Itmam Chowdhury – Science Fiction (ENG 2420)

Abstract

This research project focuses on the different scenarios of dystopia and utopian societies for Artificial Intelligence in science fiction and how it relates back to the real world. As our technology in our world is getting more advanced as time goes on, Artificial Intelligence is something that has been discussed in the past decades and will be discussed going forward. There are many films and books in science fiction that display the different ways of how AI’s can be interrogated in our world either it’s for the good or the bad. There have been science fiction books about AI’s dated back in the 50’s, and every decade after that, the idea of AI being part of our world deepens.

Artificial Intelligence in the scope of science fiction shows how great and fascinating it would be for humans to live in a world with robots and other forms of Artificial Intelligence but science fiction also shows how AI’s can be harmful and a disaster for society. Looking back at these films and books about science fiction, it is important to draw back to the real world and see how both connect. AI has been a form of science fiction and still is but as time goes on, it can be a concern and though weather such things we see in movies like Transformers and Terminator can be our reality.

Issac Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics consist of robots not harming a human being in any way, obey human demands, and not to hurt itself. Asimov embodied these laws in the movie, I, Robot, and other short stories. These laws are used to enable robots to live in utopian society as robots live peacefully with humans but looking at I, Robot, there can be a scenario where a robot doesn’t function the way it is expected to. Even though these 3 laws of robotics symbolizes a robot’s involvement in the society of science fiction, Asimov shows in his stories how the laws can be broken. In the real world, we have laws that we have to follow and not everyone does obey those laws. We see a similar trend with the 3 laws of robotics.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence and its Effect on the World

Research Question- Can artificial intelligence replace human intelligence?

Proposal

The idea of AI’s has been one that has been discussed in the past decades and the idea will get bigger within the near future. Main concerns about AI’s are if they can function like humans and go beyond that. The idea of technology evolving and getting bigger is an interesting one but what comes to mind is, can these self-machines operate functionally and should there be concerns of a dysfunction within these machines? In the present day, we’ve heard about technologies like self cars that automatically drive for you so you don’t have to yourself. The idea of not driving yourself and letting your own car do it for yourself does sound compelling but we’ve seen how these self cars can malfunction even though it’s something minor. Even though Artificial Intelligence has potential to benefit our world drastically in the future, human intelligence is something that got us where we are today. Human intelligence is something that is evolving and helping us even think of the idea of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence replacing humans can be a big change in society for both the bad and good. The use of AI’s can be beneficial to do daily activities more faster and efficiently. AI’s can also help people with disabilities and special needs in multiple ways, and it can also help in the medical field with developing vaccines and treatments. We’ve seen the revolution of technological advancements throughout the past decades and how it does have a positive affect on our daily lives. On the other side, it is important to think if AI’s can react the way humans do in some situations. AI’s are functioned to perform a task but a dysfunction can occur when performing one. They also don’t have the emotional essence of a human that can be useful for performing certain tasks. Technology has advanced for the good in these past decades but it is getting more advanced and it’s important to question if advanced technology like AL’s is good for society or not. Overall the notion of Al’s replacing humans is an interesting concept to talk about but it’s important to break down the pros and cons and see if Al’s can function like humans. My project will discuss the importance of Artificial Intelligence and how it can affect our lives in the future. I will break down how they compare to human intelligence and if they can replace it. I will also talk about weather or not AI’s will be safe in our society.

Sources and Annotated Bibliography

Bhushan, Divya. “Artificial Intelligence Vs Human Intelligence: Humans, not machines, will build the future”, Springboard, 28 Feburary, 2020 https://in.springboard.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-vs-human-intelligence/

One way artificial intelligence can affect human intelligence is the learning process of the youth. The use of AI’s can unmotivate people from learning themselves as they are dependent on advanced technology to do it for them. Learning gives people the ability to not only access information but be able to do things themselves. A mentor is also important when addressing this issue as one can teach his/her students several aspects of things in life that an AI can’t do. Even though there might be a chance that artificial intelligence can get the job done to teach our youth, it can’t teach them everything. AI’s can be useful for the math and science field but they will lack in the literature field as that’s dealt with many abstract ideas and thoughts. Everyone has a different way of learning and needs different ways to learn. AI can be beneficial but it’s hard to say if it can get the job done for everyone.

