Artificial Intelligence

     The technological singularity sounds great at first. What could be so bad about a run-away super intelligence? The problem is that a doomsday scenario of a robots taking over the world coincides with the idea of technological singularity being accidentally created and set free to self improve.  I believe that the technological singularity hypothesis only considers a form of technology that is created with no fail-safes. A super intelligence that is created with no barricades could be very dangerous. If its only purpose is to self improve then humans will eventually no longer be needed and might even get in the way of self-improvement. In my opinion, a form of intelligence created by humans will be created with the intent of helping humans thrive. I think a technological singularity that improves the lives of humans will be created before one that only has itself in interest. It is much more difficult to create something that will be able to self improve and be a sentient being, than something that can self improve with pre-existing human friendly motives.

     This is where I start to think about how Stelarc's work is a more accurate representation of our future. Humans are going to be the original creators of this technology so it should have humans in its best interest at least in the beginning. His work shows how humans can interact with even the technology of today's world. 

     Ray's Kurzweil makes some pretty interesting predictions about the future of technological advancements. Many of these predictions are related to biological technology advancements.  Many of his predictions would seem reasonable if the time scale was in the hundreds of years, but he believes these advancements will be made in the next 25 years! Kurweil makes his predictions for the near future because of his considerations of Moore's Law. Technology increases at an exponential rate which means advancements happen sooner than expected many times. One of my favorite examples of this is the short time it took for humans to go from the Wright brother's first flight to NASA's moon landing. Only 66 years between the first time we left the ground to the first step on another celestial body!

     If humans continue to follow Moore's Law, it will not be long before we are uploading our brains to become immortal. The problem that we face today is that our brains are constantly changing and making new connections which makes it difficult to just make a copy of our brain to function properly. I believe that we would still be the same person if we did find a way to be uploaded into a new form or body. Our bodys are constantly changing anyways. A one year old looks nothing like him/her-self after he/she grows up, but we still consider them to be the same human their whole life. How is this so different than just changing your body form immediately?

Do games count tho?

As we are learning and dissecting exactly what digital humanities are, this week we looked at a few pieces that are a part of a genre of literature called interactive fiction. This genre is another part of literature where a gaming element is added to enhance the way stories are being told. It still has a interactive element, but these games can be constructed to have a plot or it can be more of an observant experience for the reader. For example some games within digital literature can come in text form. Basically, the player will be emerged in a world that is only imagined through words.

Within the first week of learning about games within literature, Zork was one of the first genre of games we looked at. It's a text base game that was referenced in the first paragraph. Zork was created by the first gaming companies called, Infocom. Infocom became a huge hit within the early 80's. It was seen as something revolutionary because a plot was added and in a way, the reader can now become the player. With every game came these objects called "feelies", which were certain materials that came along with the game. This helped really helped the player feel like they were in the game. Referencing back to Zork, The player is emerged into a text based world and every action is a command that the player will type in. Below is a walkthrough of the game Zork. As shown in the video everything that is done in the game depends on the actions typed in. This definitely displays a similarity to the digital narratives we have been looking at. Interactivity is what these two genres have in common. Another example of gaming would be games that actually have graphics and images. 

ZORK WALKTHROUGH VIDEO

One of the games we looked at that included sound and images was called "That Dragon, Cancer". The addition of graphics and sound makes the plot of the game more effective. Once again its a digital narrative but on a different format. Video games can make understanding the story easier because you are shown these different images and various symbols of a video game can easily be pointed out. for instance, in he video game, "That Dragon, Cancer", the player is viewing a child who seems to have cancer and each part of the game is the child interacted with different people. As the player gets closer and closer to the end, it helps us understand that we are getting closer and closer to maybe the death of the child. That's why video are powerful because everything is being shown to the player. You are set right there in the game either clicking away being an observer or controlling the main character of a story.

We have also looked at games that serve as messages which reflects the world of today. One of the games was called "Prison strike". This was a electronic literature game that made the player be seen as a literal eye. You were the eye that saw all the bad things that is going on within the prison system. Various use of symbolism is also used in this type of gaming. The plot is somewhat not as immerse as video games, but these type of games focuses more on the message instead of plot story. There isn't the usual protagonist v antagonist, its just the player being exposed to a certain truth that is being shown to them as they walk through the game.

This is why within the digital format of storytelling, games count as being part of the digital narratives. A story is still being told and each time the player experiences something different. They can journey through a world of imagination in Zork, or drop a couple tears for the boy in "That Dragon, Cancer". Either way the reader is being effected in some way. No matter the format a story or a message is being told. This can also be the future of literature in many years to come, or honestly it might already be the future of literature.