It is a medium which transcends boundaries and makes the world a smaller place -- much as the media of printing, radio and television did before it. But is there anything really left to explore? The very problem with having the vast expanse of the knowledge that is the Internet before us, is that even before we experience something first hand, we have already passively experienced it one way or another. For instance, we can marvel at the majesty of the Grand Canyon but we can never look upon as the people of a century ago did. They would have had no idea of what to expect, but our sense of surprise is muted by what we have already seen in pictures and videos.
In other words, the computers in the movie were able to become independent of their programmers and developed a kind of artificial intelligence (A.I.). This essay will prove that in real life, computers will never realize artificial intelligence, and also even though functionalism is based on an analogy between humans and computers, it is an effective way to describe the interaction between the mind and body. Two essays will be evaluated in this essay. The first essay was called; "Can Computers Think?" by John Searle which rejects the theory of A.I.
The Future in Cyberpunk Works Cited Missing The defining characteristics of the cyberpunk genre have been debated since the beginnings of the literary movement. Some authors, classified as cyberpunk, question the very existence of this label, while others are in constant disagreement about the traits that make up the literature. Authors such as Bruce Sterling believe that cyberpunk is the integration of technology and literature in a world where the gap between science fiction and reality is rapidly closing; however, others such as Lewis Shiner have formed the opinion that this literature is merely a product of pop culture, hence it should not have any true literary importance. Furthermore, cyberpunk is said to be the voice of the underground in modern society, and the vision of a new technological world. These theories represent the different views of the major authors in this genre, thus it becomes difficult to define a literary style from such opposing views.
The theory of Post-Modernism in architecture was said to have started in response to the perceived dullness and failed Utopianism of the Modern movement (Wikipedia, 2014). Definitive Post-Modern architecture such as the works of Michael Grav... ... middle of paper ... ...d War 2 and the Cold War technologies, counter cultural techno-utopianism which saw the rise of Punk and Deconstructivism, and most importantly – Post Modernism. Even though the theory of Digital Culture is still in its early stage of development and there are still many different views and arguments on what it really encompasses of, it can be said that since its conception, digital technology has been analysed and examined through many schools of thoughts, theories and methodologies. Technology has been around through modernist and postmodernist times, and even though the “Digital Age” has not really been coined an era, the rise of digital culture even over just the past one to two decades have changed the way we conceive the future of digital technology and will definitely continue to be an even more integral part of our every day lives (Creeber and Martin, 2009).
Before the internet, our characteristics such as style, identity, and values were primarily exposed by our materialistic properties which psychologists define as the extended self. But people’s inferences to the idea of online self vs. offline self insisted a translation to these signals into a personality profile. In today’s generation, many of our dear possessions have been demolished. Psychologist Russell W belk suggest that: “until we choose to call them forth, our information, communications, photos, videos, music, and more are now largely invisible and immaterial.” Yet in terms of psychology there is no difference between the meaning of our “online selves” and “offline selves. They both assist us in expressing important parts of our identity to others and provide the key elements of our online reputation.
The Confusion Over Cyberpunk What the media associates with cyberpunk does not agree with the commonly accepted interpretation of the movement. The cyberpunk writers' philosophies of a bleak future, caused by the marriage of technical and human abilities, have been lost due to the acceptance of the underground movement. Whenever anyone looks at the newborn information age, one can not help but attach a "cyber" label to it. When anyone mentions the Internet or the World Wide Web, the only word that comes to mind is "cyberspace." Even though our networks are not synonymous with the "cyberspace" created by William Gibson in Neuromancer, the term is now being used to describe any virtual computer environment.
The kind of movement to which I am referring is not overtly physical, though. Neuromancer articulates a motion inward, its attention focused upon subtle interiors; it is implosive rather than expansive, choosing to examine how technology affects the universe of self, individual consciousness, rather than the universe at large (Csicsery 188). Every human character in the novel remains psychologically static, wired into a predetermined behavior pattern, a seemingly inescapable identity. Human characters seem unaware or incapable of forming or reforming an individual, provisional, less than absolute notion of self. Wintermute, an Artificial Intelligence, a computer, however, acknowledges and attempts to transcend itself.
This essay is very convincing to how Google and the Internet in general are changing the framework of our minds. He states that, “My mind isn’t going- so far as I can tell- but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.” (370) Carr continues to go on about how it’s harder for him to concentrate when reading, catching himself wondering only after a few pages. The web has become a “universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.” Marshall McLuhan stated, “Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.
"With the slow advent of changes in consciousness brought on by the new electronic media technology, we may be beginning to see the deconstruction of solid individuality and ownership" (304, Sloop & Herman). The networked environment transforms a shared file into something akin to a conversation between two persons. This conceptualization of the music file conflicts with the notion of ownership in that conversations are not owned by either speaker; they are shared. The file sharing application Napster, created by Shawn Fanning, works thus. While the computer is disconnected from the network, songs are owned by the owner of the computer in which they reside.
This is the focus on what society is doing now. In the 1970’s scientists found that computers could be programmed to do a set of instructions but were unable to provide a code for feelings or even the ability to give meaning to their life (Honavar). However in today’s society, AI is generally made out of a discipline called Machine learning, and this often explores the construction and the algorithms that can be learned. In machine learning, there are three subgroups, Supervised learning, unsupervised learning and reinforcement learning. Each of these having a significant impact on the world of