <a href="http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/mlc50/item/10173">intending</a> to publish a history of the instrument. When his proposals were rejected it crept into his novels instead – before his frustrations boiled over in his posthumous swan song, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28441.Agap_Agape">Agapē Agape</a> (2002). </p>
<p>The frail male narrator-protagonist repeatedly discusses player pianos, while the relentless style of the book is symbolic of the instrument – it starts and suddenly ends without space for breath, mimicking the way player pianos close a tune with no wind down, the spool still spinning blank paper. </p>
<p>Gaddis <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Rush_for_Second_Place.html?id=mYUljtX5yFAC&redir_esc=y">saw the</a> player piano as symbolic of the mechanisation of the arts, and the gradual unravelling of society:</p>
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<p>I see [it] as the grandfather of the computer, the ancestor of the entire nightmare we live in, the birth of the binary world where there is no option other than yes or no and where there is no refuge.</p>
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<p>Not only do Westworld’s player pianos sit comfortably within this tradition – especially given the original film’s 1970’s roots – Gaddis’ opinion is eerily familiar with their use in the first season. They simultaneously hark back to a bygone era and nod to the digital world in which they reside. </p>
<p>Gaddis repeatedly likened player piano rolls to “phantom hands” reproducing the sounds of long-lost performers. Like the robotic hosts of Westworld – who it transpires have occupied the world for decades – a player piano’s mechanisation is almost timeless. Both repeat their scripts ad infinitum, continually preserving and recreating the past. </p>
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<p>The player piano is therefore more than just a metaphor for Westworld’s robots. It represents the repetition of play in which the audience interacts, straddling the divide between past and present. </p>
<p>As the robotic hosts become more sentient in season two, it will be interesting to see how the instrument is used. In the trailer, Dolores Abernathy says that a “reckoning is here”, as a mechanised piano rendition of Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box plays in the background. It speaks to all of today’s worries about where artificial intelligence is taking us, and what happens if the day comes when the robots learn to be free.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Durkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It is time we talked about one of the most unsung motifs in American fiction.
Rachael Durkin, Lecturer in Music, Edinburgh Napier University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94685
2018-04-16T14:43:40Z
2018-04-16T14:43:40Z
Before Westworld was Mudfog – Charles Dickens’ surprisingly modern dystopia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214252/original/file-20180411-554-la3ony.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Cruikshank's impression of Dickens' dystopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/pvabio.html">Philip V. Allingham of Victorian Web</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re a fan of the TV series, <a href="https://www.hbo.com/westworld">Westworld</a>, you’re probably aware that it’s based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/westworld-movie-hbo">film of the same name</a>. What you may not know is that the concept has been kicking around for a very long time. While Crichton insists his dystopian vision had no “<a href="http://www.michaelcrichton.com/westworld/">literary antecedents</a>”, there’s at least one writer who may beg to differ. Charles Dickens imagined a robot theme park way back in 1838. Just like Westworld, the patrons of Dickens’ park are able to enact their “violent delights” on realistic humanoid androids.</p>
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<p>In the <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/912/912-h/912-h.htm">short story</a> titled: Full Report of the First Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything, a group of scientists meet to discuss a variety of proposals, including the classification of a one-eyed horse as “Fitfordogsmeataurious” and a snuffbox-sized machine for more efficient pickpocketing. The most vividly described of these outlandish ideas, though, is entrepreneurial inventor Mr Coppernose’s suggestion for a park filled with “automaton figures” which would enable wealthy young men to run riot without causing a public nuisance. Sound familiar? So, how do the two parks measure up?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215035/original/file-20180416-127631-cq5o5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Dickens’ dystopia is in a book of short stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform</span></span>
