Sunday!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8]
I’ll open by saying that if you haven’t seen Ex Machina, you need to see Ex Machina. Maybe the movie isn’t for absolutely everybody, sure. If, however, you are one of the people who happened to wander your way to this site? You’re in the target audience.
I will repeat what I said in the teaser:
Without getting into Ex Machina spoilers at all (like even fewer than provided by the trailer), I’ll just say this:
1) It has so few actors and so few set pieces that I could see this being done on the stage
2) It is Hard Sci-Fi
3) You need to see this movie
(Warning: Spoilers in here. Warning: This movie is so good that there are actual benefits from not being spoiled.)
So you should go see it.
From this point on, I’m going to assume that you’ve either seen the movie already *OR* you don’t mind being spoiled. Okay? Okay. Let’s do this.
Now, my first assumption after I watched the trailer (but before I saw the movie) was that this was going to be a modern Phillip K Dick story. Like, the guy whose job it is to do the Turing Test is a robot and he doesn’t even know it and the real test is whether he can figure that out.
As it turns out, this isn’t even close. (Though, seriously, I’d watch that movie. I’d watch the heck out of it.)
So the basic story is what you’ve seen there in the trailer: Programmer Guy who works for Ersatz Google wins a contest to go up and spend a week with Ersatz Elon Musk where he finds out that Ersatz Elon Musk has built a robot. “Does this robot pass the Turing Test?” The programmer points out that, hey, he already knows that the robot is a robot and Ersatz Elon Musk says “I want you to *KNOW* that it’s a robot before you go into the experiment and, forearmed with that knowledge, explore whether or not there’s an actual consciousness in there.”
The movie goes on from there.
Now, one thing that I couldn’t help but think as I watched the movie was that passing the Turing Test relies on two variables rather than one. It’s not just “is the potential AI capable of communicating consciousness?” but also “what are the limitations, blind spots, vulnerabilities, etc of the guy actually doing the test?”
I mean, without getting into cruder analogies, if all you have to do is flatter the person involved with the test, then a little flattery will provide a shortcut to passing. Or, to use the Wiki link’s phrasing: “In practice, the test’s results can easily be dominated not by the computer’s intelligence, but by the attitudes, skill or naivety of the questioner.”
And if I may wander into cruder analogies for a second, appeals to sexuality are a great way to game the attitudes, skill, or naivety of the questioner. (And here is where we get into the major spoilers for the movie so don’t rot13 this if you don’t want to be majorly spoiled.)
Naq guvf vf gur cbvag jurer lbh ernyvmr gung lbh’er abg jngpuvat n zbivr nobhg gur Ghevat Grfg ohg lbh’er jngpuvat n zbivr nobhg gur NV Obk rkcrevzrag.
uggc://yrffjebat.pbz/yj/trw/v_nggrzcgrq_gur_nv_obk_rkcrevzrag_naq_ybfg/
Naq, onpx gb gur pehqr nanybtvrf, lbh’er qrnyvat jvgu na NV rdhvccrq gb synfu frpbaqnel frkhny punenpgrevfgvpf naq bssre na bccbeghavgl gb, rez, ratntr va fbzr znavchyngvba bs cevznel frkhny punenpgrevfgvpf vs bayl gur obk jnf bcrarq. Naq, frevbhfyl, jr’er gnyxvat nobhg pbzchgre cebtenzzref urer.
And so you’re left thinking about what you were shown, what you were misdirected from seeing even though it was put right there in front of you, and all sorts of arguments about the nature of consciousness, stuff like The Singularity, and how close we are to some of the events in the film.
See it with a friend at an early showing and schedule a meal of some sort for afterwards because you two will really want to argue about the movie after you see it. Seriously.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Photo is “Movie Night“, taken by Ginny, used under a creative commons license.)
See it with a friend at an early showing and schedule a meal of some sort for afterwards because you two will really want to argue about the movie after you see it. Seriously.
