Artificial Intelligence- A Superior Race

In the second section of the book "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era" by James Barrat, the possible uses and misuses of Artificial Intelligence in the future are explained. Barrat gives us a  closer look at these by first showing what these machines will be able to do. Having a consciousness, the living AI robot will be able to create anything that humans need. The level of intelligence that this robot has is one thousand times smarter than humans, and because of this, humans will never again have to invent anything. The AI is there to do it for them. According to Barrat, many people will have this robot for use at home to help out with everyday chores and to attend to individuals. The problem he sees in this is that if the robot is under the command of these people, wouldn't it increase the violence, because of the power they have in their hands? If the AI is open to the public, criminals will also be able to use it. With this power, everything would become chaotic. Another thought Barrat mentions is that the robots will be more advanced than humans, as was previously said. Humans are the most intelligent beings on the earth, therefore we rule this planet. He states that if a machine smarter than us is created, humans will no longer be the dominant race, and will be left far behind. Barrat's concluding idea is to make 'clever programming' instead of AI. Clever programming is just very very advanced technology such as Apple's "Siri". It would be able to do all the things that is required in our daily lives and out on the field with our troops, but it doesn't include the risks that AI has. This clever programming will be very smart, and the intelligence will still surpass humankind's, but what it does with it will be completely controlled by humans. 

Essential Question Blog Post

Essential:
Question: Does Pop Culture (through technology) have an effect on society and personal identity?

Claim:
Popular Culture has an effect on society and personal identity.

Reason:
Popular Culture through movies has had an effect on society by brainwashing individuals to like certain things and act certain ways.

Popular culture has brainwashed society by portraying persuasive messages through movies and technology. These images contain misleading ideas that push a person to act a certain way in which they now believe is

Pop Culture Examples

what everyone else is doing. An example of this is in a large amount of the movies that are considered popular contain messages about people being violent, drinking alcohol, or practicing inappropriate behaviors. An example of this is in the movie Project X. The entire movie is a combination of messages that  show young kids that it is alright to drink alcohol, destroy things, have sex, and many other things. Putting all these things in a good light, this pushes them to believe that all this is okay, and if they do not believe it, it still has somehow altered their view towards it. This mixed with many other movies glorifies these unhealthy actions to make an entire society believe that it is the right thing.

Project X Trailer

                       In the book "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era" by James Barrat, artificial intelligence is viewed as something that could possibly become a dangerous threat to humankind in the future due to its lack of human morals. Barrat explores this further by explaining how scientists have discovered that artificial intelligence has surpassed the intelligence of the average human. It can perform the actions of an everyday human, but at the same time is endowed with all that humans know. AI is seen as about one thousand times smarter than the average human. What worries Barrat is what the machines will decide to do with this huge amount of knowledge. As a living machine, it would have the basic instincts of self preservation, and self improvement, which are both automatic in all things that have the ability to think. Lacking human emotion and the ability to know what is correct in society, there is a possibility that it would do irrational things to keep itself safe, and go to extensive measures to improve itself. Emphasizing how dangerous the AI might become, Barrat explains how the scientists would have to be extremely and almost impossibly precise in their programming so that they would have total control over the machine they are creating. It obviously would be alive and be able to think for itself, and because of this we must limit its independence so that it is not able to pull away from human control. "Humans have built atom bombs, imagine what a being one thousand times smarter could create." Barrat stresses how the science fiction idea of a robot controlled society isn't so distant anymore. If humans really have the power to create this AI, then imagine what machines the AI itself could create. With this knowledge, it could have the power to take over the world and as Barrat states, "...perhaps even the universe." He concludes by saying how it is just much simpler to stay away from creating AI, and avoid all the danger that comes with it.

Artificial Intelligence
I, Robot Clip- AI No Longer Obeying Humans

Survey- Tech Friday

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 According to our results, most people use 1- 2 electronic devices on a daily basis. The company that most people think are the most successful are Google and Apple. Most people use G- mail as their email server. People have mixed opinions on what robots should be able to do. There is a tie between thinking, understanding, and performing human functions. The majority of people spend 2 to 6 hours a day involved with technology.

