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In today’s class, we watched the Black Mirror episode The Entire History of You which explored the cultural and ethical implications that would be linked to the integration of futuristic technologies in an alternate-present. In this episode specifically, the idea of an intra-body artificial memory storage system, called a “Grain” was introduced. The characters displayed the wide cultural integration of this technology as every aspect of life accommodated for the Grain– in the car, displays were provided for the passengers to project their memories onto, multiple Grain-projection screens were located spiritually throughout the house. Every conversation inevitably resulted in some sort of Grain reference to retell a story, confirm a statement, or catch a person in their lie. Although the benefits were clear as the characters had perfect recollection of every event they had every experienced since receiving the Grain, the topic of privacy invasion was dove into. With the ability to project memories, refusal to do so would be a sort of social ostracization or a sure reason for suspicion. Anyone could be pressured into doing it against their will socially, and even legally or violently. This idea of limitless and accessible memory raises the topic of security versus privacy. With the Grain, people are able to rely on their memory as a fact as opposed to just an objective recollection, so it is used a sort of surveillance on yet for the public. In the episode, the airport requested to see the passengers’ memories from the full previous week, and the police requested Grain feeds of an assault to use as evidence. More secure– yes; less privacy– also yes. The technology to actually create a real-life Grain is questionable, but even more questionable is whether it should be done or not in regards to ethics.

The book Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand gave the reader a refreshing new perspective of reading. When I started to read the book I was extremely taken aback by the outlandish world the author took us to. The idea of Cultrual Fugue really started to make me think about what would happen to earth if we had a similiar system. Would people try to change their ways to avoid cultural fugue and the destruction of our planet? The world is going into a downward spiral due to climate change and the inability of our species to try to preserve our beautiful home. As I continued to read this novel I realized I began to  normalize  such a strange world in my head and the many parallels RAT Korga and Marq’s world has with our own. The family shows much of the resistance to interspecies relationship similiarly to how people in the US resist same sex or inter racial marriage. These ethical dilemmas are cross cultural and can be seen in even the strangest and most fantastical books like Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

Journal

As we really begin to get into the subject of memory, I have begun to think about my Great-Grandmother who died from Alzheimer’s. She was about 80 when she died and my last and only memory of her before her funeral is from when I was about 6 or 7 years old when we visited her in the hospital. Although I do not remember much from the trip, I do remember the sort of blank way that she looked at us, as if not knowing or truly caring who we were. However, I do remember the way in which she clung onto my Great-Grandfather’s arm from her wheelchair. Alzheimer’s is a very curious disease and is one that I would never wish on anyone. Even dementia and being unable to place faces or even your surroundings is something that terrifies me. Although, in part, our ability to forget keeps us sane, I believe also that our ability to remember faces, experiences, and more keeps us sane as well. It is a tricky balance.
I pride myself in having a good memory. I self-proclaim myself as one that “never forgets a face,” when in reality I have found myself recently whether someone in one of my lecture classes has been there all year when they stand up to do a presentation. Diseases like Alzheimer’s and other conditions reminds us that memory is fickle and something that we should not take for granted. In the Buried Giant, Axl continues to use others to place himself and them in the sort of puzzle of his life; there is no real way without their help that Axl could function. This sort of dependence is terrifying in itself and although I am not completely through with the book I wonder whether someone comes to take advantage of this dependence if they are not already.

This week I watched my classmates present drafts of their posters and also presented a draft poster with my group. Since being in college, I actually haven’t presented a poster in a course. Usually classes require a slideshow or movie. I have made and presented a few research posters, but they are very different than the ones we are presenting in this IP course. Compared to the research posters I have worked on, this poser had much less texts, more pictures, no graphs, and no sections like “methods”, “data”, or “results”. I liked working on the presentation of the poster. I think it was hard to find a balance of not putting too many words on the poster and making it look like we spent more than 5 minutes on it.

My group presented self driving cars and how they relate to work, ethical dilemmas, and memory. I think our presentation was a good first run through, but there was a lot for us to improve on. For one, we needed to look at stats of the current self-driving cars.

On Thursday we spent the last part of class talking about the Buried Giant. The main thing we focused on was how the author addresses to the readers. He uses words like “you” to make the reader feel included and part of the conversation.

This week, we saw many groups’ presentations, and all of them were very insightful in how today’s world functions and the problems that arise surrounding technology, politics and the environment. The two presentations that stood out to me were the presentations about Amazon and online privacy and about the possible need to relocate to Mars. Both issues differ on the probable size of the issue, one being about our internet privacy and the other being about the literal future of our entire race. An interesting concept that was brought up about the relocation presentation was the question of who gets to go to Mars? Would it be like applying to be a sperm donor, where those that were the most healthy, fit, etc. be selected? Or would applications be open to the general public? It raises many moral and ethical problems surrounding the presentation, and definitely may become reality in the near future as resources begin to be consumed at a frantic pace. The presentation about online shopping and internet privacy was very interesting because of the relevance it has to today’s world surrounding technology. People have conspiracies of governments being able to tap into laptop and cellphone cameras, monitoring our every move as if we were living in 1984 (the book, not the year of course). It also asks the question, can we trust corporations as the pace of technology increases exponentially each year? Will we have to resort to taking our electronic privacy into our own hands? Is it even a possibility?