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<p>In purely physical terms, Dickens’ park is much smaller. The series’ showrunner, Jonathan Nolan, has indicated that Westworld <a href="http://ew.com/article/2016/11/13/westworld-interview-bernard-clementine/">covers around 500 square miles</a>, while Coppernose suggests a more modest “space of ground of not less than ten miles in length” for his park. But both demonstrate a similar attention to detail when it comes to creating a realistic environment for their patrons to explore. Westworld offers trading outposts, farmsteads and wide open plains populated by robot cowboys, saloon girls and the Ghost Nation Tribe. Coppernose’s park strives to recreate a version of semi-rural England using “highway roads, turnpikes, bridges [and] miniature villages”, inhabited by automaton police officers, cab drivers and elderly women.</p>
<p>Delos Incorporated (the company which owns Westworld) expects its players will use these environments and android “hosts” to engage in both whitehat (heroic) and blackhat (villainous) activities. Meanwhile, Coppernose assumes only the most base and destructive behaviour from his park patrons. This is evidenced in various design choices, such as the “gas lamps of real glass, which could be broken at a comparatively small expense per dozen”, and the vocal abilities of the automatons themselves which, when struck, “utter divers groans, mingled with entreaties for mercy, thus rendering the illusion complete and the enjoyment perfect”.</p>
<p>Yet this advanced speech technology isn’t the only thing Coppernose’s automatons have in common with Westworld’s hosts, as demonstrated in <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/cruikshank/24.jpg">George Cruikshank’s illustration</a>. Here the lifelike robots are shown to be operational despite missing limbs – something we’ve seen during diagnostic sessions with Westworld’s damaged hosts in the repair lab. </p>
<p>While Coppernose doesn’t provide specific details of any maintenance crews, it seems he has a similar rotational system in mind when he suggests a stock of 140 automatons, with around half kept in reserve so that broken units can be exchanged. However, rather than the spooky warehouse filled with dormant hosts seen in Westworld, Coppernose has a far more space-saving storage solution, keeping inert robot police officers on shelves until needed.</p>
<h2>Only human after all</h2>
<p>Although its never been explicitly explained in the show, showrunner Lisa Joy has described the “<a href="http://www.ew.com/article/2016/10/09/westworld-showrunners-second-episode/">good samaritan reflex</a>” as a safety measure programmed into all Westworld’s hosts – including the animals. This ensures that if a guest is at risk of endangering themselves or another guest, a host will step in to save them from harm. Humans don’t fare so well in Dickens’ park – Coppernose advocates the use of “live pedestrians … procured from the workhouse” for the wealthy park guests to run down in their cabriolets.</p>
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<span class="caption">Natural born killer: Westworld’s Man in Black.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span>
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<p>However, this is where a theme only lightly touched on in Westworld is brought to the fore in Dickens’ text: the disparity between justice for the rich and the poor. Coppernose’s affluent young adventurers must attend a mock trial following their wild and destructive behaviour, where wooden-headed automaton magistrates side with the defendants rather than the robot police attempting to prosecute them. Dickens describes this process as “quite equal to life” serving to underline the inequality at play in the justice system. </p>
<p>While Westworld primarily focuses on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-watching-westworlds-robots-should-make-us-question-ourselves-66434">what it means to be human</a> it does hint at this same idea: that we’re inclined to overlook the bad behaviour of the rich and powerful. When wealthy park patron “<a href="http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Man_in_Black">Man in Black</a>” kills hosts indiscriminately, security chief Ashley Williams says: “That gentleman gets whatever he wants.” </p>
<p>Of course, now that Westworld’s robots have gone rogue, the Man in Black may not go unpunished in season two. Perhaps the retribution Dickens would doubtless have liked to have seen will be delivered not by the courts, but the robots themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94685/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynda Clark receives funding from the AHRC and M3C Doctoral Training Partnership. </span></em></p>
Charles Dickens imagined a robot theme park way back in 1838.
