Computers and Robots in Film -FINAL

Daniels

The capable believer -Confident, capable, decisive -Keeper of the covenant -Believes in Branson and his vision -Knows what angels are capable of - *Punished for trusting a machine*

The Matrix - FREE WILL

The choice offered by Anderson's boss • The choices offered by Morpheus • The choices offered by the Oracle • The choices offered by Smith

Bazins: The Ontology of Photographic Image

The cinema has always been interested in God - Role of mummification - Plastic realism - Benefit of mechanical reproduction - Aesthetics vs. Psychological pseudo-realis

T2 - Optimistic / Fate Ending

The unknown future rolls toward us - Negative connotation - Its equivalent to God - Positive value that transcends human understanding

Ending - Nathan

stabbed - fate seems well deserving - Dr. Frankenstein - end shot --> allegory of the cave -* Men were left in Red --> color of denial throughout movie*

Kracauer: Redemption of Physical Reality

"The radiance of the sunset" - Science through abstraction has dematerialized reality - Film as a bottom up art form - Film as a documentary medium - Recording of daily life

Carrs

"These are not the robots that were promised" *Robot invasion → Amazon, Google, Apple* "Oracles of the countertop" *An in-home invasion of privacy by their makers* The HAL model and the increasingly ambient model Every narciccus deserves an echo Changes our experience Lose a sense of time "There's also this open-ended way of thinking where you're not always trying to answer a question. You're trying to go where that thought leads you."

Marxist Critique

*Contemporary media are blurring the lines between what we need and the commercially created needs. * - Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money rather than usefulness, now controls, so that quantification becomes primary. -* Multinational capitalism separates produced goods from indigenous contexts. * - *urbanization separates human from nonhuman, causing alienation. * - Language and ideology reinforce the production of power relations - Is Disney world real?

Feminism in Terminator 2

*Feminism = in film women have autonomy and agency* - Sarah: o *Fighting for and receives power from patriarchy* o Inadequacy of her body vulnerability o Slip forces feminism, aside from muscular body o Fit ness body o Kills Dyson o Takes upon herself to change the future, opposite of T-800 - T-800 --> maternal hero, carries out mission by sacrificing himself

Terminator 2 - Free Will

*Free will = personal agency, no set future* - *Fate = our actions are meaningless* - *Kyle Reese Dream Sequence* o Hallucination o "Remember the message, the future is not the self" o scratches, no fate - *John Connors Destiny:* o Protected throughout, no free choice - *Sarah / Myles only people that can determine the future* - T-800 AI designed to carry out missions o Mission parameters to obey John Connor o Programming overrides the T-800's use of deadly force - *" The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves" - *" The unknown future rolls towards us. I face it, for the first time with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value pf human life, maybe we can too"

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

*Knowledge achieved only with effort* - Masses are ignorant, democracy is bad, idea of enlightened King - Bring your own truth but NO ONE will believe it - *Nature of truth = belief in a Transcendence god* (form that exceeds human capacity) - Perfection that all knowledge must reach - *Cave = realm of belief* - *World = realm of knowledge* - *Sun = form of goodness*

Rosenblum

*Kubrick and Spielberg are the same* - But opposites -* Spielberg has sense of family and motherhood* - Movie is grim o Reeks Disney cartoons Pinocchio o WEIRD closing and opening

Browns: "Man w/out Movie Camera"

*Post humanism as not the end of humanity but rather humans no longer central and binding role in reality* - Displacement of anthropocentricism w/ an evolutionary change that opens up possibilities in identity -* Post humanist cinema envisions:* o Transcendence of physical laws w/ non-human characters o *Physical reality as an illusion* o Subset of animation - No cuts, only change in pixels - *Adoption of techniques that enable the impossible creation of non-human perspective* - Cinema as "language games" - LOVE = motivating force that frees main character - Human nature understood through a social construct - *Film's meaning results from interpretation, not from inherent meaning*

Stewart's Body Snatching:

*Sci-Fi movies are an attack on mediatization* - Creation of images mediated between reality and the imaginable world - Male body is special effect in action movies, questions what is natural o Sci-fi portrays men as desiring to break free - * The Terminator with its time loop focuses on photography and electronic predation* - digital replaces photographically reproduced so that photography offers little hedge against the hyperreal - Digital computer visuals take their greatest toll on the corporeal integrity of the represented body

