'Crazy thoughts' behind Black Mirror

Damion 2022-04-22 07:01:40

The whole season revolves around the topic of technology copying human thoughts and consciousness, thereby creating artificial intelligence that can think, which is not new. The discussion of privacy issues is pertinent, if clichéd. Hang The DJ's virtual dating app matching system is awesome, but it still seems a little out of touch with reality. Like it said, if the entire computing system can integrate people's reactions to different dating partners to integrate the most suitable partners, then collect After these electrical signals transformed by thought, will the computing system be conscious? If we think so, we may be living in a programmed program. Last semester's philosophy class discussed whether consciousness can exist independently of matter. Chalmers wrote in the literature that since the bigwigs cannot agree on the ins and outs of consciousness, can consciousness be regarded as a fundamemtal property, so as to build up the entire system. If the panpsychism derived from this idea holds, that consciousness becomes a fundamental law that needs no explanation, then everything can have this property. If so, what is the mind that exists apart from matter created by programming and technology, and how to define existence and soul and other issues are much more complicated. The crazy ideas and brain holes of science fiction works only stay in fantasy and speculation, but the issues about human ethics and morality that they try to show are quite scary. Perhaps technology will envelop human beings in this way, breaking away from the most essential happiness in an irreversible torrent. If you think about it, this is indeed the case. There were no WeChat and email a few decades ago. People communicated through letters. It took ten days and a half months to convey information, and they had a relatively large amount of time. However, now a WeChat message from the boss will not give you any time to react. We must keep working and complete tasks all the time. While technology makes life more convenient, it also exploits our life step by step. There are more things to do every day, and people may become more and more unable to stop. If one day we don't have even an hour of free time to think, where will creativity be found?

But after all, it is not up to us to decide. The development of science and technology is doomed. In the future, machines will always eliminate people at the bottom of the pyramid, and perhaps the people at the top will own the vast majority of the wealth in the world. However, the future cannot be predicted. The randomness and initiative of the development of things complement each other. We can only move forward step by step along the trend.

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Extended Reading

USS Callister quotes

  • Robert Daly: I'm coming to get you!

  • Robert Daly: [Furiously patching through to Walton, who is fixing the engine manually from the jet fader] Walton, you're going to pay for this.

    Walton: Robert, listen.

    Robert Daly: I'm going to bring Tommy back in.

    Walton: Hey, Robert, listen...

    Robert Daly: God so help me, you are going to regret all of this SO HARD!

    Walton: Bob, I wanna talk to you here! I was thinking i should say... sorry.

    Robert Daly: [Beat] Go on.

    Walton: [Breathlessly as he fixes the engine] You created Infinity. You're a fucking genius. I exploited that. I treated you like the golden goose and I got fat off the profits, figuratively speaking. And I was thinking, I should have appreciated you more, you know? I should have treated you better. Yeah, yeah I was thinking I should say all that.

    [Beat]

    Walton: But then you threw my son out of an airlock, so... FUCK YOU TO DEATH.

    [Activates the engine which incinerates him]