LIT 3316: Literature of Science Fiction: Cyborgs and Robots Fall 2016 1 Course Syllabus Course Information Literature of Science
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A Very Short History of Cyberpunk
A Very Short History of Cyberpunk Marcus Janni Pivato Many people seem to think that William Gibson invented The cyberpunk genre in 1984, but in fact the cyberpunk aesthetic was alive well before Neuromancer (1984). For example, in my opinion, Ridley Scott's 1982 movie, Blade Runner, captures the quintessence of the cyberpunk aesthetic: a juxtaposition of high technology with social decay as a troubling allegory of the relationship between humanity and machines ---in particular, artificially intelligent machines. I believe the aesthetic of the movie originates from Scott's own vision, because I didn't really find it in the Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968), upon which the movie is (very loosely) based. Neuromancer made a big splash not because it was the "first" cyberpunk novel, but rather, because it perfectly captured the Zeitgeist of anxiety and wonder that prevailed at the dawning of the present era of globalized economics, digital telecommunications, and exponential technological progress --things which we now take for granted but which, in the early 1980s were still new and frightening. For example, Gibson's novels exhibit a fascination with the "Japanification" of Western culture --then a major concern, but now a forgotten and laughable anxiety. This is also visible in the futuristic Los Angeles of Scott’s Blade Runner. Another early cyberpunk author is K.W. Jeter, whose imaginative and disturbing novels Dr. Adder (1984) and The Glass Hammer (1985) exemplify the dark underside of the genre. Some people also identify Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling as progenitors of cyberpunk. -
Citizen Cyborg.” Citizen a Groundbreaking Work of Social Commentary, Citizen Cyborg Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, and Genetic Engineering —DR
hughes (continued from front flap) $26.95 US ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NANOTECHNOLOGY GENETIC ENGINEERING MEDICAL ETHICS INVITRO FERTILIZATION STEM-CELL RESEARCH $37.95 CAN citizen LIFE EXTENSION GENETIC PATENTS HUMAN GENETIC ENGINEERING CLONING SEX SELECTION ASSISTED SUICIDE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE human genetic engineering, sex selection, drugs, and assisted In the next fifty years, life spans will extend well beyond a century. suicide—and concludes with a concrete political agenda for pro- cyborg Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater technology progressives, including expanding and deepening control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains “A challenging and provocative look at the intersection of human self-modification and human rights, reforming genetic patent laws, and providing SOCIETIES MUST RESPOND TO THE REDESIGNED HUMAN OF FUTURE WHY DEMOCRATIC will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. The limits political governance. Everyone wondering how society will be able to handle the coming citizen everyone with healthcare and a basic guaranteed income. of the human body will be transcended, as technologies such as possibilities of A.I. and genomics should read Citizen Cyborg.” citizen A groundbreaking work of social commentary, Citizen Cyborg artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering —DR. GREGORY STOCK, author of Redesigning Humans illuminates the technologies that are pushing the boundaries of converge and accelerate. With them, we will redesign ourselves and humanness—and the debate that may determine the future of the our children into varieties of posthumanity. “A powerful indictment of the anti-rationalist attitudes that are dominating our national human race itself. -
The Fundamental Articles of I.AM Cyborg Law
Beijing Law Review, 2020, 11, 911-946 https://www.scirp.org/journal/blr ISSN Online: 2159-4635 ISSN Print: 2159-4627 The Fundamental Articles of I.AM Cyborg Law Stephen Castell CASTELL Consulting, Witham, UK How to cite this paper: Castell, S. (2020). Abstract The Fundamental Articles of I.AM Cyborg Law. Beijing Law Review, 11, 911-946. Author Isaac Asimov first fictionally proposed the “Three Laws of Robotics” https://doi.org/10.4236/blr.2020.114055 in 1942. The word “cyborg” appeared in 1960, describing imagined beings with both artificial and biological parts. My own 1973 neologisms, “neural Received: November 2, 2020 plug compatibility”, and “softwiring” predicted the computer software-driven Accepted: December 15, 2020 Published: December 18, 2020 future evolution of man-machine neural interconnection and synthesis. To- day, Human-AI Brain Interface cyborg experiments and “brain-hacking” de- Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and vices are being trialed. The growth also of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Scientific Research Publishing Inc. Data Analytics software and increasing instances of “Government by Algo- This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International rithm” have revealed these advances as being largely unregulated, with insuf- License (CC BY 4.0). ficient legal frameworks. In a recent article, I noted that, with automation of http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ legal processes and judicial decision-making being increasingly discussed, Open Access RoboJudge has all but already arrived; and I discerned also the cautionary Castell’s Second Dictum: “You cannot construct an algorithm that will relia- bly decide whether or not any algorithm is ethical”. -