Ted Talk - Turkle

*Social networking: vulnerability, its making us more alone* Need more self awareness Need more solitude, and separateness "I Share therefore I am" *Turkle → mentions THoreau* What is the value of technology?" Efficiency? In solitude we find ourselves Conversations → empathy

Networked in a Nutshell - RAINE / WELLMAN

*Triple Revolution: Social Network, Internet, Mobile* 1. *People function more as networked individuals* 2. *Families function as networks* 3. Social networks are *larger* 4. More internet use the more in-person contact *5. Work at home and away , part time vs full* 6. Loosely bound 7. ICTS provide more diverse info 8. Shift to interest-based communities 9. *Public-Private boundries* 10. Transportation fungible

White Head - Science as Modern World

- *Injected Dualism* - Focused on relations - View of Religion and Science o Science contradicting religion - Science: general conditions which are observed to regulate physical phenomena - *Religion: contemplation of moral and aesthetic values --> CONSTANT CONFLICT BETWEEN THE Two*

*Corporization of America

- David's memory is a corporate logo - image of moon as Spielberg's logo - David as success story as a commercial project

AI Themes

- Evolution of human kind - Human mistreatment of AI - Acquisition of emotions

*Mills - Meanings of Work

- Pre-capitalist view: o Work as creative and artisan tool o CRAFT use to do things for enjoyment, NO $$$ - Work as exterior --> do it like robots - Work as interior-->meaningful as pleasurable craft - Contemporary work --> only for money, no one enjoys

Illusion of Free Will - ex machina

- Scene where Ava dresses up -Nathan programmed Ava to be heterosexual - Nature made Caleb straight

Frost's Mowing Poem

- Symbolism - Grim Weeper - Positive outlook - desribes the sound - post equivalent to the worker - dream like state - *tools as means of meditation* - tension between the real / poetic imagination - centrality of time and death - *SOLITUDE --> ALONE* - *comfort of nature and body*

Riesman: 3 different people

- Traditional directed = historical icons, based on traditions, culture - Inner-directed = renaissance, parents, guilt - Outer-directed = contemporary consumer society, peers including media, anxiety

Late Capitalism

- Transnational business - New forms of media / technologies - Computers and automation - International division of labor - Signified (object), signifier (duplication) - New emotional ground tone - intensities - Mission of political art results in bewildering new world space

Ending - Ava

- Unexpected dual ending AVA --> her ending is main - *AI's ability to self-actualize* - we see Ava go into nature and take control - puts on new skin and clothes - submerged by blue --> blue was color to gain access - creations evolve , no humans - clothed herself like the portrait *- AI becomes part of society*

Yeats - Second Coming Poem

- central metaphor for Robot movies today - *the worst are filled with passion and intensity * - *overthrowing of hiearchy* - a rising disbelief in science and rationality - *OPTIMISTIC VIEW --> we are still in the process of making ourselves more human*

The Machine Stops Predictions - THEMES - FORSTER

- comformity of the hive - science (air, nature) - close out windows / no light --> Wells strives for - material abundance - culture of conveinence --> VALUE

The Morale of the Cheerful Robots - Mills:

- work setting = workers unhappiness - Shift in scale and complexity of work (New Deal, Fair Deals, and unions) - managers seek to maximize efficiency through incentives (@work)

The Machine Stops Predictions - forster

-global comm systems - View on nature? - losing touch with it - *limited physical human interaction --> NETWORKED INDIVIDUALISM* - everyone has the same things - *Communism --> sameness?* - *materiality comfortable society* -* machine = GOD figure in society*

Robocop - Asimov's 3 laws

1. A robot may not injure a human or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm 2. A robot must obey a human's orders, except when in conflict with the first law 3. A robot must protect its own existence except when in conflict with two prior laws

3 Branches of Humanism

1.* Liberal* a. Uniqueness, free will, inherent conflict 2.* Socialist* a. Environment and experience 3.* Evolutionary* a. Darwinism evolution and natural selection process, increasing role in modern culture

Marxist Critique --> Commercialism / Capitalism

1.*Pre-modernism - Representation is an artificial place-marker for the real. The uniqueness of objects* marks them as irreproducible real and representation seeks this reality. 2. *Modernism of the Industrial Revolution* - Distinctions between representation and reality break down as a result of mechanical reproductions and commodification. *Disappearance of the "aura"* of the original. 3. *Postmodernism of Late Capitalism *- Simulacrum (or *copy) precedes the original*, and the *distinction between reality and representation disappears*. There is only the simulacrum or copy, *originality = meaningless*

