Month: March 2017

I found reading Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand a very challenging book for me to understand. While I understood the main scenery and concepts of the different planets interacting together, it was hard for me to grasp the interactions of the people and the different things living on the planets. It is clear to me that Samuel R. Delany wanted to challenge our typical cultural views of sexuality and gender. In Rhyonon where Rat Korga is from, you are allowed to have sex with another “male” when you are over the age of twenty seven. In another planet called Velm where Marq Dyeth is from, you are allowed to have sexual relations with any gender. In the United States, gay marriage was just legalized. While the gay couples are allowed to get married, acceptance of these couples is only slowly getting adapted. I think after reading Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, I have come to realize that the different in acceptance in different sexuality between the book and present day is our present day reliance on gender norms.

In the book, the difference between male and female is ambiguous. Everyone is referred to as a “she” and you only refer to someone as a “he” if you want to have sex with someone. In fact, sometimes I could not tell if characters in the book were male or female because Marq did not specify. Because gender in this universe is standardized between males and females, it evens the playing field in terms of gender identities. Therefore, homosexuality is accepted and deemed normal because it is not within in the gender norm to have to be attracted to someone of the opposite sex. Furthermore, the difference in gender norms in Velm has changed the dynamic of their home life. Two males can be the parents, or two females, or a mix between humans and other creatures. If you are a parent, then they use the term “mother” regardless of sex. Our gender norms in today’s world would never be able to accept a male as a “mother” figure because in many cultures, the mother and father have different roles in the home. Thinking about it now, our strict following of gender norms can sometimes limit us as people, or parents. Sometimes a father might not want to cry in front of his kids because he is supposed to be the strong family member who everyone else is supposed to lean on. I believe that understanding the characters and their interaction with each other was so hard for me to understand because of the engrained gender norms in the culture that I have grown up in. Reading this book made me wish our gender norms would not be as powerful, because it would mean wider acceptance of sexuality for homosexuals. When Delany wrote this book, gay marriage was not legal and was not accepted by many. I think it is very interesting that Delany wrote this book involving the sexual desire between two “males” because of the criticism he would have received. It makes me believe that Delany understood that one day, the barriers of our gender norms would be challenged to release the tensions of our gender and sexuality and form a more accepting world.

The concept of general information systems has been explored throughout class this week. On Thursday, we discussed the capabilities of perfect and complete knowledge. The human capabilities with access to perfect knowledge could be endless. the subject here that particularly interests me is the idea of perfect knowledge and its impacts on prejudice and ability to promote acceptance in society. As we discussed in class, Stars in my Pocket touches on the idea of foreign and familiar and the dichotomy between them. in Particular, things that are foreign to some people, can often lead to judgements and prejudices due to their lack of knowledge of the subject.

An instance of this would be one person holding prejudices of the Islam tradition regarding sacrifice and Jihad. these prejudices may very well be due to a lack of knowledge of the religion and the related traditions/beliefs. With access to perfect knowledge, perhaps there would be a greater understanding of tradition and culture. This greater understanding takes the Islam tradition from a foreign/unfamiliar subject and turns it into a more familiar one. With familiarity comes understanding/appreciation. As certain things are better appreciated, prejudices could be suppressed.

“Stars,” in my opinion, is a peep into this concept. The book presents readers with circumstances they may be unfamiliar with (homosexuality, lack of gender, oddly configured characters, etc). With increased exposure to these unfamiliar aspects of the book, the reader is able to better understand/ accept the circumstances for how they are. In other words, throughout the book, the discomfort or unfamiliarity of the book evolves into a more familiar feeling. The knowledge that the book provides, just as a perfect knowledge system would, provides an opportunity for once unfamiliarity to become custom.

Humans-

This movie I found very intriguing and interesting, but also hard to fathom. Everything that occurred in the movie the idea of the robots teaching themselves to feel and have consciousness- it is something I struggle to wrap my head around. For my journal entry I want to ask a couple questions and go into depth as to why these questions are so striking to me.