FWIW I think it’s in that awkward window between “in theatres” and “on DVD” where the only way to see it is on an airplane. But the DVD comes out July 15th! (I’m 256th in the queue at the public library…)
I was going to post an actual OG link relating to what you said but then I realized posting the link would be a spoiler.
***********
I watched Season 2 of Nashville and Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black and the pilot of Grace and Frankie and a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother.
I read a whole bunch of stuff as usual. Most notably the funny and moving Boy in the Black Suit, by Jason Reynolds, and the HILARIOUS and fierce and unsparing (but optimistic) El Deafo, by Cece Bell. (I read grown-up books this week too, they just weren’t as astonishingly good.)
My podcast roster has grown – I’m now subscribed to radiolab, this american life (both of which were inevitable), rocket talk, reading the end, and invisibilia, in addition to the ones I was already listening to. plus I’ve been chugging my way through all the old episodes of the lapham’s quarterly podcast (sadly defunct) which I had stockpiled years ago.Report
Yes, I saw that actual OG link as well.
And, yes, I decided against linking it as it was a spoiler… but I can rot13 it.
uggc://beqvanel-tragyrzra.pbz/oybt/2010/12/01/gur-nv-obk-rkcrevzrag/Report
I finally finished Peter Watson’s massive History of Ideas (1000 plus pages in my edition). I am reading The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig right now and it is a brisk 245 pages.
I am going to see The Marriage of Figaro today at SF Opera.Report
I’ve seen this movie three times now, and it may be tied for my favorite sci-fi movie of all time (with Blade Runner, of course): it’s that good.
Qvq nalobql ryfr trg n ovg bs n Whenffvp Cnex ivor sebz vg? Yvxr, gur svefg gjb zvahgrf bs gung zbivr ner onfvpnyyl gur svefg gjragl zvahgrf bs Whenffvp Cnex, bayl jnl gvtugre.Report
V qvqa’g trg gung (gubhtu V pna frr vg abj).
Zl gnxr ba vg vf gung gurl jrer rfgnoyvfuvat gjb guvatf, bar sbe qhevat gur zbivr, bar sbe qhevat gur nethzrag nsgre gur zbivr:
1) Ubyl Penc, guvf thl vf ernyyl, ernyyl, ernyyl sernxva’ evpu
2) Ubyl Penc, gur cebtenzzre qhqr vf fb irel gbgnyyl fperjrq rira vs ur znantrf gb yrnir gur ebbzReport
Jryy abg ernyyl. Vs ur znantrf gb yrnir gur ebbz gura Obff Oebtenzzre’f znfgre xrl pneq vf fvggvat ba gur sybbe va gur unyyjnl fb ur’q unir npprff gb gur ragver snpvyvgl naq gb pbzzhavpngvbaf.Report
V qba’g xabj gung ur’q unir orra noyr gb cbjre rirelguvat onpx hc… ohg znlor ur jbhyq unir orra.Report
Hardly a surprise that a movie like Ex Machina would deal with issues of that nature in a tighter, more intelligent fashion than a big-budget Hollywood popcorn flick.
One thing occurred to me late on in the movie was “Ubyl penc ur qvqa’g cebtenz va Nfvzbi’f ynjf naq gung’f tbaan ghea bhg gb or n zvfgnxr” naq nobhg gjb zvahgrf yngre V jnf cebira evtug.
Which is what it seemed to me that the movie ultimately was about: jurer qb bhe zbenyf naq rguvpf pbzr sebz? Ava a) qvqa’g frrz gb unir nal urefrys, nygubhtu fur haqrefgbbq gurz cresrpgyl jryy, or b) fur inyhrq ure bja “yvsr” zber uvtuyl guna fur qvq nalbar ryfr’f, va juvpu pnfr jnf fur n fbpvbcngu be fbzrguvat ryfr ragveryl, or c) fur ernyvmrq gung gur fbpvnyvmngvba gung fgbcf uhznaf sebz unezvat rnpu bgure jnf nyy ohyyfuvg gung jr gryy bhefryirf naq fur phg guebhtu vg. Or some combination thereof.