Rinehart, Will and Edwards, Allison “Understanding Job Loss Predictions From Artificial Intelligence” American Action Forum, 11 July, 2019

https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/understanding-job-loss-predictions-from-artificial-intelligence/

As AI’s are in the works, it is predicted that it will give a drastic job loss rate. It’s predicted that robots will be doing a lot of the work that we usually do in our daily lives. Part of humans do think like robots so it isn’t surprising with AI’s doing activities that we do but it can lead to many humans unemployed. While there can be a significant decrease of job opportunities, AI’s doing activities we usually do can lead to us focusing more on activities AI’s can’t do. That does sound great but people do need jobs to live in general and the idea of AI’s taking over many of the jobs can be a scary thought for many people. They might get the job done better which is great for society but also it’ll hurt society more if people can’t have certain job opportunities because of artificial intelligence.

Thomas, Mike “The future of Artificial Intelligence” Bulletin, 8 June, 2019 https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-future

AI’s can have a huge impact on fields like healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, customer service and many more. For healthcare, a virtual nursing assistant can help and satisfy the patient’s overall experience. Transportation can be improved with self-cars but can take at least a decade to make them perfect. AI robots can work with humans to perform tasks and make sure everything is running smoothly. Customer service can improve with AI assistants scheduling appointments and other tasks which google is working on to do. Virtual tutors can help students with their schoolwork and virtual AI’s can assist educators.

Patrizio, Andy. “Pros and Cons of Artificial intelligence”, Datamotion, 7 July, 2016

https://www.datamation.com/applications/pros-and-cons-of-artificial-intelligence.html

Ai’s can have many advantages for us in the future as they make less errors in processing, take faster actions + decisions, and have better research outcomes. They can also be harmful if someone is controlling an AI and using it for something you shouldn’t use it for or just use it to hurt someone. Another one can be bad calls from an AI as they don’t judge actions like humans do. AI making a bad call can be significant in a hostile situation. AI’s can be more efficient to do certain tasks but the main problem is what happens if they don’t function normally and hurt someone? The big picture is they aren’t humans so they don’t have the emotional essence that we have and can go off the rails any given time.

Dickson, Ben, “There’s a huge difference between AI and human intelligence—so let’s stop comparing them” bdtechtalks, 21 August, 2018

https://bdtechtalks.com/2018/08/21/artificial-intelligence-vs-human-mind-brain/

AI’s are really beneficial for repetitive tasks that can be represented by data but humans are good for abstract decisions, something an AI can’t do. Humans can use computers themselves but an AI controlling one itself is better for accuracy and speed. AI can make minor mistakes that humans usually don’t make and something it can fix.

Artificial intelligence vs Human Intelligence

Proposal

The idea of Artificial Intelligence has been one that has been discussed in the past decades and the idea will get bigger within the near future. Main concerns about AI’s are if they can function like humans and go beyond that. The idea of technology evolving and getting bigger is an interesting one but what comes to mind is, can these self-machines operate functionally and should there be concerns of a dysfunction within these machines? In the present day, we’ve heard about technologies like self cars that automatically drive for you so you don’t have to yourself. The idea of not driving yourself and letting your own car do it for yourself does sound compelling but we’ve seen how these self cars can malfunction even though it’s something minor. Even though Artificial Intelligence has potential to benefit our world drastically in the future, human intelligence is something that got us where we are today. Human intelligence is something that is evolving and helping us even think of the idea of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can have it’s flaws but it can also many possibilities that we never thought of. The use of AI’s can be beneficial to do daily activities more faster and efficient. AI’s can also help people with disabiliies and special needs in multiple ways, and it can also help in the medical field with devoping vaccines and treatments. We’ve seen the revolution of technogogical advancements throughout the past decades and how it does have a positive affect on our daily lives.

Sources

Rinehart, Will and Edwards, Allison “Understanding Job Loss Predictions From Artificial Intelligence” American Action Forum, 11 July, 2019

https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/understanding-job-loss-predictions-from-artificial-intelligence/

Thomas, Mike “The future of Artificial Intelligence” Bulletin, 8 June, 2019 https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-future

Patrizio, Andy. “Pros and Cons of Artificial intelligence”, Datamotion, 7 July, 2016

https://www.datamation.com/applications/pros-and-cons-of-artificial-intelligence.html

Ai’s can have many advantages for us in the future as they make less errors in processing, take faster actions + decisions, and have better research outcomes. One con can be someone controlling an AI and using it for something you shouldn’t use it for or just use it to hurt someone. Another one can be bad calls from an AI as they don’t judge actions like humans do. AI making a bad call can be significant in a hostile situation.

