Science Fiction and American Culture » March 11th: All Systems Red

March 11th: All Systems Red

Announcements

  • Braver Angels Collegiate Debate: Does DEI give or take away opportunities for individuals
    • Wednesday, March 12, 4:00pm
    • Rowe 130
    • RSVP on the link above–Free pizza and refreshments
  • American Forensics Association Nationals
    • April 4-7 (all day)
    • Buildings TBA

Plan for the Day

  • Catch up on the Films and TV Shows
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • A mention of I, Robot
  • Martha Wells’s All Systems Red

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

To say this is a big topic would be an understatement. I mentioned in class that with the exception of those of you in advanced computing informatics majors our understanding of AI comes from popular sources: news reporting, political rhetoric, and, of course, science fiction. I have a VERY controversial interpretation of AI, but, before going there, let’s have some definitions:

  • Narrow (or Weak) Artificial Intelligence: machine learning that responds to users through “programmed” learning. (autocorrect, autofill, help bots, etc.).
  • General (or True) Artificial Intelligence: computers become as conscious as humans or surpass their abilities. (theoretical superintelligences)

We encounter weak AI daily, and the related technologies range from rudimentary for 2025 (autocorrect) to advanced (surveillance technologies facial recognition). From a social construction of science and technology standpoint, these AI technologies replicate social conditions, meaning social values are embedded into the system (e.g., racist faucets). Basically, the internet didn’t democratize information and access to services because it isn’t deployed in a democratic system; instead, it became a conduit for multinational corporations to make immense profits, which, of course, follows the logic of capitalism (c.f. “Database Culture”).

Science fiction often deals with assumptions about general AI, specifically machines becoming sentient and taking over. However, that situation is really a colonial metaphor that reflects Western culture’s history of colonization, enslavement, and exploitation of people and the environment. Such behavior is social: a nationalistic, aggressive group follows a path of domination through military and economic means.

Controversial statement: General Artificial Intelligence is a myth that will never come to be because it’s based on flawed assumptions that humans themselves aren’t programmed. Humans are machines that consume because, in late capitalist contexts specifically, because they’re conditioned to. Society is the entity and the profit motive keeps society alive by programming (advertising, education, ideology) consumers to keep consuming. This requires resources, and hegemonic groups employ force(s) to maintain their corporations’ access to materials that will continue maintaining the social entity. Sentient machines would not do this on their own: only under the already programmed paradigm of exploitation would machines carry out oppression. Just like QT, they work for the Master, the powers that be. Because there’s no originality in thinking, machines and humans alike follow programmed behaviors…and both are susceptible to glitches.

Consider the above a purposeful attempt to get you to think and draw comparisons among our materials. Popular discussions of AI rarely get to the philosophical level we’re aiming for. The course readings aren’t to have you conclude in a specific way but to get you to think, radically perhaps. Otherwise, we’re just idling (metaphorically or literally) in the fast food drive through so that the powers that be can profit.

I, Robot Discussion

In “Introduction to Technical Communication,” I assign I, Robot to the class. This isn’t a typical thing–assigning literature in technical writing courses–but, then again, I’m not trying to be typical. There was lots of controversy with my approach, but, in the end, no one was able to rationally explain why it was a bad idea to use a novel to introduce students in technical majors to a wide range of philosophical ideas about science and technology. If we have the time, I’d like to explain how I, Robot is useful to workplace studies and has some parallels to Wells’s All Systems Red. Scroll down to “I, Robot Discussion” on that page.

Martha Wells’s All Systems Red

After that lovely introduction to AI, we come to our reading for today. I haven’t read any of the other stories in The Murderbot Diaries, but there’s plenty to discuss in this first one. In terms of form, this diary style is probably different from many novels you read.

  • p. 13: “They don’t give murderbots decent education modules on anything except murdering, and even those are the cheap versions.’
  • p. 28: “But the company would data mine them for anything they could sell.”
    • Freedom at work…what is “freedom”?
    • Who owns what?
  • p. 35: I don’t have any gender or sex-related parts…
    • Did anyone gender Murderbot?
  • p. 47: “The last few contracts had been like being an involuntary bystander in one of the entertainment feed’s multi-partner relationship serials except I’d hated the whole cast.”
    • Relationships at work…bad idea!
    • Have you noticed in other science fiction narratives that the relationship are polyamorous? The Expanse series is another recent one.
  • p. 58: Must use the company equipment.
  • p. 75: “The modules allow personal control over SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet.”
  • p. 81: “‘The company is more likely to kill you by accident.'”
  • p. 84: “‘Stuck in a cubicle with nothing to do, I used [the download] to work out the codes for the governor module.'”
    • You don’t have to think too metaphorically to understand what “cubicle” represents.
    • Compare this to other workplaces narratives.
  • pp. 90-91: The company doesn’t want to kill DeltFall or the PreservationAux team because the liability is too high.
    • When does a company take a product off the market?
      • Ford Pinto: “The cost of retooling Pinto assembly lines and of equipping each car with a safety gadget like that $5.08 Goodyear bladder was, company accountants calculated, greater than that of paying out millions to survivors…” (Mark Dowie).
  • p. 102: ” It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discreet…”
  • Consider this in light of our conversation about identity and boiling someone’s identity down to a single attribute.
  • p. 103-104: Mensah tells murderbot it’s better for the team to consider it a human that’s helpful.
    • p. 104: “My insides melted.”
  • p. 116: Murderbot was in “prison” having its memory purged because “‘We’re too expensive to destroy.'”

Next Class

We’ll finish up All System’s Red before moving onto discussion of postapocalyptic narratives and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Plan to set aside time to finish this reading. Including Zone One, we have three novels left in this semester, so the reading will increase. Your Final Exam will be cumulative, so you’ll need to read or watch all our material to do well on it. Also, your Essay #2 (due 4/03) requires you to engage with class texts.