Lynda Clark, PhD Researcher in Creative and Critical Writing, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73474
2017-02-28T11:46:03Z
2017-02-28T11:46:03Z
Why science fiction set in the near future is so terrifying
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158289/original/image-20170224-22983-kskule.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Westworld: how far away is this future?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2016 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article accompanies episode 10 of The Anthill podcast on <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-10-the-future-73404">the future</a>.</em> </p>
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<p>From <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/">Humans</a> to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Westworld</a>, from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/">Her</a> to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/">Ex Machina</a>, and from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2364582/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D</a> to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085059/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Black Mirror</a> – near future science fiction in recent years has given audiences some seriously unsettling and prophetic visions of the future. According to these alternative or imagined futures, we are facing a post-human reality where humans are either rebelled against or replaced by their own creations. These stories propose a future where our lives will be transformed by science and technology, redefining what it is to be human. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/near_future">near future</a> science fiction sub-genre imagines a future only a short time away from the period in which it is produced. </p>
<p>Channel 4/AMC’s Humans imagines a near future or alternative world where advanced technology has led to the development of anthropomorphic robots called Syths that eventually gain consciousness. As the Synths become increasingly indistinguishable from humans, the series explore notions of what it is to be human: societally, culturally, and psychologically. </p>
<p>The second series was particularly concerned with the rights associated with being able to think and feel – and <a href="http://collider.com/humans-season-2-review/">the right to a fair trial</a>. Odi, an outdated NHS caregiving Syth who features in both seasons, chooses a form of suicide (returning to his original setting and rejecting consciousness) as he can’t deal with his new reality. </p>
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<p>The robots that inhabit the future theme park in <a href="https://www.discoverwestworld.com/">Westworld</a> are also introduced as the playthings of the super-rich. In both cases, the fictional scientists who have created these androids, David Elster (Humans) and Robert Ford (Westworld), purposely design or make provisions for their creations to “become human” with a variety of intentions and both utopian and dystopian possibilities. Both series question the distinction between “real” and “fake” consciousness and the complexities of having a creation come to life.</p>
<h2>Too believable</h2>
<p>The challenge of near future science fiction is that for it to be believable it needs to closely align to the latest developments in science and technology. This means that it has the potential to become obsolete or even come to pass in the lifetime of its creator. News reports and commentaries from scientists such as Stephen Hawking about the <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/technology/stephen-hawking-right-could-ai-lead-end-humankind/">dangers of AI</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/19/stephen-hawking-ai-best-or-worst-thing-for-humanity-cambridge">concerns that</a> “humanity could be the architect of its own destruction if it creates a super-intelligence with a will of its own” make the fears articulated on screen seem more real and more frightening. </p>
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<p>Some of today’s most popular science fiction takes real-world science and follows it to a possible conclusion, showing it can have a direct impact on each of our lives rather than on just on far future global and intergalactic events. Stories about the near future have proliferated because they are popular with audiences and filmmakers alike. They allow for discussions of the implications of believable changes, such as the <a href="https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/02/can-build-samantha-tells-us-future-ai/">artificially intelligent operating system</a> Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) in the film Her, or the <a href="https://theringer.com/when-will-these-black-mirror-technologies-actually-exist-4b6837e7c5e0#.c8d1xjup0">thought-controlled contact lenses</a> that appear in various forms in episodes of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. </p>
<p>These near-future fictions offer prescient alternatives to other science fiction set in the far future. Consider, for example, the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/20/7424951/does-the-handmaids-tale-hold-up-dystopia-feminism-fiction">alarming relevance</a> of The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel by Margaret Atwood has been adapted for the small screen and will air in late April. It is set in a gender-segregated, theocratic republic that is fixated on wealth and class. Women are rated according to their ability to reproduce in a near-future where environmental disasters and rampant sexually transmitted diseases have rendered much of the population infertile. </p>
<p>Amid growing fears of religious conservatism in Trump’s America, Samira Wiley, one of the stars in the <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/handmaids-tale-hulu-elisabeth-moss-yvonne-strahovski-1201954955/">new adaptation</a>, remarks that it “is showing us the climate we’re living in [and] specifically, women and their bodies and who has control of our bodies”. </p>
<p>Science fiction’s alternate worlds and imagined futures – whether dystopian or utopian – force audiences to look upon their own reality and consider how changes in our societies, technologies, and even our own bodies might take shape and directly influence our own future. Whether presenting a positive or negative future, science fiction attempts to provoke a response, highlighting issues that need to be dealt with by everyone, not just by scientists and governments.</p>
<h2>Past shock</h2>
<p>In some senses, science fiction has caught up with us. The idea that we might be able to have android servants, or a personal bond with our computers has been crystallised by Apple’s personal assistant <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arlene-lassin/breaking-up-with-siri-who_b_5524033.html">Siri</a>. Research into self-healing implants has <a href="http://www.livescience.com/47890-self-healing-implants-darpa.html">brought</a> the prospect of enhancing our bodies to make us more than human ever closer. </p>
<p>The future isn’t as far-fetched as it used to be and it often feels like the futures we see on screen should already be here, or are already here even when they aren’t. We are perhaps shifting from what the futurist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/30/alvin-toffler-author-of-future-shock-dies-aged-87">Alvin Toffler</a> termed “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/30/484215904/encore-future-shock-40-years-later">future shock”</a> to a sort of “past shock”. </p>
<p>Toffler defined future shock as “too much change in too short a period of time” – an overwhelming psychological state that both affects societies and individuals who cannot keep up with and comprehend the speed of technological change that seems to constantly redefine conceptions of the self and society. But we might now be entering an age of “past shock” where we are able to imagine and accept technological changes well before they were developed or even patented. The shock is no longer at the speed of technological change, but rather its apparent slowing, as scientists cannot keep up with our own imagined futures. </p>
<p>As the line between real-world science and science fiction becomes increasingly fluid, the future is closer that it has ever felt before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy C. Chambers receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and previous research which informs this post has been funded by the Wellcome Trust. </span></em></p>
Near-future science fiction is on the rise, but is it foreshadowing the rise of the machines?
