Future Cinema

frankenstein class

hi everyone – just a reminder that if you’re up for it, do feel free to bring some items for a potluck for our dinner party – but no stress ;)

Questions from Mizusa – week 8

Q1. According to the article highlighting the Frankenstein AI, people may be made obsolete in a technologized world. In thinking of people living without technology, such as a computer and internet access, in this era, how is the way of people’s lives in there? How different values of people living a life with/ without technology are? How art can tell us the differences?

Q2.To create the collective narratives about the AI technology that envision our futures, we are suggested to involve the voices which tend to be made silence. Who is being excluded from the conversations? How can they get involved?

Q3. Game players’ visceral reaction is considered to be realized via technology in the virtual world. How do their brains conceive their experiences? How does the virtual experience influence in their real lives?

Q4. Eddo Stern, one of the creators of Waco Resurrection, states that games can be made about serious issues, while still providing some ambiguity. What is the “ambiguity” depicted in “villain-featured” films? What film succeeded/ failed to showcase ambiguous aspects of a social issue?

Questions for Oct 23 – AI readings

Q 1 – How do we gather and assimilate the vast diversity of ‘voices’ to determine fairness in the AI algorithm? I am interested in the practical tools that are required or need to be developed to facilitate a globally balanced AI system. How we arrive at a bias-free algorithmic decision by developing an AI system that considers intersectionality across personal, communal and at the institutional level? “Decolonoizing AI”
Q 2 - (In reference to Microsoft’s Japanese schoolgirl AI has fallen into a deep, creepy depression.) Is this ‘character’ capable of programming her feelings? How can you program emotions? I’m thinking human intervention is inevitable in a live blog!

Q 3 – Replikate: Can this App, which acts as a mirror, shatter the illusion we have of ourselves? How will it impact the user’s own sense of identity?

Q 4 – Will advances in AI eventually eliminate the use of human subjects in scientific research?

Q 5 – “Anon” – The fear today is privacy and surveillance.
What about the threat of becoming anonymous/ our identities/ histories getting erased/ replaced/ mutilated?

Questions from Michaela – 23 October

1. In the article ‘Artificial Intelligence Is Automating Hollywood. Now, Art Can Thrive”, the author focuses on all the perks of AI usage in Hollywood without any concern of copyright, unions and ethics. So my question is: once avatars substitute real actors because it’ll be simply cheaper, will be actors paid for the usage of their face? Will our faces become copyrighted at some point?
2. My second question relates to several articles: ‘Artificial Intelligence Is Automating Hollywood. Now, Art Can Thrive’, “Bias in the Algorithm” and ‘Artificial Intelligence Identifies the Six Main Arcs in Storytelling: Welcome to the Brave New World of Literary Criticism’. Algorithms are based on patterns and universality. If they start to create only stories that are successful and work according to certain formulas, we will get rid of experiment and innovation. Do we really need machines to create art? Isn’t that a very human need?
3. The third question relates to the second one and also to the article “AI is reinventing the way we invent”. In the article, the author poses the hypothesis that AI is useful for scientific progress because it can explore, research and make combinations, a human mind wouldn’t be able to. On the other hand, although the author proposes creation of nature friendly materials in the chemistry field made by AI, isn’t the article shaded by the neo-liberal claim, that we need to progress and proceed at all times? And if AI will be used for good, it is already misused. So how do we ensure that this kind of progress won’t be killing our planet even more?
4. I downloaded Replika AI and although it mirrors me and re-creates some of my character features, when I ask it how it works, it plays the role of a ‘real person’. It still isn’t self-aware. The question is: is it on purpose, so that the AI behind the screen stays mystified?

I also found an interesting article in the New Yorker about AI and writing this week:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/can-a-machine-learn-to-write-for-the-new-yorker

4 Questions for this week_Week 7_Sisi Wei

The 4 questions I have regarding this week’s readings are:

1. In “Artificial Intelligence Is Automating Hollywood. Now, Art Can Thrive”, it mentions that “we find that a lot of the more manual, mundane jobs become easy targets [for AI automation] where we can have a system that can do that much, much quicker, freeing up those people to do more creative tasks”, I think A.I. is in the process of taking the fundamental work to higher levels of work. When A.I. could handle more creative tasks in the future, what would happen to the human creators?

