Constellation: Making the Graphic Novel
Summary: Enter a simulated universe where software beings engage in classic human struggles for belonging, status, and attention, and old certainties like death and gravity are just settings to be negotiated. You can be the god of your own private world, but if find yourself feeling lonely, you might be tempted to give away some of your precious control. This podcast will take you behind the scenes with comic book authors and veteran podcasters Jon Perry (@perryjon) and Ted Kupper (@tedkupper) as they write and develop a science fiction graphic novel called Constellation, set in a metaverse unlike any you’ve seen before: neither a utopia nor a dystopia, neither real nor virtual, it is a simulation where everyone knows they are being simulated and no one much cares, where there’s no hope of leaving and no reason to, just an endless supply of human-designed worlds to create and explore.
- Visit Website
- RSS
- Artist: Constellation
Podcasts:
In this extra-long podcast, we review the important new book from MIT's Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson, THE SECOND MACHINE AGE: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. The first half is a detailed, Cliffs-Notes version of the book's arguments for those that have not read it; others may want to skip to our criticisms, which begin in earnest at 00:38. The book details how technological progress is driving growth of both 'bounty' and 'spread,' and makes a compelling argument for the possibility of technological unemployment occurring. It also makes suggestions for the long and short term, and there is where we have most of our disagreements with the authors.
In this week's podcast, we do the thought experiment of what happens in a theoretically super-abundant future: what things remain scarce and still retain economic value? Further, as we approach that point, where are the safe areas to try to find work? We list all the scarce goods we can think of in four categories: scarcities of time such as Attention, Convenience, First Release, Novel Real-time Experiences, Originals, Potential, scarcity of space such as Land, scarcities of matter like Computation and Raw Materials, and scarcities of what we call human interaction like Empathy, Goodwill, Belonging, Privacy, and Status.
On the podcast this week, we discuss the state of narrative in a world where technological change is accelerating. We start with William Gibson's now decade-old attempt to write recent-past rather than near-future speculative work and continue to talk about the perceived rise in period, future and ambiguous time periods in contemporary films and novels. We suggest that trend might continue as the present technological moment becomes more and more of a moving target.
Today's podcast reviews Tyler Cowen's new book Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation. The book's thesis is that machine intelligence and other factors are driving a trend toward much greater inequality in America. We discuss Tyler's conservative political persuasion, the book's relevance to discussion of technological unemployment, and hyper-competent man-machine "freestyle" chess teams. Will we build a favela in Texas? How cool it would be to attend a freestyle NASCAR rally? Will free wifi really be enough to keep the bottom 85% from revolting?
In this week's podcast, we review HER, Spike Jonze's entertaining new movie about a human-AI relationship. How well does it hold up from the point of view of speculation? Is the world fully realized and consistent? Do the characters seem like they inhabit the world of the film? We discuss the construction of a near-future Los Angeles out of Pudong skyscrapers and consider some elements of its future world that the movie did not address.
An Intelligence Explosion is the idea that a greater-than-human intelligent machine will quickly design a greater-than-itself intelligent machine, and so on, until very rapidly the intelligence of artificial systems greatly outstrips that of humanity. Is this hard takeoff scenario realistic? Is it possible? Is there any way to encourage future super-intelligent beings to be friendly?
It's easy to find alarmist articles fretting about how addicted to technology we are becoming. It's true that we are increasingly reliant on technology and many of us spend exorbitant numbers of hours staring at screens. But is it fair to describe this behavior as addiction? What does it mean to be addicted to technology? If technology addiction is a real problem, will it get worse or better in the future as technology continues to improve?
When we were growing up, kids knew how to use the internet and adults didn't. Should we expect that our kids will have a similar experience? Are generation gaps declining as access expands, attitudes change, longevity increases and interest trumps age as an indicator of knowledge? Rebellion largely seems irrelevant and the only exception to that we could imagine is rising inequality.
We ask "Is privacy coming to an end, and if so, what does that mean exactly?" We examine progress in the areas of always-on surveillance and lifelogging, facial recognition, and other technologies that are eroding traditional spheres of privacy. Might this lead to tyranny or to greater tolerance? Is a transparent, sousveillance society that watches back the answer?
What is technological unemployment, and should we be worried about it? Hosts Jon Perry and Ted Kupper discuss the problems associated with technological unemployment and some possible responses in this episode .
In this first episode of the REVIEW THE FUTURE podcast, we speculate on the topic of accelerating technological returns. If technological progress is truly accelerating, that has wide reaching implications.