Dickson, Ben, “There’s a huge difference between AI and human intelligence—so let’s stop comparing them” bdtechtalks, 21 August, 2018

Class Notes 11/17/2020

Peer review of Annotated Bibliographies:

Split up into groups of 3-4 people and look over each other annotated bibliographies.
Write comments in the google doc about your peer’s annotations; give feedback

Do annotated bibliographies even if you still didn’t do them.
Worth 10% of your grade

Research Project Individual Conferences

Work on individual research project

Research project guide can be found under the assignments category.
Presentation last week of class

Next Class:

Attend City Tech Science Fiction Symposium.

Info about the symposium can be found under schedule for 11/19 and in your email
Our Class Roundtable starts at 12pm. Come during our regular class time at 11:30am.

Due tomorrow: Revised annotations

Extra Credit opportunity: Attend additional parts of the symposium and write a blog which is due by 11/22

Grief and Unfairness

Spike Lee’s See You Tomorrow focuses on racial injustice and the use of time travel to fix it. Racial Profiling has been going on in our country for a long time and it’s interesting to see in this film if time travel can have an affect on it. CJ, with the grief of her brother’s death, went back to time to save him from cops shooting and killing him for a crime he didn’t even commit. Even though CJ had the ability to time travel and save her brother from getting murdered, this action caused more problems and at the end, Calvin is still dead.

As we see today with the black lives matters movement, police brutality is significantly an important topic to address and in See You Tomorrow, we see multiple scenes of racial profiling. In the beginning of the film, two police officers approaches CJ and Calvin as they see them arguing and asks Calvin for his ID. CJ and Calvin were just having an argument that wasn’t really that hostile for officers to approach them and ask for ID. In the same scene, we also see Dennis pulling out his phone to record the whole event happening. In today’s world, we see people pulling out their phones or cameras to record an event like this happning and it’s crazy to me how someone’s phones and cameras is something that can protect them from racial profiling or use it to seek justice. I’m wondering the amount of racial profiling that occurs when someone doesn’t record it and how no justice is served because of someone not recording the event. We also see today how recording racial profiling might not transition to justice being served. Later on the film, we see Calvin and Dennis walking and two robbers running past them. This transitions to two police officers assuming Calvin and Dennis are the robbers and murders Calvin. The officers stated that calvin was armed but a woman who saw the event take place said Calvin was unarmed. This brings me back to thinking about the importance of recoding an event like this as the police officers lied about Calvin being unarmed, but luckily there was a woman to see the event take place and speak out the truth. I do find it disappointing that people do need to record to seek justice and if the woman wasn’t there then the police officer would just get away with blatantly lying to protect himself. We all saw or heard about the George Floyd video that resulted to multiple protest around the country and helped all the officers to get charged for what they did. I’m wondering if that event wasn’t recorded in any capacity, would we see the same actions taking place now?

The grief of her brother’s death took CJ to the path of Time traveling multiple times, and each time doesn’t seem to end well. Sebastian did warn CJ multiple times about there being possible consequences for them time traveling and that is exactly what we saw. The first time CJ time traveled after Calvin’s death, she did prevent the death of her brother but not the way she wanted as Sebastian died during the process. The second time around CJ time traveled, Calvin was the one who dies while Sebastian lives. I feel like as many times as CJ time travels, something tragic will occur. I find it interesting how this police brutality scenario took CJ to time travel back to prevent it. There seems to be no solution of ending police brutality and using time travel to atleast prevent it from happening is something everyone would do but as we see, it ends up as bad as it used to be for CJ before she time traveled in the first place. This idea reminds me of Destroyer and how Dr. Baker’s grief of her son dying from a police shooting caused her to bring his son back but like CJ bringing her brother back, their are consequences as Akai is not completely human but more like the monster. I feel like CJ and dr. Baker took advantage of what they had in their hands to bring their love ones back and not might’ve felt a need of unfairness from cops taking their loves ones from them so they did whatever they needed to do to bring them back.

Overall, this film embodies the importance of using technology to prevent a love one from dying from police brutality. It’s interesting to think about the idea of advanced technology being used to stop an event like calvin dying from police officers for no reason because of the color of his skin. I really liked this film especially with the events going on in the world today. I think this film draws a good understanding of the real life events happening today and weather or not time traveling can be one solution to help with the serious problem of police brutality.