Amy C. Chambers, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70617
2016-12-20T15:02:42Z
2016-12-20T15:02:42Z
The future of TV – where documentary meets fiction meets mocumentary
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150787/original/image-20161219-24271-1vxivct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A scene from the TV mini-series, 'Mars'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Geographic</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.natgeotv.com/za">National Geographic Channel</a> is known for its nature documentaries, not for fictional television programming. But the recently launched TV mini-series <a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/mars/">“Mars”</a> seems to mark a distinct move away from their regular programming. This series combines “real” documentary with fiction and mocumentary in a formula that is not only different from NatGeo’s regular offering, but also from other series currently available on conventional broadcast and streaming platforms.</p>
<p>The six-episode series stands at the centre of a multi-platform, multimedia Mars-focussed project. National Geographic magazine’s November issue featured a Mars <a href="http://press.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/10/national-geographic-magazine-november-2016/">cover story</a>. NatGeo has made an eight-lesson Mars school <a href="http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/MARS_CURRICULUM_GUIDE_FORMSVERSION_ALL_FINAL.pdf">curriculum guide</a> available for free online. </p>
<p>They have published <a href="https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/books/books/space/mars">two books</a> about Mars, one aimed at adults and one at children. Their website offers a slew of online resources including interviews with the cast and crew, exclusive <a href="http://www.spacex.com/">SpaceX</a> <a href="http://www.makemarshome.com/">rocket test footage</a> and an interactive Mars surface map.</p>
<h2>From bird hide to premium TV?</h2>
<p>In recent years the number of television series available on conventional broadcast and streaming platforms has <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9301867/peak-tv">grown exponentially</a>. The downside for TV channels of the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/21/there-s-too-much-damn-tv.html">over-abundance of choice</a> has been that audience attention and viewing loyalty has become diluted. It has become increasingly challenging to capture and retain viewers.</p>
<p>Mainstream Hollywood movies have grown progressively <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/movies-suck-now-and-theyre-only-going-get-worse-334582?rm=eu">more formulaic</a>. Big studios and distributors hedge their bets on sequels, remakes, tested formats and building so-called “universes” like that of the <a href="http://marvel.com/movies/all">Marvel</a> superheroes. These formulas are supposed to draw audiences that want to repeat past positive experiences rather than be challenged by new perspectives in independent films.</p>
<p>Enter premium television. The big-budget, high production-value, star-studded television series that exemplify this phenomenon completely changed previously held perceptions that A-list actors, writers and directors simply don’t work in TV. <a href="http://www.kevinspacey.com/">Kevin Spacey</a>, though he has had a stellar feature film career, has now become almost synonymous with <a href="https://www.netflix.com/za/">Netflix</a>’s <a href="https://www.netflix.com/za/title/70178217">“House of Cards”</a>.</p>
<p>Award winning <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/stevensoderbergh">Stephen Soderbergh</a> produced and directed <a href="http://www.cinemax.com/the-knick/">“The Knick”</a> for Cinemax. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/stranger-things">“Stranger Things”</a> (also Netflix) captured the imaginations of young and nostalgic viewers. Most recently <a href="http://www.hbo.com/westworld">“Westworld”</a> blazed a trail to the top of HBO’s production slate and became an overnight phenomenon with fans around the world.</p>
<h2>Capturing primetime audiences</h2>
<p>So, is the ambitious, expensive and multi-layered fiction-nonfiction hybrid production “Mars” an attempt by NatGeo to capture some of this premium TV audience? What differentiates the series is the combination of three narrative layers to tell the story of manned missions to Mars. The first layer – real documentary – is set in 2016 and makes use of the <a href="https://epowdocumentary.wordpress.com/documentary-modes/expository-mode/">expository mode</a> to combine sit-down interviews with archive and contemporary B-roll (cutaways or visual evidence).</p>
<p>The second layer is fictional – a projection of what a future manned mission to the red planet may look like. Set in the 2030s, it starts in 2033 with the launch of the first mission.</p>
