Thoughtful post. I’ll re-read it and absorb what I can as it “melts in my mind” as someone once said when I was a college student.
I mentioned that sci fi got there a long time ago. In movies, The Matrix is probably still the iconic example.
This year’s outstanding example is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Those who haven’t seen it should. It’s wild, surrealistic, and an action comedy, sci fi, horror mashup, but on AI, it’s on the nose.
Gore Verbinski, the director, emphasizes in interviews that AI is here, can’t be stopped, and will be a great tool for returning to the moon and curing cancer.
But it’s also coming for art, music, literature, and all the things that make us more than spectators and drones. That’s the problem. We all remember, I think, therefore I am,” An increasing number if people are outsourcing not only their reading, research and writing to AI; they’re outsourcing their thinking as well.
Changing gears, it’s also the most religiously coded movie I’ve seen in years — and NONE of the reviewers are picking up on that, even though it’s about as subtle as a 2x4 upside the head once it’s seen. It can’t have been accidental, but we’re in the midst of a pagan revival and the subtext has flown right over the head of The Modern Audience.