Category: Group C

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Posted from Hannah Lukow by Hannah L.

Fear of artificial intelligence (AI) did not always exist, but it has grown to become one of the main themes of science fiction in the last several decades. Famous examples include The Matrix, Terminator, and Neuromancer. At the same time, global technology companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon are rapidly pushing artificial intelligence into the mainstream through consumer devices like smart phones and home assistants. They have even given these AI assistants names like Alexa, Siri and Cortana.

In 2014, Stephen Hawking made headlines for his prediction that “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race” (see the full BBC article here). Hawking argues that the speed with which computers are capable of evolving their digital thought processes is much faster than the biological evolution that humans undergo, which creates the potential for them to quickly get out of control. On the other hand, Hawking acknowledges the benefits that AI has brought so far, including the system that allows the professor to speak despite his advanced neurodegenerative disease, ALS.

While Western Civilization often takes a dystopian view of AI, Alec Ross, former advisor on innovation to Hillary Clinton, points out in his book Industries of the Future that Eastern countries do not share in this view of AI and robotics. Instead, they take the view that AI systems and robots will continue to serve their human creators and positively impact the world. In order to sustain the rapidly aging population, Asian tech companies are developing elder care robots that can care for and provide affection to senior citizens.

AI may be the end of us all, or it may be the most useful technology ever developed, but regardless of such uncertainty, we are charging toward a future laden with AI technologies. They learn quickly, so will they learn to love us or hate us?

Posted from DIG101 Blog by Noah R.

In Chapter 20 we see Case jack into the port in the Library. Immediately Case undergoes a transformation. He seems to lose control over himself, haunted by his past. Case usually jacks into someone else’s mind, which gives him company and a sense of place. Yet in this scene he is lost on a beach. Gibson doesn’t just make Case lost though, he collapses and breaks down. The fact that he urinates himself is especially jarring. It his such a juvenile action, yet here is Case our ‘Hero’, though troubled we are routing for him, pissing himself. He loses control over his composure. It drew me into the scene more than any of the action scenes had up to this point.

Another moment in this scene that I thought was masterfully created was Case’s realization of where he is. His defiance against his situation moves him back into the badass category. I love when he says, “Mean, motherfucker,” he whispered to the wind.” (235) Case’s fight against this invisible enemy mixed with his inner struggle to remain calm transforms his character back to its original status. The reader can tell that he is in trouble and he knows it too. He has lost control over this situation.

This reminded me of Inception, in the final level of the dream Dom Cobb is forced to face the ghost of his wife that has haunted him throughout his mission. I am sure Inception has taken a lot from Neuromancer, but this scene is uncanny. We see Cobb return to the ruined city he built with his wife. He is forced to battle with his past whilst not losing sight of where he is. Case does this exact same battle. Though the scenes are different I think if you just focus on Cobb and Case’s emotions, mostly guilt and sadness, you will see the similarities. It is always in the back of the reader and, presumably, Case’s mind that he is flatlined with not long to live. The combination of confusion, fear and tension comes together masterfully to create what was one of my favorite scene in the novel.

Posted from My blog by Patrick H.

The title of this post was inspired by a Reddit post entitled “Is Neuromancer confusing and poorly written, or am I stupid?” that accurately summed up the feelings I had while reading the novel. The question led me to two possible answers; a mathematical one, and one from the author himself.

The Voyant software includes a text analysis called “vocabulary density,” which is found by dividing the number of unique words in a text by the total number of words. For Neuromancer, this value is .112. This means that about 11% of the words in the book are unique. According to Voyant, the average sentence length in the novel is 10.6 words, meaning that a unique word is introduced in about every sentence. This mathematically explains why Neuromancer is so hard to understand, especially on the first read.

The second resource I found was an article written by William Gibson himself, titled “how I wrote Neuromancer.” In it, he admits he “had so very little idea of how to write a novel,” and that he “would write, then, to the audience I imagined in the future of my discovery by friendly if unimaginable forces, and to them alone. A message in a bottle. It only mattered that I get it as right as I possibly could for them.” For Gibson, it seems that the point of the novel was not to create a friendly read for the Sci-fi readers of the 80’s, but to create a prediction of the future.

In this video clip, Gibson talks about how one of his goals when writing was to challenge the science fiction genre, and how this can cause readers with preconceived expectations of the genre to think of his writing as a “failure.”

Posted from Digital Studies 101 by Alivia

It’s no secret that Neuromancer deeply explores the concept of Artificial Intelligence. We see the AI named “Neuromancer” attempt to trick Case into staying with Linda Lee on a beach — the AI’s ineffective last line of defense. But what if that last line of defense had been effective? What if the AI was so smart, that it made an irresistible offer to Case, having the power to own him?

Interestingly enough, there’s emerging evidence that AI is becoming better than us at tricking humans. A writer for Forbes decided to do an experiment with an AI twitter bot: who could be more effective at getting users to click on malicious links: the bot or the writer? Surprising or not, the AI won 275-49. How? It was much more creative in the way it displayed deceptive content. (DON’T CLICK ON THE TWITTER LINK BELOW)

they’re cancelling #PokemonGo… sign this petition to keep the game alive! https://t.co/fUmuW8Qt0X

— Pippa Rogers (@pipparogerer) July 20, 2016

Here’s a look at the Forbes writer’s attempt at getting users to click. The writer uses hashtags, tries to entice with an urging message, and even responds with multiple accounts in order to make the post look more legitimate. Not bad. But the AI? It was way more creative. The bot sent out a variety of tweets, making them more diverse, including GIFs and other forms of media, and even sending them out in different languages. The Forbes writer could not keep up with the creativity of the Artificial Intelligence. That’s kind of freaky.

Neuromancer leaves us hanging, somewhat, as we learn that Wintermute and Neuromancer have combined to create one big personality; they now apparently make up the entire matrix. We don’t know exactly what this is supposed to mean or what it might entail, but we do know that it sounds pretty damn powerful. Neuromancer certainly explores the idea of AI ruling the world. Case literally asks “You God?” It’s a chilling thought, and the scariest part is that we’re beginning to see AI act deceptive and cunning, even more so than humans in some cases.

Posted from Digital Studies 101 Blog by Grant L.

Novels like Neuromancer are rare. Not only does Neuromancer combine multiple unique predictions about the future of the world, more than 30 years later, in 2017, we can actually see that most of these predictions were quite on target. Of course, some of the predictions made in the book did not become reality…at least yet. Things like the super high speed train, or ways to travel into space and visit other colonies have not actually been made possible, however there are a few people that constantly emphasize the necessity of the word “yet” at the end of the previous sentence. Steve Jobs, Elon Mask, Mark Zuckerberg – these are just a few names of the many individuals that are known to be the visionaries behind some of the most impressive technological advances of our times.

When analyzing their success, the question that has always interested me is: where do these people find the inspiration for all these breakthroughs? Many famous philosophers claim that nobody can just come up with something completely new, and that everything out there is just an improved version of something that already exist. I agree with this opinion, and for that reason I really enjoyed reading Neuromancer. The importance of the novel is obvious, when you look around today and see how many beautiful things it inspired. And yes, as you might have already guessed by the title, I do believe that the reason why William Gibson was so accurate about his predictions, is ironically because his novel inspired people to move in the direction he suggested. Turns out, he was not guessing about the future, he was actually leading people into it. Personally, I think we need as much of such guidance as we can get.

Posted from DIG 101 Blog by Andriy M.