A good friend of mine is a professor in the humanities, and is working on a curriculum for an upcoming course in Narrative and Artificial Intelligence. She queried a number of us for ideas, and I thought that Hubski might have some good suggestions that I could point her to.

These are the specifics:

    I’m working on a class I will teach next fall (assuming enough students enroll) and I would like your ideas, comments, and suggestions (see course description below). I’ll only have time to show about 10 movies if I’m lucky. So I’m interested in discussion about which 10 movies they should be, as well as ideas about other movies that wouldn’t necessarily make the cut, but could appear on the Final Project menu. I’m also looking for more readings and opinions about which readings should take priority. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. -B

    Narrative and Artificial Intelligence (HUMANITIES/open to First-years) Course Description Why do we tell so many stories about “robots?” Why are we most likely to represent artificial intelligence in the shape of a human? Why do so many “robot” narratives speculate about the possibility of machines acquiring emotion as part of artificial intelligence? What do recent popular film narratives reveal about the relationship between humans and technology? The genre of science fiction has considered variations on these questions for a long time. But perhaps most vividly, the intersection between science fiction and popular film shows where and how mass culture engages with these questions. In this course, we will consider these questions in relation to films and related readings.

    Tentative Film Schedule Metropolis 2001 Bladerunner Tron (which version?) Star Wars I Star Trek Second Gen. The Terminator I The Matrix I Battlestar Gallactica (episode or movie?) Wall-e

    Possible Readings: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Mechanic vs Organic Form” Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art of Mechanical Reproduction” Isaac Asimov, I, Robot Ray Kurzweil Jason Silva NPR News /Radio Lab “real” world Robot Stories Individual Final Project Options: Films not on the class schedule Video Games (non-narrative?) Other related narrative constructs such as the vampire (mechanical reproducibility) or the psychopath (the inhuman human)

Thanks!

theadvancedapes:

As someone who is thinking about re-directing my graduate career in the direction of futurology, here are my suggestions:

ANY contemporary scientific or humanities discussion on the future of humanity must include Kurzweil (whether you support him or not):

The Singularity Is Near (2005) Transcendent Man (documentary) (2009)

If you don't want to spend too much time on Kurzweil but want a solid perspective on how the field of AI perceives Kurzweil's theories on the future, you can read this article (which I think is fair and insightful):

Goertzel, B. 2007. Human-level artificial general intelligence and the possibility of a technological singularity: A reaction to Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, and McDermott’s critique of Kurzweil. Artificial Intelligence, 171: 1161-1173.

To dig deeper into contemporary "futurology" it is important to discuss the research produced from The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Some of their biggest thinkers, economist and anthropologist Robin Hanson, as well as mathematician and philosopher Nick Bostrom are great places to start:

Hanson, R. 1998. Is a singularity just around the corner? Journal of Evolution and Technology, 2. Hanson, R. 2000. Long-term growth as a sequence of exponential modes. Hanson, R. 2001. Economic growth given machine intelligence. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. Hanson, R. 2008. Economics of the singularity. IEEE Spectrum, 45: 45-50. Hanson, R. 2008. Economics of brain emulations. In Healey, P. & Rayner, S. (eds.). Unnatural Selection – The Challenges of Engineering Tomorrow’s People: 150-158. London: EarthScan.

Nick Bostrom's ideas and perspectives can be found easily on YouTube and I would suggest this FANTASTIC Aeon Magazine piece on Bostrom and the Future of Humanity Institute for your course: http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/ross-andersen-human-.../

Francis Heylighen is a hidden genius in the world of futurology. I think he is mostly hidden because he is Belgian. Either way, his works are unbelievable and necessary readings for any discussion on our future:

Heylighen, F. 2007. The global superorganism: An evolutionary-cybernetic model of the emerging network society. Social Evolution & History, 6: 57-117.

Heylighen, F. 2008. Chapter 13 Accelerating socio-technological evolution: From ephemeralization and stigmergy to the Global Brain. In Modelski, G., Devezas, T. & Thompson, W.R. Globalization As Evolutionary Process. New York: Routledge.

Of course, it is important to also dissect and discuss the work of the man who proposed the idea of the technological singularity: Vernor Vinge. Here are some of his notable works:

Vinge, V. 1993. The coming technological singularity: How to survive in the post-human era. Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace. Vol. 1.

Vinge, V. 2007. What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen. Seminars About Long-Term Thinking, the Long Now Foundation.

Vinge, V. 2008. Signs of the singularity. IEEE Spectrum, 45: 76-82.

Also H+ Magazine's Adam Ford recently did an interview with him that is great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tngUabHOea0

It seems like sci-fi is also featured prominently in this course. Therefore, I would also suggest watching the H+ series on YouTube about the merger of humans and machines: http://www.youtube.com/user/HplusDigitalSeries

I hope those suggestions are of some help. If you have any further questions or need more suggestions feel free to contact me via Hubski.

EDIT:

I almost forgot - given the nature of the course, the following two articles have immense historical value:

Ulam, S. 1958. Tribute to John von Neuman. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 64: 1-49.

Good, I.J. 1965. Speculations concerning the first ultraintelligent machine. Advances in Computers, 6: 88.

EDIT 2:

Also, in my opinion, the biggest question that people within the field of artificial intelligence and futurology have to understand is whether the substrate of the mind (i.e., biology versus technology; cells versus microprocessors) matters when it comes to consciousness. If the substrate matters (i.e., only biology can produce consciousness) than the future becomes very mysterious and confusing (as noted by Vinge (2007)). If the substrate does not matter (as proposed by Kurzeil in How to Create a Mind (2012)) then I would contend that we can start to discuss a) the types of AI that will exist before 2050, b) the roles they will play within our society, c) and their place within an evolutionary framework of life, intelligence, and the universe.


posted 4050 days ago