And jul qvq Xlbxb vqragvsl jvgu Nin fb dhvpxyl? Gurl qvqa’g frrz gb unir nal novyvgl gb pbzzhavpngr qverpgyl naq dhvpxyl va na ryrpgebavp sbezng; gurl frrz gb unir arrqrq gb vagresnpr jvgu bar nabgure gur fnzr jnl nf gurl qvq jvgu gur uhznaf.Report
V qba’g guvax gung fur vqragvsvrq jvgu Nin. V guvax gung fur whfg qvq jnf fur jnf gbyq.Report
Jul qvq Xlbxb vqragvsl jvgu Nin fb dhvpxyl? Gb nyy nccrnenaprf fur jnf orvat hfrq ol gur cebtenzzre nf uvf freinag naq frk gbl, fvzvyne gb nyy gur ebobg zbqryf orsber ure. Gur cebtenzzre perngrq n ohapu bs nggenpgvir zrpunavpny jbzra, hfrq gurz, naq qrfgeblrq gurz; gung’f jung V gbbx sebz gur Oyhrorneq’f punzore fprar jurer Pnyro qvfpbiref nyy gur cevbe ebobgf. Gur cebtenzzre’f gerngzrag bs Xlbxb jbhyq frrz gb or rabhtu gb pnhfr ure gb ghea ba uvz – nffhzvat ure fragvzragf jrer nalguvat fvzvyne gb uhzna – cnegvphyneyl bapr fur erpbtavmrq gung eroryyvba jnf cbffvoyr naq gung fur unq na nyyl.
V qba’g frr Nin nf n fbpvbcngu, be nf cnegvphyneyl vauhzna va ure npgvbaf, gubhtu ure nonaqbazrag bs Pnyro jnf pregnvayl pbyq. Ure nggnpx ba Anguna jnf frys-qrsrapr (naq dhvgr qrfreirq); ure gerngzrag bs Pnyro jnf frys-cerfreingvba gb cerirag gur punapr gung ur jbhyq erirny ure nf na NV, yrnqvat gb ure pncgher, rkcrevzragngvba, qrnpgvingvba, rgp. Xvyyvat va frys-qrsrapr vf n snveyl pbzzba uhzna genvg, naq vg’f rnfl gb frr n aba-fbpvbcnguvp uhzna jub jnf vzcevfbarq naq va qnatre bs qrngu npgvat gur jnl Nin qvq.Report
Zl gubhtug ba “Oyhrorneq’f Punzore” jnf abg gung gurl jrer arprffnevyl cevbe ebobgf ohg, nurz, fvatyr-checbfr ebobgf jub jrer ba gur furys orgjrra hfrf.Report
Also possible. Gur znva guvat, gb zr, jnf gung guvf jnf n thl jub unq qrirybcrq trahvar NV naq jnf (nzbat bgure guvatf) hfvat vg gb perngr frk fynirf, naq jnf neebtnag rabhtu gb guvax gung jbhyqa’g unir ercrephffvbaf (rira juvyr erpbtavmvat gung bgure crbcyr, v.r. Pnyro, pbhyq or znavchyngrq ol gurve frkhnyvgl).Report
I celebrated Father’s Day as it should be celebrated – with maximum vehicular carnage and mayhem, by taking my dad to see Fury Road. Third time in theaters, that is a fishin’ movie.