THESIS ANXIETIES and ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: DISASSEMBLING the POP CULTURE GYNOID Submitted by Carly Fabian Department of Communicati
THESIS ANXIETIES AND ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: DISASSEMBLING THE POP CULTURE GYNOID Submitted by Carly Fabian Department of Communication Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Fall 2018 Master’s Committee: Advisor: Katie L. Gibson Kit Hughes Kristina Quynn Copyright by Carly Leilani Fabian 2018 All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT ANXIETIES AND ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: DISASSEMBLING THE POP CULTURE GYNOID This thesis analyzes the cultural meanings of the feminine-presenting robot, or gynoid, in three popular sci-fi texts: The Stepford Wives (1975), Ex Machina (2013), and Westworld (2017). Centralizing a critical feminist rhetorical approach, this thesis outlines the symbolic meaning of gynoids as representing cultural anxieties about women and technology historically and in each case study. This thesis draws from rhetorical analyses of media, sci-fi studies, and previously articulated meanings of the gynoid in order to discern how each text interacts with the gendered and technological concerns it presents. The author assesses how the text equips—or fails to equip—the public audience with motives for addressing those concerns. Prior to analysis, each chapter synthesizes popular and scholarly criticisms of the film or series and interacts with their temporal contexts. Each chapter unearths a unique interaction with the meanings of gynoid: The Stepford Wives performs necrophilic fetishism to alleviate anxieties about the Women’s Liberation Movement; Ex Machina redirects technological anxieties towards the surveilling practices of tech industries, simultaneously punishing exploitive masculine fantasies; Westworld utilizes fantasies and anxieties cyclically in order to maximize its serial potential and appeal to impulses of its viewership, ultimately prescribing a rhetorical placebo. -
The Cyborg Prophecy: Reading Between Isaac Asimov's Lines
The Cyborg Prophecy: Reading between Isaac Asimov’s Lines Rudrani Gangopadhyay Jadavpur University, Kolkata Abstract: Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” describes the Cyborg as a conjunction of technology and discourse. It argues that a prosthesis becomes a cyborg element when it is integrated with the identity of an individual, and a cyborg is created by the almost symbiotic union of robotic and organic elements. Isaac Asimov, in his short story “The Bicentennial Man” for example, narrates the story of such a remarkable union of robotic and human parts and asserts, at the end, that the resultant system is, essentially, human. A cyborg, therefore, is ‘meta-human’, being somewhat enhanced (by the use of technology) in certain ways in comparison to a human being. There isa mass cyborgization of the global population taking place today. The kind of blurring of boundaries between exogenous and endogenous parts within the system of a human being that one had, so far, only come across in science fiction, is fast coming to life. The obvious example of prosthetics aside, gadgets like cellphone headsets, touchscreen phones and similar electronic devices have been rendered extensions of the human system, merging seamlessly with the organic identities and consequently, making cyborgs out of everyone. The relevance of literature featuring cyborgs, which have, in a way, acted as prophecies for human civilization, therefore cannot be emphasized enough. This paper explores the cyborg identity in select works of Isaac Asimov and reflect on the fast occurring cyborgization of the (meta-)human race in reality. Keywords: Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov, Cyborg, Cybernetics, Body Studies Donna Haraway, in the famous “Cyborg Manifesto,” describes a cyborg as a conjunction of technology and discourse (Haraway 149). -
Mirrorshade Women: Feminism and Cyberpunk
