"Demon Seed" is a movie from 1977 which was one of the early projections of what comes of computer-based artificial intelligence (AI). Right off the top "Demon Seed" is novel as how many times do you see a woman with the lead role in a movie and a man playing the co-star ... and this was forty years ago. (WIKI: Demon Seed)
Historical note: this is just prior to the GOP rolling Reagan into view and killing the Equal Rights Amendment.
This article won't just spoil the ending. If you plan on watching the movie then stop now.
Break at the halfway point:
I'm at halfway and Julie Christie has just learned she will be pregnant by the computer. We're playing on that vibe of an AI that has all of humanity's knowledge and will now come to eat our skulls ... but ... they want to get beyond that and get into some seriously evil stuff. Well, how can I resist.
Julie Christie is a beautiful woman and she's not distorted by silicon-boobulation. You can verify that for yourself during the course of the movie. Total gorgeosity, she is.
Cat put me onto this and she is not a fan of sci-fi. For my taste, there are sci-fi movies and monster movies pretending to be sci-fi movies. So we've definitely got the monster but they seem to want to make him an imaginative monster so ... ok ... let's see what twist there may be in what AI means.
The fiction part of this is the biggest computer-simulated neural network has, I believe, a hundred connections or so. The brain has something of the order of a billion or so. Projecting the development of something to simply match the capability of a human brain is not foreseeable for the immediate future. I have no doubt it will happen but I don't expect a headline tomorrow.
Break After a Sexy Bit:
Computer bones Julie Christie ... well ... this translates to the computer saying it listens to the 'galactic dialog' and then it gets all trippy with the Kozmik Oneness as represented by a triangle in space. You would have to be much more stoned than I to see how a computer boning a beautiful woman translates to a triangle in space.
That's kind of annoying in trip sequences in general as they hardly ever look like what it really looks like when you're trippin'. If you think of Dali's "Columbus Discovering America" then that will give some idea of the depth and complexity of the hallucination and that's a subjective view but what other kind is there of my mind. Nevertheless, this perception of his work is not uncommon in trippin' people.
That bit seriously was the computer trying to be seductive in its AI way. That was kind of twisted so it gets some points for that.
In general, tho, it still turns out to be a monster movie. The science, even then, wasn't particularly extreme as the sci-fi writers were all over it when computers first rolled. These things will grow and grow and grow and then eat our skulls.
In making a sci-fi movie, do expect science to be thrown at it as the crowd is somewhat discriminating in terms of what is valid for a 'suspension of disbelief' and what is complete bullshit. The finest sci-fi is like first-class parody in which you're really not sure if it could be true. If you think about it and the idea doesn't fall apart then ... well ... maybe this could really happen. That's the finest kind of fortune-telling.
Historical note: this is just prior to the GOP rolling Reagan into view and killing the Equal Rights Amendment.
This article won't just spoil the ending. If you plan on watching the movie then stop now.
I'm at halfway and Julie Christie has just learned she will be pregnant by the computer. We're playing on that vibe of an AI that has all of humanity's knowledge and will now come to eat our skulls ... but ... they want to get beyond that and get into some seriously evil stuff. Well, how can I resist.
Julie Christie is a beautiful woman and she's not distorted by silicon-boobulation. You can verify that for yourself during the course of the movie. Total gorgeosity, she is.
Cat put me onto this and she is not a fan of sci-fi. For my taste, there are sci-fi movies and monster movies pretending to be sci-fi movies. So we've definitely got the monster but they seem to want to make him an imaginative monster so ... ok ... let's see what twist there may be in what AI means.
The fiction part of this is the biggest computer-simulated neural network has, I believe, a hundred connections or so. The brain has something of the order of a billion or so. Projecting the development of something to simply match the capability of a human brain is not foreseeable for the immediate future. I have no doubt it will happen but I don't expect a headline tomorrow.
Moore's Law is the one that says computers will double in power every two years. Even at that rate, it will take some time to chew up the difference between one hundred connections and one billion. It will come but it's not likely to come soon.
Break After a Sexy Bit:
Computer bones Julie Christie ... well ... this translates to the computer saying it listens to the 'galactic dialog' and then it gets all trippy with the Kozmik Oneness as represented by a triangle in space. You would have to be much more stoned than I to see how a computer boning a beautiful woman translates to a triangle in space.
That's kind of annoying in trip sequences in general as they hardly ever look like what it really looks like when you're trippin'. If you think of Dali's "Columbus Discovering America" then that will give some idea of the depth and complexity of the hallucination and that's a subjective view but what other kind is there of my mind. Nevertheless, this perception of his work is not uncommon in trippin' people.
That bit seriously was the computer trying to be seductive in its AI way. That was kind of twisted so it gets some points for that.
In general, tho, it still turns out to be a monster movie. The science, even then, wasn't particularly extreme as the sci-fi writers were all over it when computers first rolled. These things will grow and grow and grow and then eat our skulls.
The Flaws
The premise is the computer can build the genetic material needed to reproduce itself biologically but it needs a woman to complete the process. The AI will rebuild himself organically as a human but with all the capabilities of a computer.
Flaw of the First Part
When the computer has synthesized the genetic material for a male, why does it not synthesize the woman's contribution and make the whole synthetic human itself.
That part is minor as it's just a literary device to get sexy bits into the story.
Flaw of the Giant Part
If you paid attention in high school biology, you know the flaw already. The flaw is the false premise of Lamarckism (i.e. the inheritance of acquired characteristics). There is nothing you acquire that's passed on to your baby or the butterfly tat you have on yer butt would show up on yer baby's butt as soon as the little tyke is delivered.
Maybe you call it nitpicking but I'd call it rather bigger than a nit when the logic goes in the face of such an elemental level of the science that a high school kid could pick it apart. Any breeder knows the flaw even if your purpose was only breeding guppies in a fish tank.
In making a sci-fi movie, do expect science to be thrown at it as the crowd is somewhat discriminating in terms of what is valid for a 'suspension of disbelief' and what is complete bullshit. The finest sci-fi is like first-class parody in which you're really not sure if it could be true. If you think about it and the idea doesn't fall apart then ... well ... maybe this could really happen. That's the finest kind of fortune-telling.
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