<p>The third layer can be characterised as mocumentary, since it uses the conventions of expository documentary (interviews and B-roll). But the interviewees are fictional characters and the B-roll is scripted and fictionalised. The amount of screen time devoted to this layer diminishes as the series progresses, so that there is only one mocumentary interview clip by the final of the six episodes. Arguably this layer forms part of the second, fictional layer, but I believe it’s worth highlighting because it occupies a position between layer one and two – though the content is fictional like that of layer three, the form is borrowed from documentary, mirroring that of layer one.</p>
<h2>Layer 1: Documentary</h2>
<p>For the 2016 segments the views and experiences of scientists, researchers, thinkers, entrepreneurs and others involved in space travel are woven together. It paints a picture of the history of space travel, where we find ourselves right now, and the manned space travel that is planned for the not too distant future.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150796/original/image-20161219-24276-9mf8lc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">SpaceX founder Elon Musk outlines his plan to design spacecraft to aid in the human colonisation of Mars within 40 to 100 years. He was speaking at the International Astronautics Congress in Mexico, 27 September 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ulises Ruiz Basurto/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s clear from quite early in the 2016 segment that it’s in fact a real documentary when entrepreneur, inventor and space explorer <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>, a man with designs on <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13067376/elon-musk-spacex-mars-event-watch-live-stream-schedule-iac-2016">colonising Mars</a>, is interviewed. </p>
<h2>Layer 2: Fiction</h2>
<p>The fictionalised manned space mission, set in the 2030s, is scripted, making use of actors, sets, visual effects and the other conventions of fictional film and television production. The scenarios are clearly based on thorough and extensive research, however. </p>
<p>In relation to the first layer, these scenarios fulfil the same function that dramatisations of past events, or reenactments, would in conventional documentary. But, since the events are projected rather than historical, it would be more appropriate to call them “pre-enactments” instead. </p>
<h2>Layer 3: Mocumentary</h2>
<p>The third narrative layer, which includes scripted “interviews” with the characters of the fiction layer, serves to inform one’s understanding of the personal experiences of the Mars mission crew. These “interviews” are used to provide an excuse for exposition and as a short cut to establishing the characters before the audience is launched into the drama of the Mars mission.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150795/original/image-20161219-24276-hd1yub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Korean-born singer Jihae (L), Canadian actor Ben Cotton and French actress Clementine Poidatz pose during a photocall for the TV series ‘Mars’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here documentary devices are used in the service of fictional storytelling. This layer is, arguably, the least compelling and most dispensable of the three. </p>
<h2>Juxtaposition and the suspension of disbelief</h2>
<p>The effects of combining the narrative layers and their respective storytelling modes are multifold. The 2030s pre-enactments visualise the science and technology discussed by interviewees in the 2016 documentary segments, showing their applications and implications.</p>
<p>The 2016 documentary lends credence to the 2030s fictionalised projection. The latter becomes more believable because we know that the technology to achieve what we see in the fictional scenes is already in development in 2016. And in the inter-cutting of the two layers a conversation is created that highlights various themes and dynamics that are explored in both.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxfVCafkdPk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The soundtrack for ‘Mars’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is a strange tension in the series between suspension of disbelief, as one would expect from fiction, and intellectual engagement, as one would expect from a scientific documentary. This stems from the constant interaction between the documentary and fiction segments.</p>
<p>When watching a fiction segment, scientific research comes to life in a way that encourages suspension of disbelief. Drama conventions like interpersonal conflict and internal struggles are combined with action devices. These include visual effects, dynamic camera movements, fast cutting and suspenseful build-ups to climaxes. </p>