Itmam Chowdhury’s Reading Response #6: Destroyer

Lavalle’s Destroyer starts off with Frankenstein’s monster causing havoc as he kills humans and destroys anything around him. I’ve read Shelley’s Frankenstein before and I remember how the monster was eagerly against humans as they rejected him due to his appearance and how he’s the only one in his kind. I’m assuming the monster still has that rage in him as he’s still against human beings. In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster would lose control and starts attacking when humans were afraid of him and we see that in the start of Destroyer as the people are scared of the monster.

Later on in the comic, we see Dr. Baker bring her son, Akai, back to life using Frankenstein’s technology after her son was murdered from a police shooting. This action would make Akai to be more like the monster and not completely how he used to be prior to his death. It’s interesting to see how Dr. Baker wants to bring her son back so badly but does she think about the consequences it can have on him prior to bringing him back? I get how bringing someone you love back is something desirable but Dr. Baker brought her son back as not fully human and I’m wondering if she ever thought if this is something Akai wanted. Dr. Baker encourages her son to hurt people so he can protect them both but Akai refuses to do so. This is one example of how Akai’s life changed as he’s expected to use the powers he obtained to hurt people. Even though Dr. Baker took advantage of the technology she had to bring her son back, I feel like bringing Akai back is bigger than a mother and son reunion. I feel like Dr. Baker wanted revenge towards cops as one of them taking her son away. Frankenstein’s monster was mindless of his surroundings as he just destroyed anything he desires but Akai does have control over himself and doesn’t hurt people the way the monster does.

Towards the end we see an interaction between Akai and the monster as he tells the monster they are the only ones of their kind. This intrigued me because in Shelly’s Frankenstein, the monster wasn’t pleased that he was the only one of his kind. One focus I see in this comic is the chaos the monster causes and I’m wondering what it would be like if there were more of him. I wonder if Akai could’ve managed to change the monster as both of them are similar and in Shelly’s Frankenstein, it seems like the monster just wanted to be accepted in society but that didn’t happen which made the monster go against humans and kill them. This comic really touched on the idea of death and the use of technological advancements to bring back the dead. It’s interesting to think about the idea of bringing someone back but I wonder if it is worth to do so as their fate is already decided.

Itmam Chowdhury’s Reading Response #5: Westworld

Westworld is a themed park where androids are represented as hosts to the guests as they operate real life daily activities as actual humans do. The first fifteen minutes of the episode is mainly about Delores and Teddy. In the end of the fifteen minutes, we see a visitor killing Teddy and kidnapping Delores. After this scene, we see Delores wake up the next morning with no memory of last night and the events of the previous day being repeated.

What I found interesting is the interaction between the humans and androids. The humans knows that the hosts aren’t real people but the hosts themselves doesn’t know that. One scene I found interesting is when a boy talks to Delores and says “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re not real” (32:05). I feel like the visitors knowing that the hosts are androids brings thoughts and questions such as are the visitors scared of the hosts in some ways as they aren’t humans . Another scene that I found interesting is the sheriff breaking down when a bug is on him. I’m wondering if this breakdown of an android can happen frequently and how that can affect the entire plot as a whole.

Delores’s character is pretty intriguing as she is considered the oldest host. We see multiple times in the episode of Delores focusing on the beauty of the world and not the ugliness. To me, this whole world of robots being controlled and being hosts to the guests is pretty ugly and I’m wondering when if ever Delores will figure that out. I feel like even though this whole world Delores is living in is pretty ugly, her mindset and perspective is to cherish the things that makes her happy even if there isn’t a lot of it.

One of the opening lines is ” Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?”(3:17). This question is interesting as the hosts doesn’t know that they are androids but thinks they are human beings. In the end of the episode we see Teddy once again in the train for the third time, but this time I noticed how he touches the same area on his body where he was shot from the second time. I feel like there might be a chance Teddy is starting to remember what happened to him before he lost his memory. I feel like this scene with Teddy at the end answers the opening line I stated in the beginning as he might actually be in the process of questioning the nature of his reality.

The androids function as regular human beings throughout the episode and there are moments where I forget that they are actually robots. It’s interesting how even though the androids have actual feelings like regular humans and other very similar traits. Some of them did act weird when a bug was on there face and didn’t react at all but other than that they do seem like they’re actual people. This is the first time I ever watched Westworld and I’m interested to see what happens next with this world Delores and all the other androids are living in.