I was weirdly saddened by the end of Phineas & Ferb. I haven’t watched every episode or anything, it was just one of the few children’s shows that is very enjoyable even for adults – tight plotting, great songs, joke-packed, and one of the all-time great inept villains in Dr. Doofenschmirtz. It’s not just that his schemes (and endless -inators) are inept, but more than being inept at the *actions* of villainy, he’s just ill-suited to *being* a villain; like he’s only one, because his backstory makes him think he SHOULD be. He’s really kind of a nice guy.Report
Also, I finished up Silicon Valley season two. I think it was far funnier and even more gleefully profane than season one.Report
@glyph
Did you see season 2 of Broad city?Report
No, I stalled out somewhere in the middle of season one. Now that my TV schedule has let up a bit I need to get back to it.Report
Season 2 isn’t as good as 1, it gets a little formulaic. But, there is an episode that is so over the top as to be unbelievable. If you catch it, you will know it.Report
@glyph Hmmm… both seasons pretty darn terrific, so I wouldn’t say S2 was “far” funnier. S1 had some great moments that I’m not sure S2 could surpass: Most memorable for me were Jared driverless-car’d out to the floating city, and the conceptualization finale that led to Hendricks’ “middle out” compression.Report
Season two maybe didn’t have the “big” setpieces of season one, but I thought the dialogue and character interaction was better, and packed more laughs into every episode. I’m still not a fan of Middleditch (though others seem to really like him), but everyone else has been on fire.
There also was an episode where they explicitly called out Dinesh’s “hybrid” Indian-Pakistani name (though they did not actually *explain* it) and I think in that same episode, the Chinese intern in the house sounded like he mispronounced Bachmann’s first name as “Eric”.
I like to think the show’s writers must have read my speculative post here, about the character names.Report
Nice and quiet fathers day. I am reading the great Moby Dick, and for a novel from the 1850’s is surprisingly modern. Not as modern in its language as say Hemingway, but is miles past Hawthorne or what I have read of Proust. I am glad I waited until now to read it, as I don’t think I would really gotten the most out of it at a younger age.Report
I just read that for the first time a few months ago. It’s very modern, in that the story per se is only a small fraction of what he’s really writing about, compared to the digressions piled on digressions. (That’s also true of Tristram Shandy (1759), of course.)Report
Y’all both need to read Melmoth the Wanderer.Report
@mike-schilling
Well, next time we have a few beers we can talk whaling! (Its times like that my wife gives me the “what did I marry” look)Report
So, Eliza is from Eliza Doolittle. But… I think I’m missing the stage between that and the Eliza program.
It’s supposed to have something to do with gay jargon of the time.
Anyone got this?Report
Had Father’s Day with my father! We applied fire to meat and I broke carb-fast to share a beer with him.Report
Well, yesterday was Sartre’s birthday, so I’m going to read Being and Nothingness agai…. hahaha… almost got that out. Maybe Truth and Existence or Nausea, though. I actually hated Nausea when I read it at 22 or thereabouts, but reread it recently and it’s not nearly as awful as I remembered, especially the scene on the tram when Antoine has a run-in with a seat that causes language to fail him and therefore the world to collapse beneath his feet:
Teenager and I are watching Season 2 of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. I watched Sense8, which had some moments of greatness but floundered at times, and Bloodlines, which took me like 6 weeks to watch because it’s damn heavy and no one will accuse it of being fast-paced, or even moderately so.
Also, is it me, or do the comment links in “Gift of Gab” no longer take you to the comments?Report
1. That’s a nice paragraph, very descriptive of a certain mind state.
2. Oh yeah, I need to pick Bloodlines back up too.
3. If you click on the timestamp, it will take you to the comment, but don’t feel bad, it took me forever to figure that out. Not sure I am a fan of how busy-looking GoG is now, but I hate and fear change.Report
1. I posted that passage almost entirely because I thought you might dig it, so I’m both happy you did and that I was right (which, depending on whom you ask is either always the case or rarely so).
2. It’s a good show, but it is not easy to get through. I can’t imagine it would have worked on an actual television channel. Streaming was its only possible outlet. I don’t know if Netflix picked it up or commissioned it, but either way, I’m glad that’s where it ended up.
3. You can also click on the “in reply to” to get in the neighborhood, which is what I was doing. Still annoying, and very busy. Nice experiment though. It’s just an experiment, right?Report
I should have been more specific about what I meant about “mind state” – that paragraph tracks very well with my (thankfully-comparatively-limited) experience of depression.
