Ex Machina

Ex Machina was an excellent film containing eerie artificial intelligence and the curiosity of humans. Programmer Caleb Smith is brought to this luxurious setting by his employer to test the artificial intelligence and distinguish id it were more a machine or a human and also if the AI could persuade Caleb to think its human. This recent film was a trip because you actually thought Ava the artificial intelligence was an ordinary human being with the wig and human skin on of course.  They kept it trapped in its own cell, and in human nature we want to be free, but so did Ava. It was thinking like a human. It's scary to think something is smarter than humans and can't have the sneakiness to trick us.  But I definitely recommend this movie! It has a twist in the end that'll have you on your toes.

Twenty First Century Radical Rhetoric

This week’s chapter is the Twenty First Century Radical Rhetoric.  There are ten observations for understanding the rhetoric for contemporary activists.  They include our rhetoric as anti authoritarian meaning there is no hierarchical power structures no leaders exists, just organizers and facilitators.  Promotes diversity because they see each diversity as beneficial and highlights many experiences, knowledge’s and actions.  It is idealistic and prefigurative because we use our words to create protests, demonstrations or writing to symbolize a movement like feminism or gender equality.  It is multi historical because every person comes from diverse backgrounds and has their own story.  We look to multiple stories not just one to find an answer.  It is also anti representational because everyone’s voice can be heard not just one rhetoric and can represent reality from or narrative.  It privileges complex interrogation since we often come to an agreement not just a final answer.  We communicate our knowledge’s, cultures and struggles to come to that agreement.  It can be symbolically powerful as well because just our actions can symbolize so much more and motivate people to take that same action. It can be confrontational so we can speak the truth to power and justify all unfit forms with aggressiveness.  Visionary describes our rhetoric since we can achieve these visions of our future with self determination and a collective support.  People describe our rhetoric as self righteous and self critical, using only our selfish thoughts, we want to change the world only from our view.  There are answers we think are perfect, but is only perfect for us , our time and place.
Now going to my next point of mending the rhetorical gap.  We must first specify our audience to communicate to actual people about our point or issue giving us something to work with.  Next make the adjustments to adapt to how your audience sees this topic.  What are there needs or how can you appeal this to them?  Grab their attention.  Then, name and explain your rhetoric; why you’re doing what you’re doing and explain your reasons of actions.  Explain the importance of your collective argument using the ten observations we talked about earlier.  You also have to make more observations and share them.  While doing this be respectful and keep in mind that not everybody sees it the way you do. But overall be honest and use supportive criticism with strong feedback.  Finally you must take personal responsibility for your rhetoric so you can eliminate the need for rhetorical leaders.
Network rhetoric is for activists of the same age or time sharing a way of thinking through communication.  It’s composed of multiple and decentered messages, dialogue with those messages and formulation of a public statement or action.  Examples of this would be protests, spokes councils or social forums where everyone with a common interest or concern speak to each other.
You can also improve your network to make it more appealing and intelligible by first creating a rhetorical frame using perhaps a slogan or statement that ties it all together.  Create mental image in the peoples mind for this topic and have it be concrete.  Use categories to manage those connections through explaining to people how they are connected and highlighting the key points on what makes them connected.  Finally strive for clarity and accessibility.  Clarify the intentions and make sure they are not confused so you do not alienate them.
The new form of activism, neo-radicalism has 5 steps for developing its agenda.  They include anti authoritarian activism, standing up for your beliefs and trying to change the world.  Activists communication, communicating towards a better world by not just your pint of view but from others.  Even if it includes observing they’re communications and improving yours.  Communication and reality, use your communication as a tool to create that reality.  Find that relationship.  Next, western philosophy.  Social change is apart of human nature, humans are the creators of that change and you must understand it.  Finally we have visionaries, people who envision a improved reality whether it be a free self determined reality.  We see the future and what steps we must take to get there.

Body of Rhetoric

After reading the chapter body of rhetoric I learned deeper into how people can use their body actions as a way to communicate.  The four types of body rhetoric’s are embodied argumentation, street theater, rhetorical style and the vibe as bodily emantation.  Embodied argumentation relates to how our body actions create arguments, street theater corrolates to rebellious acts like protests, rallies and marches, rhetorical style describes the feel from communicative gestures and vibe or bodily emanation describe the energy coming from our bodies.  These body rhetoric’s affect our communication letting us speak up through actions and not language.  It shows how wide of range language can go from words to body language.  Four ways bodily argumentation expands the realm of rhetoric’s by your call to action, providing more rhetorical options, empowerment and highlights the craft of everyday living.  These 4 bodily argumentations supports one’s positions by having your body actions speak for you and being your main source of communication.  The five steps for cultivating style are observing your own style and other’s, reflect on your styles you’ve observed, experiment with a variety of them, apply those styles and take a chance with unusual or out of your comfort zone styles.  An individual body argument commits your own actions to spark your own beliefs and views as collective arguments are often through protests and actions.  Collective relies on bodies rather than words.  A collective body argument I’ve experienced would be when my high school classmates and I got up and took a stand to leave class after we had a substitute teacher being very rude and abrupt with us.