Mirrorshade Women: Feminism and Cyberpunk at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century Carlen Lavigne McGill University, Montréal Department of Art History and Communication Studies February 2008 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Studies © Carlen Lavigne 2008 2 Abstract This study analyzes works of cyberpunk literature written between 1981 and 2005, and positions women’s cyberpunk as part of a larger cultural discussion of feminist issues. It traces the origins of the genre, reviews critical reactions, and subsequently outlines the ways in which women’s cyberpunk altered genre conventions in order to advance specifically feminist points of view. Novels are examined within their historical contexts; their content is compared to broader trends and controversies within contemporary feminism, and their themes are revealed to be visible reflections of feminist discourse at the end of the twentieth century. The study will ultimately make a case for the treatment of feminist cyberpunk as a unique vehicle for the examination of contemporary women’s issues, and for the analysis of feminist science fiction as a complex source of political ideas. Cette étude fait l’analyse d’ouvrages de littérature cyberpunk écrits entre 1981 et 2005, et situe la littérature féminine cyberpunk dans le contexte d’une discussion culturelle plus vaste des questions féministes. Elle établit les origines du genre, analyse les réactions culturelles et, par la suite, donne un aperçu des différentes manières dont la littérature féminine cyberpunk a transformé les usages du genre afin de promouvoir en particulier le point de vue féministe. -
118 Reviews of Books Does, the Book Is a Pleasure. He Roots It in Feminist, Race, and Sf Scholarship, Just As He Grounds Butler
118 Reviews of Books does, the book is a pleasure. He roots it in feminist, race, and sf scholarship, just as he grounds Butler in black American women’s writing traditions and sf tropes. Moreover, he stays focused on his literary argument and doesn’t get lost in the weeds of debates about agency, humanism, and the problematic legacy of the Enlightenment. Ultimately, Of Bodies, Communities, and Voices is indispensable for any Butler scholar, primarily because of the ways he connects so many of her work’s central concerns without reducing its complexity or variety. It will function more as a source of research than pedagogy, except maybe in upper-level classes centered on Butler. I recommend it not only to scholars of Butler but sf in general, especially in terms of afrofuturism, posthumanism, or any of Bast’s focal points (agency, bodies, community, voice). Biopunk SF in Liquid Modernity. Lars Schmeink. Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society and Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016. 288 pp. ISBN 978-1-78-138376-6. £75 hc. Reviewed by D. Harlan Wilson Biopunk is among the more recent sf subgenres to emerge from the virtual citadel of 1980s cyberpunk. There have been others—most prominently steampunk, but also splatterpunk, nanopunk, dieselpunk, bugpunk, even elfpunk and monkpunk—but biopunk narratives are perhaps the first truly authentic descendant of the cyberpunks, featuring gritty dystopian settings, beat characters, corporate terrorism, techno-pathology, and body invasion. Instead of hacking computers, however, biopunks hack DNA and operate in worlds where the processes and products of genetic engineering are brought to bear by various forms of mad scientism. -
A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist- Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181. AN IRONIC DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE FOR WOMEN IN THE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT This chapter is an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism. Perhaps more faithful as blasphemy is faithful, than as reverent worship and identification. Blasphemy has always seemed to require taking things very seriously. I know no better stance to adopt from within the secular-religious, evangelical traditions of United States politics, including the politics of socialist feminism. Blasphemy protects one from the moral majority within, while still insisting on the need for community. Blasphemy is not apostasy. Irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humour and serious play. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method, one I would like to see more honoured within socialist-feminism. At the centre of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. The international women's movements have constructed 'women's experience', as well as uncovered or discovered this crucial collective object. This experience is a fiction and fact of the most crucial, political kind. -
Brain Uploading-Related Group Mind Scenarios
MIRI MACHINE INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE Coalescing Minds: Brain Uploading-Related Group Mind Scenarios Kaj Sotala University of Helsinki, MIRI Research Associate Harri Valpola Aalto University Abstract We present a hypothetical process of mind coalescence, where artificial connections are created between two or more brains. This might simply allow for an improved formof communication. At the other extreme, it might merge the minds into one in a process that can be thought of as a reverse split-brain operation. We propose that one way mind coalescence might happen is via an exocortex, a prosthetic extension of the biological brain which integrates with the brain as seamlessly as parts of the biological brain in- tegrate with each other. An exocortex may also prove to be the easiest route for mind uploading, as a person’s personality gradually moves away from the aging biological brain and onto the exocortex. Memories might also be copied and shared even without minds being permanently merged. Over time, the borders of personal identity may become loose or even unnecessary. Sotala, Kaj, and Harri Valpola. 