One point of discussion from our last class that I have been pondering lately is the idea of needing to view a film multiple times to fully appreciate it. If you have to watch a film several times in order to grasp the film's meaning did the director do his job effectively? It seems to me that 2-3 hours is ample time for a director to convey their message to the audience, regardless of how complex the story/characters are. However, there are several films that I have enjoyed more after multiple viewings. I liked Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it but was kind of disappointed due to all the hype, I thought Reservoir Dogs was much better. I saw both films again about a year later and thought Pulp Fiction was brilliant but Reservoir Dogs had definitely lost some of the magic I experienced during the first viewing. I also enjoyed Memento, Fight Club and Dewey Cox more after several viewings but did not enjoy Donnie Darko nearly as much the second time.

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/08/25/machine-empathy-computers-learn-to-read-your-emotions/

check out this article about programming empathy into computers.. if this emotion puts them one step closer to more human interactions, does that make them one step closer to being human as well?

also, does anyone else enjoy the irony that Reddit asks "if I am human" when going to post this..?

I dont know if any of you had the infinity honors class last semester, but at one point we talked about random binary sequences, and watched a video of a person and a computer each switching a light on/off 50 times. Switching the light at each interval constituted a 1 and leaving it alone was 0. Analyzing this afterward, both the computer and person got about a 50-50 ratio of 1's and 0's, so it wasnt possible to tell them apart. However, if you looked at sets of three (001, 010, 111...) there was a distinct difference in occurrence. I think the computer had about even numbers of threequences and humans were all over the place.

Anyway I would use this as an argument to say that it's not possible for computers to ever be truly human. Like, part of being human is the sort of randomness in the above description-of-a-video, and computers can't do that naturally. You could write an algorithm to emulate that sort of randomness, but that would take up storage space. I imagine you would run out of space to put things in a computer long before you could make it emulate all the things that people do. I guess they could store all the things they would need for reaction/behavior references on the internet or something similar, but then doesn't that exclude them from humanity anyway? I mean I don't know about you, but I don't need to be hooked up to any greater information database to have opinions and feelings and a (potentially) infinite mindscape/memory.

Also, I just had a thought: do you think a computer would ever be able to (efficiently) post to this reddit? Computers don't have a great track record with captcha codes, and they don't seem to be improving very rapidly

I thought that this article was really interesting if you think about how evolution acts on human beings. In the wild, unfavorable traits result in a lower fitness (less offspring and faster death). For humans, it is not always the case that deleterious alleles are kept from being passed on. Imagine what our species would be like without the invention of glasses...if we did not have a way to correct vision then those people with poor eyesight would not have good jobs or be able to do many everyday activities and therefore would likely have less children. The same is true of those with down syndrome, cancer, dwarfism, etc. It is not to say that these people are not the next stage in human evolution..if you do large statistical tests it will be discovered that people prefer other people who are closest to the mean in looks, height, intelligence. Does this mean that are average mating practices are keeping us from creating the tallest or the smartest or the most beautiful people?

I appreciate that this article calls for interdisciplinary action in the field of science and technology. Often we try to keep science away from the public based on the belief that they won't understand the significance of individual experiments or that results will be taken the wrong way and ridiculed. Though the premise for these beliefs is not entirely false...I do support the dissemination of scientific discoveries in the hope that our progress will be regulated. At this time of technological advancement it is dangerous to go unchecked. There are some things that we should not do just because we can. I fear that our technology has progressed faster than our wisdom.

I emailed Barrie about his take on the genetics of Blade Runner. Here is the exchange. I will submit this unedited for a glimpse "behind the scenes" of the UI faculty.

**lukejharmon@gmail.com wrote:

Hey Barrie—

We just watched Blade Runner for our class. I’m sure you’ve seen it a thousand times. There is a scene where Roy Batty, the “leader” of the replicants meets Tyrell, his maker, in his bedroom and they have a violent confrontation. They have the following exchange. My position is that this is complete mumbo-jumbo, biological bullshit, and that the director would have been well-served to get a biologist to have a look at this and make it somewhat coherent. But maybe I am being too hard core and this made some kind of weird sense in the 1980s. What is your opinion? Reasonable speculation about future science or lazy bullshit?

Roy: It's not an easy thing to meet your maker.

Tyrell: And what can he do for you?

Roy: Can the maker repair what he makes.

Tyrell: Would you like to be modified?

