Category: Group A

From the invention of the kaleidoscope in 1816 to the introduction of virtual reality headsets in recent years, scientists have strove to develop technology to provide new ways of seeing the world. The kaleidoscope, although crafted with incredibly simple materials, amazed the public of London due to it being able to alter the relatively drab city in which they lived and had gotten so bored with. The kaleidoscope provided a sort of escape from people’s monotonous lives and they jumped at the idea to experience a technology that would change the way they were able to see the world. A world full of color and ever-changing combinations had such mass appeal that the craze of kaleidoscopes swept London’s public like wildfire.

Just as the people of London sought an escape from the consistency of life, people today desire an occasional reprieve from stresses too. Enter the virtual reality headset, that has evolved greatly since its development in 1968 as a strictly stationary machine.  The first virtual reality headset developed as an enormous machine that consisted of a viewing apparatus and a computer, but today the headset can be taken anywhere as long as it is connected to a phone. People nowadays no longer rely on kaleidoscopes to achieve their escape from reality, they can simply attach their phone to a virtual reality headset and experience anything they can imagine. From diving the depths of the oceans on a deep-sea explorer to entering space on a weather balloon, the potential for virtual reality seems endless and incredibly exciting.

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Technology is undoubtedly a key component in Gibson’s book and his exceptional foresight into future technological advances encourages the reader to make connections between the technology of today and in the book. For instance, Gibson essentially predicted many advances in science that would come about in the 20th century; virtual reality, functional prosthetic appendages, cyberspace and the Matrix. Most significantly of the technologies in the book would be the Matrix. The Matrix is Case’s portal into a virtual world where he can ascertain valuable information and trade it for money or utilize it himself. Gibson illustrates this enormous technological world, known as cyberspace, and he may have been alluding to the Internet of modern times. I believe that there is a strong connection between cyberspace and the Internet because both technologies allow the user to basically acquire anything they need, as well as escaping their own reality and becoming anyone they desire to be. Although prosthetic appendages were around in the 1980’s, Gibson’s description of them in the book surpasses any technology that would have been available during his time. From mechanical arms to people that have become more robot than human, Neuromancer depicts prosthetic advancements that are becoming extremely relevant today. Is Gibson predicting that humans will one day be able to completely save their bodies by having mechanical implants placed within them and replace appendages fully? It is truly exceptional to see Gibson display his foresight in his book and see how his predictions have proven true fairly often in today’s technology.

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In Chapter 5 of Neuromancer, Case turns on a ROM construct of Dixie, the famed hacker. The ROM construct is a digital representation of a person’s identity. However, it is read-only and cannot form any new memories. This scene in the novel reminded me of a Wired.com article I had read recently A Sons Race To Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality by James Vlahos.

In the piece, Vlahos’ father is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, a terminal diagnosis.  As a response, Vlahos sets off on to create a Dadbot using Pullstring, a recently released software that allows users to use create chatbots that communicate via text messages.  Working against the bleak impending terminal devastation of his father’s cancer, it’s a compelling piece about one man’s pursuit of a slice of immortality for his father through digital permanence.

Chatbots have recently become a tremendously popular application of artificial intelligence.  VC money has been pouring into this niche market as investor interest peaks.  According to Crunchase.com, chatbots have raised almost $48 million dollars in private equity funding.  It’s easy to understand how chatbots have become such a popular concept; they allow for exponentially increased efficiency at a scalable, deployable level.  Chatbots let businesses automate bits and pieces of their operations such as customer support or the internal monitoring of employee performance.  As our understanding and ability to deploy artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning sharpens we should continue to see increasingly sophisticated and lifelike chatbots.  So who knows? Maybe we will be the generation that does get to live forever, in a sense.

Posted from My blog by Will H.

As I was reading Remediation by Jay David Bolter, I noticed certain patterns that connected the article with concepts found in Neuromancer. Even though William Gibson writes in the early 80s’, it is interesting to see how he manages to write about technological advances and ideas surrounding artificial intelligence. Combining the “old science” with the uncertainty of time and with the futuristic gadgets and implants, Neuromancer is therefore strongly related to Bolter’s and Grusin’s argument; “remediating relationships never end” and that “(n)ewer and older media forms continue to bore from one another” (Bolter).

The article also mentions that “(i)n every act of remediation, there is an implicit, if not explicit, claim of improvement” (Bolter). Similarly, in Neuromancer, Gibson discusses the theme of the new and improved technology present in Case’s world. Molly’s improved eye sight and ‘super-claws’, Case’s new and improved pancreas which prevents him from getting drunk or high, his super advanced new gear and even the (questionable) toxic sacks attached to his liver. So their experiences and bodies are more developed and more extreme than a ‘normal’ person like Case or a street samurai like Molly, could not have gotten in an earlier day and without the money and mysterious connections that Armitage provides.

What I struggled mostly with, were the ideas of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy” that arise in the article. Where does Neuromancer fit in these notions? On the one side, there is obvious transparency when it comes to the exact time the plot is set or even Case’s life story yet, is the concept of “hypermediacy” even present?

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Remediation swings both ways toward hypermediacy and transparency. With the rise of technology and cyberspace, there is an ongoing battle between seeing something for what it is and seeing it through a lens. Modern transparency exists in video games, movies, and art as creators attempt to show everyday issues as well as recreate life onto a screen. Social media and online news sites, however, exemplify hypermediacy through multiwindow styles and creates convenience for their readers. This dilemma poses the question of which end of the spectrum is better? Should media be remediated at all?

In a bleak and superficial rendition, William Gibson’s Neuromancer remediates reality itself by having its protagonist Case enter a realistic world that is cyberspace. Within the eyes of Case, cyberspace and the sensations within it are synonymous with drugs and the high that goes along with them. Neuromancer took the route of transparency to an extreme. By eliminating the use of screens, the console allows people to “jack in” directly into an online world and destroys any form of mediation. However in a world without mediation, the lines between reality and the artificiality are blurred. In the character of Case, after being forcefully ripped from his artificial heaven, he dives into a world of self-destruction and paranoia. This could possibly be Gibson’s belief that the downfall of society will be caused by it’s obsession with technology.

Gibson’s story is not far off from modern technology today with the growing advancement in virtual reality games and movies. The remediation of media is a necessary act as society continues to grow and advance. Whether it is politics or entertainment, a fast access to information and connections is an integral part of modern life. Despite this, mediation must be contained to towards the center of the spectrum in order to have a strong connection with media as well as have a healthy disconnect from the virtual world.

Posted from our fascination by Tony N.

So far while reading this book, I have found myself getting very confused trying to differentiate reality versus a kind of virtual reality when Case is hacking in cyberspace through the trodes and sim stims. At times it seems as if the passages occurring in cyberspace are really occurring in reality and vice versa. It is possible that what makes it so hard to make distinctions between the two is we, as the readers, are understanding everything through Case’s point of view (third person limited). He is very involved in both the real world and in cyberspace so it is difficult to differentiate which world his mind is in in a particular moment. I find that this could be a very intentional choice by the author William Gibson. By creating this difficulty for the readers to make these distinctions, Gibson could be meshing the two worlds together in a remediating kind of way, as Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin talk about in the article “Remediation” in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. In Neuromancer, Gibson could be using the world of cyberspace as a remediation of the real world, thus making cyberspace a virtual reality. Bolter and Grusin talk about how remediation is often thought of as an improvement from the media that it is based on. Cyberspace could be the same notion. It is a better alternative for Case because it allows him to escape from the pains and hardships that he experiences in the real world.

Posted from My blog by Lindsay