<p>The score enhances the dramatic and thrilling moments in the film. The haunting <a href="http://www.stereogum.com/1907425/nick-cave-warren-ellis-mars-theme/mp3s/">theme song</a> by singer and composer <a href="http://www.nickcave.com/">Nick Cave</a> that accompanies the aesthetically pleasing title sequence sets this up from the beginning of each episode as high production value fictional television programming. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150797/original/image-20161219-24271-12tise8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Composer of the score for ‘Mars’, Nick Cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toby Melville/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction</h2>
<p>The idea of combining fiction and nonfiction is, of course, not new. Errol Morris pioneered the use of dramatic reenactments to illustrate interviewee testimony in his groundbreaking 1988 documentary <a href="http://www.errolmorris.com/film/tbl.html">“The Thin Blue Line”</a>. The feature film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/">“District 9”</a> (2009) uses mock interviews with fictional “experts” to set the scene for its science fiction action.</p>
<p>Recently documentary filmmakers have questioned the divide between fiction and nonfiction through their choices of subject matter and application of form. In the documentary <a href="http://elenafilm.com/">“Elena”</a> (2012), for example, Petra Costa shifts effortlessly between history and memory, fact and fantasy to tell the story of, and process her own feelings about, the disappearance of her sister. </p>
<p>What makes “Mars” worth taking note of is that it combines fiction and nonfiction elements in a way that places them in balance. They inform and enhance each other without the one being foregrounded over the other. And the end result is both entertaining and scientifically grounded. </p>
<p>I’ll hazard my own projection here: we’ll be seeing more high budget, thoughtfully scripted and well acted pre-enactments in conversation with actual documentary in television series and films in the not too distant future. Certainly before we walk on Mars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liani Maasdorp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The recently broadcast TV mini-series, “Mars”, combines fiction and nonfiction in a way that places them in balance. This kind of combination is likely to feature in more television series and films.
Liani Maasdorp, Lecturer in Screen Production and Film and Television Studies, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67286
2016-11-04T02:20:35Z
2016-11-04T02:20:35Z
What HBO’s Westworld gets wrong (and right) about human nature
<p>A central theme of HBO’s new sci-fi series <a href="http://www.hbo.com/westworld">“Westworld”</a> is the question of what it means to be human. </p>
<p>The setting is an immersive adult theme park that’s been fashioned after the American Old West and is inhabited by intelligent lifelike robots. Over the years, the robots – called hosts – have been updated to look and act more human. As a result, the hosts have started to deviate from their programming. They’ve become unpredictable – just like humans.</p>
<p>While viewers are invited to ponder the robot hosts’ humanity, the irony of “Westworld” is that the park’s wealthy, human guests are the ones who seem truly inhuman. They live out their wildest fantasies, no matter how depraved, abusing and murdering the hosts with indifference, even glee. One guest, after shooting a host in a bar for no apparent reason, shouts, “Now that’s a vacation!” </p>
<p>The guests’ sadistic treatment of the hosts paints a grim portrait of human nature. It also forces viewers to wonder: What would you do if you visited Westworld? Could you really shoot a lifelike host in the face while they pleaded for mercy?</p>
<p>Research by psychologists provides some insight into how most humans would actually act in Westworld. </p>
<h2>Perceiving robot minds</h2>
<p>Our willingness to harm others depends, in part, on our perceptions of what they think and feel.</p>
<p>In 2007, psychologists <a href="http://www.divisiononaddiction.org/faculty/Heather_Gray.htm">Heather Gray</a>, <a href="http://www.kurtjgray.com/">Kurt Gray</a> and <a href="http://wegner.socialpsychology.org/">Daniel Wegner</a> <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/315/5812/619">conducted a study</a> of how people think about the minds of human, animal and robot characters. Using the answers of over 2,000 participants of an online survey, they <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/02/what-does-it-mean-to-have-a-mind-maybe-more-than-you-think/">found</a> that the respondents judged mental capacity on two independent factors: the capacity to feel things like pain and pleasure (a factor that the researchers termed “experience”), and the capacity to plan and make decisions (a factor that the researchers termed “agency”).</p>