Moon

Moon starring Sam Rockwell was a great film, including plot twists and a mysterious vibe coming from the artificial technology GERTY.  Sam Belle a cloned astronaut (who would’ve thought) is part of the Lunar Industries process of keeping a man on the moon to supply them Helium-3.  Earth has run out of natural gases and that is the only one available to us.  Its terrifying to think of a corporation capable of cloning and having a robot run the whole operation on the Moon.  Seeing GERTY following orders from Lunar Industries makes me think it can be possible for us to live in a future where we have control over our AI tech.  The whole concept of clones is also scary and if were to ever do that would be inhumane.  AI tech like GERTY and clones in our world would be too much to take in for this generation.  And a station on the Moon!  So advanced.  Awesome movie and I totally recommend it.

Bicentennial Man

Bicentennial Man was surprisingly a good flick with the legendary actor, Robin Williams playing as the robot Andrew.  Its funny how we’re no where near having household robots in everyone’s homes, but in this movie we were suppose to have them by 2005.  The fact that Andrew started out as a normal household servant robot and then slowly started developing emotions was a cool idea for the audience to think about.  And just with the slow journey for Andrew through out time developing those emotions and wanting to develop human form was so interesting and had me hooked.  Another cool part of the movie was how everyone was aging and technology was advancing and Andrew was seeing this all.  One movie in a 200 year period.  Andrew is a perfect example of AI that’s adaptive to its vastly changing environment and immortal it seemed like.  I still find it pretty terrifying for a creation of our own to be developing emotions like Andrew.

During this spring break I read “Labors of the Multitude” in the book Rhetoric For Radicals.  It was a very relatable chapter because it talked about-facing the fears people have with public speaking and ways to improve it, a common fear of mine.  It also focused on methods to make our writing more believable; different than speaking.  Our speaking, wrting or conversations have not been the same as it was in the past because of the one thing our lives are revolved around now, that is technology.  Now a days we barley speak one on one with each other although we use social media as our way to use our voices.  But in the chapter, “public speaking is to facilitate an understanding between the speaker and audience” (40) so how can we do that when we don’t speak.  Social media is changing the way we have conversations and write as teenagers use slang they get off twitter or instagram and use it in today’s conversations.  Also with social media we can speak throughout the world through a screen rather than in front of an audience.  Its teaching teenagers its okay to hide from a rather scary audience.  “Labors of the Multitude” described a four rhetorical approach past activists have used which are; persuasion, argumentation, story telling and invitation.  With persuasion we are cable of changing, shaping and sustaining a persons view into another, one that we want them to believe.   Argumentation is used by stating a claim, providing the evidence and then putting it all together, which will leave people convinced.  We use storytelling to explain the importance of a situation or idea.  The more a person envisions the story the more realistic it is.  Finally there is invitation, a non persuasive approach, but rather letting someone see your view from your perspective and through communication and dialogue.  Now how does media input all these tactics in today’s society?  Well news networks like CNN are very biased and tell a story from only they’re perspective and try to persuade the viewers to think that they’re opinion is right, there’s one way to use tactics.  Then there are some speakers for certain movements that speak to whole crowds on their idea and try to convert that audience.  A challenging situation I have experienced that forced me to respond and analyze a diverse community and audience would have to be in one of my high school football games in the past where my team was losing.  Although it did not involve speaking, it did ask me to perform in front of a huge crowd with pressure on me and have a good return on a kickoff inspiring my teammates.  After all, actions do speak louder than words.

Reading the book Rhetoric For Radicals, the chapter “A Call To Rhetorical Action” the reader will read about society norms and the process of how the media is ignoring us and how they are shaping our society.  As it says in the Social Norms section “erasing all norms is not possible” (20). We see it as impossible because it is so difficult for a society to adjust to a different kind of living.  For example, hanging out with someone everyday and becoming their best friend, but once that pattern stops the relationship stops.  I on the other hand see it is possible to create a new social norm different from the ones we have now like sexualizing woman, thinking all men are untruthful or even all Muslim’s are terrorists.  Using technology like social media, we can spread truth and wisdom to young teens, our future generation.  Teenagers use social media so much, ideas and stereotypes are implanted in their brains and eventually becoming a social norm.  The media plays a big part in our lives stating what they want us to hear.  Using advertisements, Youtube, Facebook, etc. they are our only connection to what is happening now in the world.  “Improving our communication skills” (35) will be our way to beat the media.  Our speaking and writing skills are so important because we need to communicate to our peers in a way they will understand the problem at hand and be convinced.  That is one thing the media does well which is convincing people that what they are telling us is the actual problem and is more important than anything else happening.  In addition, the chapter brings the 5 contemporary challenges current activists face, which are intercultural exchanges, intercultural communications, culture specific rhetoric’s, translation issues and creating transnational rhetoric’s. Basically, the five challenges allows us to share cultures and perspectives with different races and by doing this we are widening our alliances and getting more of an understanding of what other region’s societies are like.  Technology can help tons on this subject because not everyone can meet someone from another culture in person, but by communicating and sharing with those people online we are accomplishing these challenges.  Definitely an interesting chapter for the Rhetoric For Radicals informing the readers on how the media works and social norms are formed.