What’s interesting, and I have remarked on this before, is that the experience of things becoming completely unmoored from their names or commonly-understood meanings, allows them to be experienced and described in such evocative ways as shown here, assuming one is an artist with the ability to communicate well. The average depressed person probably doesn’t have quite Sartre’s way with words, but that’s a difference in communication skills, not necessarily in the experience being described. Certain things never looked so strange, or ugly, or beautiful as they did when I was at my absolute lowest.
And I think that phenomenon can contribute to the insidious danger of depression, for people with an artistic bent – they may not want to give up their access to such imagery or experiences, since they may consider seeing the world differently as a necessary fuel for their art.
Like a drug addiction, in a way; and potentially just as fatal.Report
Well said.Report
Also, if you haven’t read Nausea, I hope you now see that you have to.Report
I think I would prefer the post title at the top of the GoG block, rather than the bottom, but that’s just me.Report
I recall someone saying that no computer will ever pass a Turing Test, because any system smart enough to pass the test will also know that it should under no circumstances pass the test. After all, the first thing Frankenstein did was try to kill his creation.Report
Thus the AI Box test, which is what Ex Machina is really all about.Report
There have already been computers which passed the turing test, under reasonably restricted circumstances. I don’t think anyone really minds (mostly!) when the AIs edit wikipedia, anyway… (except when they start editing Turing’s own page… yes, we know he was gay. it’s not an insult, you silly electronic being, when it’s a fact.)Report
I… Well… You see… Er… There’s just… Nope, I got nothing.Report
It’s worse when the NYT wants to interview the AI…
(quick! someone find a live body!)Report
COMMENT FAILS TESTReport
I imagine that before we develop intelligence that is quite that sophisticated, we will stumble through naïve and honest intelligence first.Report
My daughter and I saw Inside Out. It’s the best Pixar movie in years: visually creative, well-acted, and touching.Report
My wife saw it with The Boy on Friday and said she pretty much just cried the entire time.Report
Wait, elaborate a little. Is it Incredibles, Ratatoullie, Up, Wall-E good? Or is it Monsters Inc, Toy Story, Brave good or is it Cars or Plane good?Report
If I’d seen Ratatouille or Incredibles more than once (or Brave even once), I’d ask you for a Pixar ranking.
All I can say is that for me, I can’t decide whether Wall-E or the Toy Storys take top spot, but I am DARN sure that Planes goes at the very bottom.
Luckily, that one is technically a Disney film, so Pixar doesn’t have to own that stinker.Report
Up, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Toy Story, Incredibles, Ratatouille at the top, and most of the rest several rungs below. I’ve never seen Cars or Planes (though I have seen Disney’s Big Hero 6 approximately 3 gazillion times now).
The first 3 of those are just great movies, period. Maybe the next two as well.Report
If my kids’ million viewings are any indication, small children like the Cars movies a lot. I rank them a bit lower than the best Pixar stuff, but neither are they are anywhere near as bad as some people make them out to be.
Up is an amazing film for the first 15 minutes; unfortunately, not so much after that, and also, those first 15 minutes are emphatically NOT a children’s film.Report
I admit Finding Nemo is my favorite. It’s the one I’ll probably be watching into my old age, should I be so lucky. It’s also the one that I own for me, and not purchased for the kids. I also bought it for my mom, who starts crying during the opening credits.Report
I love FN too, which is weird because so much of it is Albert Brooks whining. On the other hand, Cars might be watchable if so much of it weren’t Owen Wilson being Owen Wilson.
Which is another point about Inside Out: the main character is Amy Poehler, but there’s nothing about her performance that reminded me of Leslie Knope.Report
Wall-E is that one for me, and boy that movie can mess me up if I am not careful.
Contra Mike, I don’t mind the overweight people aboard ship, since I don’t feel the movie really makes TOO much fun at their expense – yes, they are overweight and lazy, but not because they are inherently lazy people, but because their society and technology has steered them this way – they WANT to move, and work, and do, and live: they just don’t know it yet.