Jameson Reading

1980's - rise of suburbs - Postmodernism is the inability to think historically o Post modernism --> problematic relationship with any form of art - Nature is forever gone - Theory itself is subject to post modernism - "Post modernism is the consumption of sheer commodification as a process" - "Late capitalism", multi-national capitalism, globalism - Culture seems natural - Image society

Ending

2001 --> David is reborn in a bedroom through God-like creatures - AI --> David in a bedroom relives an ideal day and is born through God-like beings

AI Artificial Intelligence

A robotic boy, the first programmed to love, David (Haley Joel Osment) is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee (Sam Robards) and his wife . Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David. Without final acceptance by humans or machines, David embarks on a journey to discover where he truly belongs, uncovering a world in which the line between robot and machine is both vast and profoundly thin. - *David is obsessed with defining what is real* - *David wonders if time is real or not* - David expresses loneliness - Based on Aldiss short story

HER

A sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal letters for other people. Left heartbroken after his marriage ends, Theodore becomes fascinated with a new operating system which reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. He starts the program and meets Samantha, whose bright voice reveals a sensitive, playful personality. Relationship deepens to love Is this a Sci-Fi or a horror film? Science → magic / religion What is memory? What does it mean to have feelings? To be human? A critique of: Hollywood mythology Post modernist myth *Progressiveness of mechanical reproduction* Abundance / pleasureness Trying to create a world that seems pleasant Romantic comedy → human / non human Film references: Titanic, Pleasantville

Creation of Image Addiction

Abandonment of collective project - Marx: dialectical materialism and progress - Marcuse: culture as semi-autonomous and indistinguishable from economic value / state power - Lack of distantiation - Ideology has tied together existential experience and scientific knowledge

The Big Split - Mills:

Alienation: money-focused work - Separation: work and home life - Leisure: o Unserious freedom from the authoritarian seriousness of the job o Compensation for the weary, urban masses o Seeks to astonish, excite and distract not to enlarge reasoning, feeling, or creativity

The Matrix - Marxism / Corporate Culture

Anti-capitalist film - *Dream world = "The Matrix"*

Alien Covenant

Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, members (Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup) of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think to be an uncharted paradise. While there, they meet David (Michael Fassbender), the synthetic survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition. The mysterious world soon turns dark and dangerous when a hostile alien life-form forces the crew into a deadly fight for survival.

Staiger's "Future Noier: Contemporary Representations of Visionary Cities

Buildings reflect the identity of their corporations - Urban architecture reflects multinationals and films speak to it - Urban over rural - Creation of goods through ads - Culture of consumption, not production - *HG Wells high rises: a mass, managed society with state surveillance and individual alienation*

Ex Machina

Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) a programmer at a huge Internet company, wins a contest that enables him to spend a week at the private estate of Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), his firm's brilliant CEO. When he arrives, Caleb learns that he has been chosen to be the human component in a Turing test to determine the capabilities and consciousness of Ava (Alicia Vikander), a beautiful robot. However, it soon becomes evident that Ava is far more self-aware and deceptive than either man imagined. Nathan = CEO of data company, steals data Setting = Norway, isolated home, shows Nathan's wealth and privacy --> makes Caleb sign contract

Bob Morton

Constantly hanging with models and doing drugs - Gets shot - Offers to double $$ - Money cannot give happiness - Dick wins over killing o Winner / loser = promotion

Yeats - Stolen Child

David goes to Dr. Know and quotes from Yeats - Several AI movies quote him - Started optimistic and turned black - How can Blue Fairy make a robot into a real boy? -* INNOCENCE * o *Child doesn't understand how awful world is* o Fairies take child to island, world is anxious place o Are fairy's innocent / real?

Blade Runner - 1982

Director = Ridley Scott - Deckard (Harrison Ford) is forced by the police Boss (M. Emmet Walsh) to continue his old job as Replicant Hunter. His assignment: *eliminate four escaped Replicants from the colonies who have returned to Earth.* Before starting the job, Deckard goes to the Tyrell Corporation and he meets Rachel (Sean Young), a Replicant girl he falls in love with. - Presentations: Is Deckard a human or a replicant? - What role does memory play in the film? o Changing of robots over time

Themes - Robocop

Dissertation of violence and humanity - Relentless crime, social strife - Corporate privatization - Technological take over - Robotic Christ --> end, walking on water

Tim Wu

Entire culture is based on convenience and efficiency - Value and convenience enhances the system o Increases profit - Domination of "multi-tasking" - Convenience is all destination and no journey - "We give other names to our inconvenient choices: we call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions

Mills - Craftsmanship

Exclusive goal of making / creating - Human identification w/ craft and details - Craftsperson in control

Thoreau

False religions build temples, what is truly Christian does not Sought isolation

Is David Human?