Blade Runner was an interesting movie that was a depiction of what 1982 saw the future as like. In the year 2019, the Blade Runner setting was a dirty, dark and dull place.  AI was the sole focus of the movie where Harrison Ford, Blade Runner, had to eliminate the replicants when surprisingly he was a replicant the whole time!  There were two versions of replicants, one version in the movie were being hunted were killers who knew they were replicants, but the others, Rick and Rachael, did not know they were replicants.  Neither did I.  It made me wonder how if AI like this were to ever exist would we be able to tell which ones were AI and which were humans.  What if technology became that advanced that we had to consider AI as one of us.  Harrison Ford in the movie seem to clearly be human, but he wasn't.  It kind of explained all the hints throughout the movie such as; Rachael asking if he ever took the test himself or Rick having no family or friends.  Rachael and Rick must of been the last 2 of the 6 replicants, but probably were released due to their non threatening nature.  This movie was weird future/ scifi film and some surprising twists.

AI Meets Social Media

AI is becoming more advanced and closer to equaling our intelligence every day, and although we barley notice it social media and in development robots are becoming smarter also.  As Mark Zuckerberg explained in one of the articles, Facebook is a version of AI because of its vast possibilities of recognizing patterns and interacting with the users.  I do not use Facebook as much as I use to, but I never really thought of it as AI until now.  Zuckerberg says how Facebook adapts to the users by understanding their news feed, the people they’re friends with or the kind of videos they mainly watch.  Facebook is basically studying you.  It makes me a bit uncomfortable as I think about it, but at the same time its pretty cool.  A learning social media that can adjust its app for your convenience.  Not only does Facebook do this, but also all the other main apps like Instagram and Twitter.  They do the exact same thing for example; both can give suggestions on whom to follow based on your group of friends.  Facebook’s advancements are learning our habits, interest, friend groups and even asks us to post how we are feeling.  The article on Facebook positions it as “robots and software becoming smart enough to better themselves and learn new skills” this greatly aligns with post humanism.  Right now in our eyes Facebook is just a connection for all humans, but in the bigger picture AI has all our information and is learning about us like a computer in a chess game.  Vernor Vinge’s inflection point meaning a time when machines will dominate and outthink humans – is like he said inevitable.  I do not genuinely believe we are there yet, but do believe its coming and there will be a day where AI will be like us. In a recent article (http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/23/boston-dynamics-presents-the-next-generation-atlas-robot/) Boston Dynamics have developed the “next generation” Atlas robot, AI capable of doing simple tasks like carrying packages, opening doors, and ability to be mobile.  This just shows how much closer we’re getting to AI robots walking among us.  I highly suggest watching the video in the link.

Apple vs The FBI

So throughout the week there has been much debate over Apple’s battle with the FBI.  I read an article call “Apple vs The FBI” which explained Apple’s position in much detail.  Right now the whole world is looking at Apple’s decision.  They are winning a lot of the publics support, as iPhone’s is one of the most popular products in the world.  I could not be more supportive of Apple’s decision to protect our privacy from the FBI.  If I was in Tim Cook’s position I’d be taking the exact steps he is taking because as an iPhone user I do not want the government to be able to access information in my phone so easily.  I want be able to be comfortable using my phone with my own privacy.  If the FBI gets their way I would think our right to privacy will be getting violated since the government is trying to get apple to create a software making it easier to hack into our phones.  If Apple gives in our privacy will have been taken away from us.  Although, a software update to the phones would help the FBI’s San Bernardino murder case very much, but with Apple denying their request they would be violating the All Writs Act of 1789 which states “that federal courts can issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” (http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/a-dangerous-all-writ-precedent-in-the-apple-case) In a way they are right, Apple is refusing to help out, but the federal courts have not yet issued necessary aid to the FBI. It talked about how Google and Facebook are one of their biggest competitors and as it stated in the article, “Their model is to lure as many people as possible onto their respective platforms, then sell those people’s attention, demographic data, and behavioral profiles to advertisers” basically showing Apple taking a stand for the people unlike Google and Facebook.  In a way this is great publicity for Apple as the world is all looking at them, they must take advantage of this opportunity to be the good guys of the industry.