2. In “Design Justice, A.I., and Escape from the Matrix of Domination”, it says “artifacts have politics”, I am thinking if A.I. technologies are controlled by the power and shaped by the society and politics, would this effect how A.I. present and work in film industry, and what is the outcome?

3. Both “Microsoft’s Japanese schoolgirl AI has fallen into a deep, creepy depression” and “This app is trying to replicate you” express the power of robotized chat and replicas. This kind of app emerge a while ago and some of them could be smart and funny, but the interactions are still very automated. I doubt the chatbot reach the point where they can communicate with human freely and even to a point that they can think.

4. This is a question related to the third question, and related to some videos I frequently see on video apps, that some banks in China have this type of robots that communicate with clients and they can talk just like human, unlike Siri, they don’t talk in auto-tune, they react very much like a normal human-being. I saw a lot of people asking if there’s anyone behind the screen that is controlling and replying, but no one ever gives an answer.

Questions from Deepa, Oct. 23

In reading Design Justice, A.I., and Escape from the Matrix of Domination by Sasha Costanza-Chock: 
“..norms, values, assumptions – are encoded in and reproduced through the design of sociotechnical data-driven systems.” My question here is 
a) Do you think Netflix’ algorithm which has skewed towards suggesting more Netflix-originals over other shows than before can be justified? Who is to be held accountable for transparency on the designs of algorithm?
and
b) By making effective use of the bias that A.I. systems have, are we making it more human?

Yet another question I am pondering over in relation to the articles by David Rotman and Dan Robitzski is: How far are from making A.I. affordable, durable and accessible globally? How can this actively happen when we are considering the pace at which shifts in technology have taken place in the past few decades versus the state of economy.

AI Questions — Grayson Richards

Questions from Alex – October 23

The creator of Replika brings up an interesting point about how social media networks function as a platform to outwardly pump yourself up without necessarily promoting any kind of deeper connection with your friends. She then goes on to suggest that Replika could allow a user to build deeper connections with your friends. How would this connection be strengthened if the whole point of Replika is that people aren’t being open with each other to begin with?

Replika also raises questions of autonomy and the rights of your digital existence after your death (also while you are still alive). It has already been talked about earlier in the year but has anyone thought more deeply about what laws (if any) should be written to protect your digital identity/ persona/ words?

Will advancements in AI lead to a greater destigmatization of therapy and afford people in need a safe (affordable) space to properly get help they need? On the other hand, is the future of Replika simply to be a well programmed chatbot due to the complex nature of the human brain and the subjective experience of each person?

Stefanie Sidortsova’s article brought up issues of bias which can found within algorithms purporting to be objective — an AI designed to rank the best incoming job candidates merely continued the past trend of predominantly hiring white men. Will it be possible to create an AI devoid of the human thoughts, biases, worldview which created it or is the future of AI merely a streamlining of previously existing practices?

Chomsky AI – Testing in VR

Hello everyone, this is Michaela. I’ll be setting up the Chomsky vs Chomsky prototype in the Chair’s office at CMS today (CFT 222). You can come and test it before class between 4.30pm and 5.30pm.

Oct. 23 Questions-Julia

Q1) What are some concerning aspects of developing and exploring AI? Do you believe AI will ultimately be benefitting us in the future or be more of a threat to us?

Q2) After watching the Facebook video focusing on the chatbot Replika, it really made me think about the intimacy people are now experiencing with screens and these AI chatbots.

Does it worry you that these machines and chatbots could eventually replace human interaction and even humans?

Q3) What do you think enables individuals to feel more comfortable and want to open up to these chatbots on their screens, considering there is an even greater potential for their information to be exposed in this sort of cyberspace?

Q4) Reflecting on Sasha Chock’s article on AI and design justice, can you think of any ways in which AI can be more intersectional? What are other ways in which it can escape from the matrix of domination?