1. Is it possible for a computer to teach itself how to feel?

This is a very broad question, but in class we have dived deep into artificial intelligence and it’s possibilities. I find this question so intense and interesting because these movies and articles we are reading are carefully thought into, so I find it confusing if the producers of the movie Humans did enough research to see the extent to technological possibilities that far into the future-or if they are just writing fiction just to write it.

2. Have scientists and technicians and the people that study and invent machines with artificial intelligence- do they predict something like robot humans to exist in the future, and would they be allowed?

The robots in Humans are so real, that it does not seem like something people would ever get to a point to allowing it to be real. But then again, I think about how much humans used to have to do that they now do not because of technology, so why would that not further into something such as a robot servant or something of the sort.

3. Is there a point where humans will stop letting technology replace the daily troubles and work we have in our daily lives?

Just in the same way that computers have replaced millions of jobs as it is, if it continues how will there be any jobs left? Technology, at the rate it’s progressing will eventually be able to replace majority of the jobs that people work at every single day, and if there are no jobs because of robots what will the world turn into? If so few people have jobs left than the world cannot revolve the way it does today. Will the lives of humans completely take a turn and will people stop working? What about currency then? It’s intriguing how far this question could go…

The amazon series “Humans” taps into a long held fear of autonomous robots. Asimov and many other authors have spent their lives writing stories about a futuristic world where robots are able to feel in the same way humans can today. “Humans” attempts to tell a story at a climactic time in the life of robots partnering with humans, the tale of displacement. One of the main storylines in the series is of a stereotypical family, both parents work and are raising 3 kids while trying to stay sane and help their kids succeed. While the mother is gone, the father buys Anita, a robot to help with help around the house. This causes extreme tension between the mother and Anita, in one scene the mother sees that Anita is reading to her youngest daughter she immediately says “Stop reading to her- that’s my job”. The mother is feeling displaced by the female robot coming into the house and, objectively, being able to do more work faster than she ever could have

Another example of displacement is in “Humans” when the parents talk to their oldest daughter, they are discussing her most recent report card, which was extremely lacking. The parents where concered about the lost potential of their daughter, she responds “Why would I spend 7 years in school to become a doctor when a robot can learn how to do it in 15 seconds”. The daughter does not see a place for her in a world full of robots. These fears are not misplaced, displacement was also a major tension in Caves of Steel between the Earthers and robots, many humans were worried the robots would come and steal their jobs.

Currently, we are looking at a future similar to the one described in “Humans”, robots will begin to and have already started to displace humans. This doesn’t have to be a negative, our country just needs to adapt to the changing future.

The show “Humans” encapsulates all of my beliefs about robots since the start of this class. I was shocked to see how parallel the portrayal of Anitta’s displacement of the mother was to be beliefs/fears of AI. At the very beginning of the episode, it was apparent that humans were the superior beings as the father simply said he was “going shopping” and bought Anitta to take care of the house. As she integrated into the household, it seemed as if she began to contest and challenge the mom. This idea parallels my fear, and the fear we have discussed earlier in this class, that as humanoids become integrated into their environment they will begin to adapt the customs and practices of humans.

An example of this is when the mother finds Anitta reading to the daughter and putting her to bed. The mother confronts her and tells her to never read to her daughter again, this is an example of a human trying to retain superiority and prevent displacement by robots. IN response, Anitta assures her that she must value and obey the orders of her owner; referring to Asimov’s law. Although I have these fears of AI displacing humans and replacing them in society, there are moments in the film that ensure that robots are not considered human.

When the peace worker visits Dr Milikan’s house, she comments about how the house was so large for just one person, knowing that he had a robot. Dr. Milikan responded and did not make reference to his robot, “son” being a human. Dr. attempts to humanize his robot by calling him son due to the loss he has endured with the passing of his wife, but the viewer is reassured throughout that the robot does not have merit as a human.

Towards the end of the episode, the husband tells the wife that he did not get the robot to act as the wife, he simply got it to take care of the house; a sign that humans are using robots for their own personal gain. Despite the family’s attempts to dehumanize Anita and robots as a species, I would anticipate the rise of robots and their acceptance as “humans” in future episodes; a fear i have of developments being made in AI in today’s technology world.