<p>Respondents were also asked how painful it would be for them if they were forced to harm the various characters. On average, they considered it more painful to harm characters that were rated high on “experience” (capacity to feel). However, ratings of “agency” (capacity to plan and make decisions) – high or low – had much less influence on the respondents’ feelings about harming the characters. </p>
<p>For example, one character in the survey was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kismet_(robot)">Kismet</a>, a social robot that can express emotion through facial expressions. Kismet was rated moderately high in “agency” but very low in “experience.” As a result, the participants were, on average, more open to harming Kismet. This is consistent with Westworld’s guests’ indifference about harming the hosts, who are robots.</p>
<p>But there is a key difference between robots like Kismet and Westworld’s hosts. </p>
<p>In Westworld, the hosts are virtually indistinguishable from humans both in behavior and appearance. They are played by human actors on the show. They even bleed.</p>
<p>During the show’s second episode, William, a first-time guest to the park, has the following exchange with a host: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Are you real?”</p>
<p>“Well if you can’t tell, does it matter?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The primary way that you or I or William decide if another agent has a mind is by observing the agent’s appearance and behavior. But if the hosts look and act human, it would be difficult to overcome the powerful feeling that they have minds and can feel pain, even if we’re told they don’t.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027712001278">A 2012 study</a> by psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner on <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21559316">the creepiness of lifelike robots</a> supports the idea that a robot’s appearance is a major factor in our perceptions of its capacity to feel. </p>
<p>In a series of experiments, the researchers found that robots that appeared more lifelike were thought to have a higher capacity to feel pain or pleasure. This made study participants uneasy. For example, in one experiment, 105 participants watched a video of the robot <a href="http://www.herts.ac.uk/kaspar">KASPAR</a> either from the front, showing a human-like face, or from the back, showing wires and mechanics. When participants viewed KASPAR from the front, they assigned it slightly higher ratings of “experience” and also found the robot slightly creepier.</p>
<p>This suggests that most Westworld guests would not be able to easily stab a lifelike host in the hand with a knife and watch him writhe in pain (which is just what William’s brother-in-law, Logan, does in the second episode). </p>
<p>Instead, most of us would react with horror.</p>
<h2>Dehumanizing robots, dehumanizing people</h2>
<p>But people are sometimes capable of callous violence, even toward actual humans. Such violence is psychologically easier when the perpetrators dehumanize their victims, viewing them as having less of a mind. Historically, many <a href="http://www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/8stagesofgenocide.html">genocides</a> have been preceded by campaigns to portray the victims as subhuman animals like <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/philosophy-dispatches/201112/dehumanization-genocide-and-the-psychology-indifference-0">rats</a> and <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/15/rwandan-who-called-tutsis-cockroaches-in-1992-gets-life-sentence/">cockroaches</a>. </p>
<p>We see this on “Westworld” too, where the park staff is encouraged to think of the hosts as mindless and less than human. </p>
<p>For example, in one scene, Dr. Ford, Westworld’s enigmatic creative director (played by Anthony Hopkins), admonishes a technician for covering a naked host with a sheet while working on him: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Why is this host covered? Perhaps you didn’t want him to feel cold or ashamed. You wanted to cover his modesty. It doesn’t get cold! It doesn’t feel ashamed! It doesn’t feel a solitary thing that we haven’t told it to.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then casually cuts the host’s face with a scalpel to underscore his point: The hosts are mindless things, not people. By thinking about the hosts this way, the staff can rationalize any abuse.</p>
<p>So while “Westworld” offers an unrealistically grim view of typical human nature, it does serve as a reminder of the human capacity for cruelty. </p>
<p>Because the hosts look and act human, you would probably struggle to harm them. At the same time, if you could be conditioned to see the hosts as less than human, what would prevent you from being conditioned to see a group of actual humans the same way?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Jern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In ‘Westworld’s’ land of robots, it’s the people who lack humanity.
Alan Jern, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.