Itmam Chowdhury’s Presentation on Internal Struggle

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Itmam’s Reading Response #3: Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival

Internal Struggle occurs when an individual has a mental struggle within their minds. It is like a person fighting themselves out of frustration. This type of struggle builds up a bigger picture of a plot of a story. The films I watched really focused on Internal struggle in different aspects and meanings as some films focused on the relationship of love ones, others on teamwork, and a few on identity.

The film “Outcast” focuses on a man named Arin who’s passion consist of fighting crime but him having chronic asthma causes him to get kicked out of a program where he interacts and trains with other people to fight crime. This leads to Arin fighting with himself whether he still wants to fight crime on his own or just not do it at all. This brings the idea of how all the signs are telling him to stop fighting crime because of the asthma as his doctor and love one is trying to convince him its a bad idea but even though all the signs are telling him to stop, he still makes the decision to keep on going and he’s happy with that decision.

In the film, “Bodyhackers”, a father and daughter swapped bodies (1:53) and them adapting in their new bodies with different identities signified how mentally they struggled to adapt to their new identity even if it was for five minutes . I feel like this film really made me realize more of how much we can struggle on inheriting new identities as its not something we’re used to as mentality you’re going to fight with yourself on ways to adapt a new life style. I also found the film “Back the way we came” interesting as it was about a tree in a park allowing two boys to travel to an alternate dimension. The two boys were frustrated as they were trying to go back to their timeline. The internal struggle in this film is seen from one of the boy, Ryan, whose frustrated with his friend as that friend doesn’t really help Ryan find a solution on how to go back to their timeline but he just depends on him majority of the time. This Internal conflict between two of these boys builded on the friend’s character as he found a way to go back to their time.

I think internal struggle is an interesting topic as it presents how a person feels emotionally and how it tells us more about a person. The film “Deep Learning” is about a middle aged woman, Moria, watching films based off of herself. One film she watched that portrayed herself was really deep as it was about Moria’s mother keeps on bossing her around and Moria kills her afterwords. This film really stood out to me and the idea of internal struggle as it shows how Moria Internally doesn’t have a good relationship with her mom but in realty, we see Moria getting bossed around from her mom and she’s not really fighting back. Another film she watched about herself was her talking to a man and they man told Moria how “the day isn’t your friend”(9:26) and proceeded to say how the day will put Moria back to sleep. I feel like Maria watching these films really tells us how she is fighting with herself in a sense that she might not be happy with her life. What I found interesting was the end of this film as Moria was watching a film with her mom about the day she was born and we finally see a good moment between Moria and her mom as they look back to that moment.

When I thought about internal struggle initially before watching any of these films, all I thought was about the negative that comes from it but after watching some of these films, I saw how internal struggle can change the plot in a good way as I saw in “Deep Learning”, “Outcast”, “Back the way we came”. The other films I watched also tells me how there’s different kinds of internal struggles as we see some characters going through more deeper problems then other characters.

Class Notes 9/17/20

Initial Reactions of Metropolis

Max brought up Marxism/Class struggle.
Philip mentioned how the film is silent and has no dialogue as we have to figure out ourselves what’s going on in the film.
Oscar added the of body language used in the film.

Brief Summary of Metropolis

Dichotomy of social classes
Creation of Robot Maria
Workers Transiting to violence

Characters:

Maria: Leader of Revolution of Lower Class
Fredersen: Head of Metropolis
Freder: Son of Fredersen. Love interest in Maria
Robot Maria: Created to start havoc in Metropolis
Rotwang: scientists who build Robot Maria

Analyzation of Robot Maria

Creepy
Clothes she wears
Never blinks
Black eye

Settings

Church
Metropolis Worker’s City

Conflict

Father vs Son: Conflict between role of workers
Artificial vs Humanity: Maria vs Robot Maria.
Euphemism

Scenes in Metropolis

4;14: Workers going to work with their heads down
7:25: Clothing and happiness
10:00: Maria-Maria’s entrance, care taker, motherly, modest.
13:00: Freder goes in machine, machine working through workers, workers being sacrificed for the machine.

Due on 9/22:

Brooklyn Film Festival Blog Post

Author: Itmam Chowdhury

Is Artificial Intelligence displayed in Science Fiction a Utopia or Dystopia?