2012. “Coalescing Minds: Brain Uploading-Related Group Mind Scenarios.” International Journal of Machine Consciousness 4 (1): 293–312. doi:10.1142/S1793843012400173. This version contains minor changes. Kaj Sotala, Harri Valpola 1. Introduction Mind uploads, or “uploads” for short (also known as brain uploads, whole brain emu- lations, emulations or ems) are hypothetical human minds that have been moved into a digital format and run as software programs on computers. One recent roadmap chart- ing the technological requirements for creating uploads suggests that they may be fea- sible by mid-century (Sandberg and Bostrom 2008). -
Cyborgs in Latin America
CYBORGS IN LATIN AMERICA 9780230103900_01_prexii.indd i 5/7/2010 12:14:52 PM This page intentionally left blank Cyborgs in Latin America J. Andrew Brown 9780230103900_01_prexii.indd iii 5/7/2010 12:14:52 PM CYBORGS IN LATIN AMERICA Copyright © J. Andrew Brown, 2010. All rights reserved. First published in 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10390–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, J. Andrew, 1970– Cyborgs in Latin America / J. Andrew Brown. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–230–10390–0 (alk. paper) 1. Spanish American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Science fiction, Spanish American—History and criticism. 3. Cyborgs in literature. 4. Cyborgs in mass media. 5. Cyborgs in motion pictures. 6. Literature and technology—Latin America— History—20th century. 7. Mass media and technology—Latin America—History—20th century. 8. Human beings—Philosophy. I. Title. PQ7082.S34B76 2010 863Ј.087620998—dc22 2009047964 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. -
The (Care) Robot in Science Fiction: a Monster Or a Tool for the Future?
Confero | Vol. 4 | no. 2 | 2016 | pp. 97-109 | doi: 10.3384/confero.2001-4562.161212 The (care) robot in science fiction: A monster or a tool for the future? Aino-Kaisa Koistinen ccording to Mikkonen, Mäyrä and Siivonen, our lives are so pervaded with technology that it becomes important to ask questions considering human relations to technology and the boundaries between us and the various technological A appliances that we interact with on a daily basis: For example, as pacemakers and contact lenses technology has become such an intimate thing that it can be said to be a foundational aspect of our humanity. It is hard, or even impossible, to understand the meaning of our human existence if the role of machines in our humanness is not taken into account. Pointedly, we can ask: “Are we humans machines – or at least turning into ones?” Or in reverse: “Can machines become humans, thinking and feeling beings?” What is essential is not how realistic or believable the assumptions considering humanization of machines or the mechanization of humans inherent to these questions are. What is essential is that these questions are asked altogether.1 There is one fictional genre, that of science fiction, that is particularly suitable for asking these kinds of questions. Indeed, science fiction, as the name of the genre already suggests, is preoccupied with the imaginations of scientific explorations. These explorations are often realized through stories of 1 Mikkonen et al., 1997, 9, transl. by the author, emphasis added. 97 Aino-Kaisa Koistinen technology, such as different kinds of robotic creatures. -
Humanity's Capability of Transcendence Through Artificial
California State University, Monterey Bay Digital Commons @ CSUMB Capstone Projects and Master's Theses Spring 5-2016 Humanity’s Capability of Transcendence through Artificial Intelligence Zena McCartney California State University, Monterey Bay Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation McCartney, Zena, "Humanity’s Capability of Transcendence through Artificial Intelligence" (2016). Capstone Projects and Master's Theses. 529. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes/529 This Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ CSUMB. It has been accepted for inclusion in Capstone Projects and Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ CSUMB. Unless otherwise indicated, this project was conducted as practicum not subject to IRB review but conducted in keeping with applicable regulatory guidance for training purposes. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Humanity’s Capability of Transcendence through Artificial Intelligence What does it mean to be a human in a technological society? Source: Cazy89. Artificial Intelligence. Cruz, Alejandro. Flickr Commons. WikiMedia Project. Web. 28 December 2008. Digital Image. Senior Capstone Practical and Professional Ethics Research Essay David Reichard Division of Humanities and Communication Spring 2016 0 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................2