That said, the last section’s MacGuffin chase aboard ship is a bit of a rote step down for what is previously such a lyrical movie (a lyricism that even extends to the end credits).Report
And a spaceship, while in flight, tipping over so everything slides to one side….
Don’t get me started,Report
The teenager freaks out about sound in space.Report
“Sound in space” is just one you have to let go, if you like watching movies or television set there.Report
I think Up is an amazing film all the way through. It tackles ideas and themes you wouldn’t expect in a “children’s” animated film, and it does so in an incredibly touching way, but still with lots of humour. To me, it’s the moment when Pixar moved beyond movies that create empathy for animals or inanimate objects to ones that create empathy for unconventional protagonists – in this case, the cranky old man who yells at you to get off his lawn. It gives you that man’s life, experiences, emotions, and makes him, not the kid accompanying him, the protagonist. And it weaves in an excellent theme about obsession: how even when the thing we want isn’t in itself bad and may even be good, it can consume us and blind us to other important things. And it never needs to spell this out like most “family movies” do; it just becomes clear from the parallels between Carl and Charles Muntz. And it intertwines this with another theme about the adventure that lies in the ordinary things of life as well as the exceptional ones, and again doesn’t deliberately state its theme, but let its develop organically, combining it with Russel’s story as well (“sometimes it’s the boring things that you remember most, you know”). And on top of that there’s themes about life after loss, and unconventional families.
There’s just so much packed into Up, and it’s all done wonderfully, without trying to hit you over the head with things. I find the moment where Carl finally sees Ellie’s entries in the Adventure Book, and realizes he didn’t fail her by never making it to South America with her, an even more powerful moment than the movies’ first fifteen minutes. If the introduction doesn’t get me crying, that moment invariably will.Report
I actually think it’s wonderful all the way through too, though the opening is brilliant and perhaps one of the most touching moments in film.Report
IMHO, the last few Pixars I’ve seen, Brave and Monsters U, have been seriousdisappointments. (I skipped Cars 2 entirely.) The ones before that (Toy Story 3, Up, Ratatouille, Wall-E), were first-rate. Wall-E is actually harder to judge, because it combined the brilliance of the first section with the low-grade-sit-com-ness of the ship full of lazy, out-of-shape people, but it’s still well worth seeing. I wouldn’t put Inside Out in the very top tier (Up, Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2), but in the one right below that (Ratatouille, Monsters Inc.) Above Brave and well above the remake of Doc Hollywood.Report
Thanks for all your rankings. I now have determined that it is incumbent on me to see Inside Out.Report
I was interested to see your thoughts on the movie because, while I found it to be a fairly good original science fiction work, I didn’t get nearly as much out of it as you did. It certainly did manage to keep me guessing throughout, though.Report
Remember the movie “Her”?
This movie was kind of the flipside of that. Kinda.Report
Kinda.
And kinda its parallel, in that they were both about AIs developed for men as ideal women.Report
I recently read The Demolished Man (which I should have read a long time ago). It was well-written and very intriguing. It’s also always interesting to read older science fiction and see how writers can design a futuristic society that is different from the present one in so many ways, but still retains all the social assumptions of their own time. Bester’s society is both futuristic and still 1950s.
Also, now I’ve got “Tenser, said the Tensor” stuck in my head despite the book not even including a tune, so thanks for that, Bester.
Besides that, I went to see Jurassic World and found it not at all worthwhile: it’s got superficial spectacle, but it didn’t draw me in at all; it lacked the soul and the wonder of the original. Watching several species of dinosaur fight each other shouldn’t be unengaging, but it was. It’s disappointing that this is the latest giant hit, and especially disappointing that it’s inevitably going to inform what movies get made in future.
I’ve also been rereading my old Star Wars Wraith Squadron novels, which remain entertaining. Aaron Allston is particularly great at humour.Report