First mecca of his kind --> ADAM - Imagines things that don't exist and that he cannot see - Kills another of his species - Has memories - Cries

Free Will and Privacy - ex machina

Free will: voluntary choice / decision - intertwined in movie with privacy - Caleb goes to Nathans house, cuts himself to see if he has robot features -Ava cannot see / feel scenery - NATHAN AS GOD --> "Ai's are gonna look back on us the same way we look back on fossils" - OMNISCENT BEING LOOKS AT EVERYONE

A Disney World?

Gigolo Joes sexuality /music - Pinocchio - *Power of imagination to overcome physical world* - Movie as an endorsement of parent hood

OCP Vs. Police

Goal: Delta City - more jobs, safe city - Kick people out who don't support new culture - Robocop all crime eliminated in 40 days for efficiency - Corporate America making strides in technology

Mills - Conditions of Modern Work

Hobbies define craftsmanship - From rural to urban - Personality as means of production - Division b/t work and play - Living outside of ourselves

Harari - A Brief History of Tomorrow:

Humanist Revolution: o Make realizations out of our feelings o God is dead almost no rules o Modern culture not rooted in a cosmic plan - Humanism: God is dead - Therapist as a priest - Focus on the "inner experience" or feelings as good / bad - Humanisms impact on ethics, politics, and education - Free market economy - Gods = psychic demons - Scientific revolution = disappearance of value - Changing understanding of knowledge - Reasons and emotion - Life as a gradual process of inner change

Robocop

In a violent, near-apocalyptic Detroit, evil corporation Omni Consumer Products wins a contract from the city government to privatize the police force. To test their crime-eradicating cyborgs, the company leads street cop Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) into an armed confrontation with crime lord Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) so they can use his body to support their untested RoboCop prototype. But when RoboCop learns of the company's nefarious plans, he turns on his masters. - 1980's corporate America shown between power struggles of characters and murders - Criticizes late capitalism, Reganism, and technocratic colonization of the body - Emphasizes TV editing as determining human view point - Shifts audience from Murphy's to Robocop's viewpoint - Adoption of n name "Murphy" represents the triumph of cyborg, not individualism

Terminator 2 Judgement Day

In this sequel set eleven years after "The Terminator," young John Connor (Edward Furlong), the key to civilization's victory over a future robot uprising, is the target of the shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a Terminator sent from the future to kill him. Another Terminator, the revamped T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), has been sent back to protect the boy. As John and his mother (Linda Hamilton) go on the run with the T-800, the boy forms an unexpected bond with the robot. - Directed by James Cameron - 2 Terminators in the movie (good / bad) - Arnold = good - All liquid metal = bad - Both are machines w/ flesh - Larger budget, Terminator as a better warrior and parent who sacrifices himself

*HARRARI --> T2

Liberal Humanism - We as humans can learn value of human life - Robots cannot, no common values

Ending - Robocop

Murphy and Lewis kill clearance, destroy ED-209 o Think Robocop is dead - Pessimistic Ending: o Automation threat o OCP still operational o Directive 4 still in place - Optimistic Ending: o "Christ has Risen" o Robocop triumphed bad guys o Humans and machines can work together

The Matrix

Neo (Keanu Reeves) believes that Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), an elusive figure considered to be the most dangerous man alive, can answer his question -- What is the Matrix? Neo is contacted by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), a beautiful stranger who leads him into an underworld where he meets Morpheus. They fight a brutal battle for their lives against a cadre of viciously intelligent secret agents. It is a truth that could cost Neo something more precious than his life. - Came out when internet took off - FREE WILL Anderson Boss, Morpheus o* Who chooses the stake / grool?* -* What is real? How do we define real?* - *If Plato and Descartes view the world of the five senses as less real and/or a dream and if Neo, too, has such a sensation, then what is the Ideal Form in The Matrix? The Nebuchadnezzar? * - The effect of digital technology - Marxist critique of post modernism

Murders - Robocop

OCP will do anything to get to their Delta City - Kevin's death was seen as disappointment o Corporations don't care about their workers

Harari: Sapiens History of Humankind:

Only species that can imagine something that doesn't exist o Enables us to form cultures - Only species that can imagine capitalism ($), human rights - Human beings can create mythology and imagine o Is it memory that makes us human?

