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This movie is about a scientist (Rebecca Hall) and her husband (Johnny Depp; also a scientist) who was mortally wounded by anti-technology radicals. Hall uses experimental technology to import Depp's consciousness into an AI program. Hall then builds a science center and supercomputer in the middle of the desert so that Depp can commence research on experimental nano-technology, which we (the viewers) see used to repair/rebuild solar panels, kill bacteria, destroy pollution, and even cure blindness and cancers. However, when the nano-technology is used to heal humans, Depp gains the ability to hijack the person's mind and use the body as his own. Other scientists, the anti-tech radicals, and the FBI are highly disturbed by this ability. They kidnap Hall and lead an all-out attack on Depp and the research hall. In the fight, Hall is mortally wounded. Depp tries to save Hall by uploading her consciousness into the AI with him, but the radicals injected a virus into Hall that would shut down the entire network of nano-technology, and all of the other technology on Earth. Depp, Hall, and all of the nano-technology are shut down, except at Depp and Halls' old garden, which was spared from the virus due to signal-blocking materials. The section of the garden that was shielded was shown flourishing due to the healing nano-technology, and the credits roll.
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I feel like this movie can connect with all of the books that we are reading for this course. The message I perceived from Transcendence is that technology can be wonderful, productive, and used without problems when we control it. But the moment we let it roam free, let it take over our minds and alter human nature itself, that's when the problems will start. If anyone else has seen this movie or just has something to say on this topic, feel free to drop a comment below. Until next time, have a good summer.
I think I could watch Johnny Depp read a phone book and think it was spectacular.
ReplyDeleteJosh, what do you mean when you say that the moment we let technology "roam free...[and] take over our minds", the problems will start? I am guessing you're talking about AI. That is a stretch, don't you think?
Here's what I think: we worry about AI, but until that particular technology is in wide and common use -- at least a few years out into the future -- we ignore what is happening (and what has happened) to us now, merely using our comparatively benign devices.
I like a good AI movie just like the next person. But I recall you saying earlier this summer that you, personally, could easily go all day without interaction with another human being, but you could NOT go all day without interaction with technology. So when you write that it's "when we let [technology] take over our minds and alter human nature itself," I would argue that this IS happening, right now.
As long as we put AI fantasies out there as the thing to watch out for, we don't feel we have to consider the repercussions of the here and now.