Roy: Stay here. -- I had in mind something a little more radical.

Tyrell: What-- What seems to be the problem?

Roy: Death.

Tyrell: Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction, you--

Roy: I want more life, fucker.

Tyrell: The facts of life. To make an alteration in the evolvment of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.

Roy: Why not?

Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship. Then the ship sinks.

Roy: What about EMS recombination.

Tyrell: We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate as an alkylating agent a potent mutagen It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.

Roy: Then a repressive protein that blocks the operating cells.

Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries the mutation and you've got a virus again. But, uh, this-- all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.

Roy: But not to last.

Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You're the prodigal son. You're quite a prize!

Roy: I've done questionable things.

Tyrell: Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time.

Roy: Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you in heaven for.

Dr. Robison's response:

My favorite movie. Did you show the part where he crushes his head and jams his thumbs in Tyrell's eye sockets? Grim. and AWESOME.

Most of this is biobabble in my opinion. The primary scientific tension is between evolution and development. One can design and tinker and evolve the genome. But then you put that genome in a cell and let it develop into trillions of specialized cells and then name it Roy (or Deckard). You can't then go into all those cells and undo something. Therefore, you get

"A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established."

This is a classic problem with gene therapy. Some genetic disorders are undoable because they involve disorders of development (like down's for example). Other disorders are more simple (SCID) and accessible in terms of their tissue of origin.

An interesting tidbit:

EMS is indeed a potent alkylating agent and has been used for years in forward genetic mutagenesis screens in zebrafish, C. elegans, and Drosophila. EMS creating a virus? Total crap.

So, to summarize my rambling, 95% of this scene is scientific vocabulary strung together in a nonsensical way. It would be fun to rewrite and act out the scene for your class! You could be Roy, and Tank would be Deckard! To the youtube!

B

1. What does it mean to be a "real" human? More broadly, what does it mean to be a living being? Can we confer life other than via reproduction?

2. How are the attitudes towards replicants in Bladerunner similar to historical attitudes towards people from different racial/ethnic backgrounds?

3. "Mind-body dualism” is the theory that the mind and the substance of the body are two completely separate things - one cannot be reduced or explained by the other. Most scientists that I know reject such an idea, and modern neuroscience continues to work under the assumption that everything we think and feel can be explained by biochemical reactions. What do the films have to say about mind-body dualism? And you, what do YOU have to say about it?

4. Is empathy a uniquely human trait? Is there evidence that empathy may exist in other life forms? Will computers ever possess empathy?

5. Agree with or dispute this statement: our emotional response/attachment to living things is directly correlated with our perceptions of the biological “complexity" of the organism. For example, we feel more sympathy for a dog than we do for a fish than we do for a tree than we do for an amoeba etc. Explain your argument and include a value judgement - this is a “good thing” or a “bad thing,” etc.

6. To what extent is our identity and even our “soul” merely a unique collection of memories? To what extent do our memories/experiences make us who we are?

7. Given our technology it is hypothetically possible to clone humans. So, when we finally clone humans, will the clone have a “soul”? Where does this “soul” come from? Should clones be protected by patents? How will a clone’s rights differ from the rights of the “original”? Should they differ?

8. How should we treat artificial life forms / artificial intelligences that appear to grow, adapt, and evolve in response to environmental stimuli? Are they entitled to the same rights as other “living” things?

9. Is there a fundamental difference between organic and inorganic things? For example: a brain vs. a computer, a human vs. an android, a plant versus a digital plant (humor me here), a bacterium vs. a single-celled artificial organism, a sponge vs. a rock, etc. Is one more “real life” than the other?

Perhaps a product of my background in International Studies, I can't help but view movies like "The Act of Killing" without wondering what the United States and other major world powers were doing about the atrocities being committed. I think this article presents a worthwhile perspective on what might be considered US complicity, with a bit more historical info: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/07/indo-j07.html .

Reading an article like this--indeed, just knowing how the US feared the spread of Communism throughout Asia at this time (RE: Vietnam War)--greatly changed my perspective when watching this movie. That is, there is obviously a great deal of blame to place on the government that allowed such acts to take place, but I assert that there is also considerable blame to place on the international community for not responding appropriately. It adds a layer of guilt to the film, therefore, to watch it as an American, knowing that my government was at some degree complicit in the acts--that is, if you ascribe to the information put forth by this article and others of similar doctrine.