Aldiss: Super Toys

Over populated world - *Humans can create life, but not intelligence* - People are afraid of *synthetic fleshed with a brain* - *Losing privacy with computers*

Pinnochio

Quest to be a real boy by the Blue Fairy - Becomes his own fable hero - Turning point when Monica leaves David in forest - Switches from adult's perspective to David's after forest scene - Is Teddy hero --> jiminy cricket

Chapter 1: Jameson

Rupture in late 50's and early 60's waning of modernism - *Modifications in aesthetic production --> architecture* - Postmodernism as a cultural dominant, not merely a style -*not an immediate experience, but extraction* - Eternal presence - Fragmentation - Rise of "neo" --> neoliberalism (advocates free market)

Women in Movie

STRONGER THAN MEN Samantha's voice changing and vulnerability Ted cannot get over his ex Catherine → can defend herself w/ confidence Samantha → grows to love herself without her bodu, overcoming insecurities Females overcome challenges, but males (Theo) cannot *Alan Watts quote: Sartre → Existentialism, other cannot be put in the pocket*

Opening

Similar to 2001 --> birth of humanity (mecha) vs. birth of apes - AI --> creation of a new species

New Social Operating System of Networked Individualism - Raine / wellman

Triple revolution → social network, internet, and mobile *"Networked Individualism as new operating system"* *Connected as individuals, not hiearchal groups* *free market economy reflection* Diverse associates replace tight connections to small, settled groups Networks loose, more divers, more fragmented *Networks extend voice* Private / public Transparency *Era of free agents and personal agency*

Networked Chapter: Raine / Wellman

What is their view on social networking? *Positive, connects you with an array of people outside of your local group* Relationship? Parents → you do not choose Friends → you choose Hiearchies → can choose friends, not parents, they begin to disappear (power structures)

2. Internet Revolution - RAINE / WELLMAN

Why did the Internet develop? •Initial US government support with a light touch •FCC classified the Internet as an *"information", not "communication", service* •Technology improved substantially (Moore's Law) •Internet remained an *interconnected network* •Prices dropped •ISPs provided bandwidth at a flat rate ("all you can eat")

Mills - Frames of Acceptance

Work as unpleasant - Income defines satisfaction o Income (fear of no job) o Status o Power - Skill defines meaning of work

Isaac Asimov

Works with androids - Can't create robot with sense of beauty / obligation - *Imitation is not the same as value* - Androids = material objects - *Humans are the only ones that lie*

Prologue - Alien Covenant

exposing Peter Weiland's View (similar to Dr. Frankenstetin) Things dont happen by chance Covenant = contract b/t human and God What is the hail? -To build the cabin -No answers, no certainty → free climbing -"I will not climb without ropes" Daniels difference→ no beliefs human can rely on Cabin on the lake → con coincidental that David says at end "if we do kind, it will be a kind world" Recognizes that its David, not Walter and the covenant got broken

Walden - Solitude

•* Humans are part of nature. * • We leave traces in nature. • We are alone. •* Nature relieves us of our solitude through our senses. * -Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the milky way? - need to accept to arrive at reason - no matter where we are, we are alone -* "Rather than love, the money / fame, GIVE ME TRUTH" → abosolute value, believing in GOD*

Networked AI and Children

•*Unlike adults, children can't grasp that sociable robots are "appliances"*. *•Children interpret robots' behavior as feelings.* •Robotics companies seek to take advantage of the most vulnerable in order to expand their market. •*Robots are programmed to "push our buttons" and take advantage of our vulnerabilities.* •Dolls and sociable machines differ (*projection v. engagement).* •"When the messy becomes tidy, we can learn to enjoy that."

1. Social Network Revolution - RAINE / WELLMAN

•Immigration, the 1960s and technology fostered networks •Spreading influence through such networks, not groups •*Trust replaces the "cohesive force of the tribe to punish"* •An example: the demise of defined benefit plans and the rise of independent retirement plans *Desire for personal autonomy*

3. Mobile - RAINE / WELLMAN

•Time more fluid with changing expectations *•Changing from a place-based to a person-based culture* •*Mobile connections become "places" and mobile defines one's identity* •Continual access to information and communications •Mobile strengthens connection with others *Bluirring lines between public / private* Absent prescene