Discussion Question #3

Assess whether Larry McVay's plan was successful or not.

I think Larry McVay's was successful, in the sense that the man who stole from his was brought to justice. McVay himself did not believe his plan worked, because he intended to kill Mr. Ortolan.
In the book Erebos, Nick discovers that the video game, that has taken over the lives of many of his schoolmates and friends, is all a secret plot. He finds this out by investigating the game further with two of his friends, Emily and Victor. After much research, they begin to unearth more and more answers about the game until they discover its purpose. Erebos was created by a man named Larry McVay, who, many years earlier, had created a different video game. A large company run by a man named Andrew Ortolan stole this video game from McVay and made a large profit off of it. Larry, having had his greatest work taken from him, made another video game shortly before killing himself. This game was Erebos, and the final mission of the game was to assassinate Ortolan.

What Players Were Wearing During Assassination

Larry McVay had created his own character in the game, and had prepared what  his character would say in the future, whether his plan failed or succeeded. "My plan has failed. If I were still around to see it, I would probably be very angry." (336). This shows how Larry did not believe his plan had succeeded. All he wanted was complete revenge on the man who stole his work from him, and had no remorse for the people who got injured and the lives he ruined. Even though his attack had scarred Ortolan and likely made him  regret what he had done, McVay still believed his plan hadn't reached its final goal: the killing of Ortolan.

Ortolan Behind Bars

Afterwards, Nick rounds up the people that played the game, and talks to them. "The sole aim of Erebos was to get back at Mr. Ortolan for one of his dirty tricks. It didn't work. On one hand that's a good thing; but on the other hand he shouldn't be allowed to get of scott- free." (330). Nick rounds up the kids to use the evidence to put Ortolan in jail. He makes it so that McVay's plan could be successful, but in a different way, so that his friends won't be killing and no one has to get hurt or die. This is the correct way. I think even though McVay did not believe he was successful, that he, in fact, was. The man he was after got what he deserved for what he had done to McVay, and the kids didn't have to be exploited any further.
In conclusion, I think that his plan was successful. The man that had committed the crime was put to justice, and what McVay had planned was accomplished, just in a different way.

                                             Video Games Raising Violence Among Teens
Erebos Book Review
About the Author, Ursula Poznanski

Discussion Question #2

Discuss whether Nick could voluntarily leave Erebos or not, and what the consequences would be.

Nick is at the point where his life revolves around Erebos, and his addiction to the game has advanced to where he couldn't just step away from it. He sacrifices his reality to be a part of this animated world. A man in the game called 'the messenger' pushes him to do chores for the game outside of the computer, such as delivering boxes, spying on people, and even murder. He complies to these with an eagerness just to earn more levels in his false reality on the screen. One example of this is when Nick is battling a large golden hawk.

Golden Hawk

He is quickly losing, and with one final strike he will die. " 'Should I hold him (the hawk) off?'" The messenger. He's appeared from nowhere, as always. 'Yes, please, quickly!' Fantastic, Sarius is going to live. He knew he could rely on the messenger. 'But you must do something for me'"(155). The messenger manipulates Nick in ways that he must run his missions outside of the game or he will be killed within it. He also uses Nick by offering him more levels, armor, and weapons. The consequences of him being ejected from the game would be that he would feel a sense of emptiness, because he would have lost the alternate life in which he put so much time into. He would also be in danger, because he knows too much about Erebos, and the game has not yet hesitated to kill. In conclusion, Nick could not leave Erebos of his own will. The game has drawn him in. If he were to leave, then the game could still be a threat to him. The takeaway message is that a person shouldn't get themselves into something before they have knowledge on what it is; not to place yourself in something because everyone else is.

                                                Video Game Addiction, but In Real Life

Book Flyer- Tech Friday

Discussion Question #1

Evaluate whether the videogame has had a positive or  negative effect on Nick's life.

The videogame has a had a negative on Nick by pushing him away from his family and friends.
Erebos is a video game that was given to Nick under secretive circumstances. He is not allowed to speak about it, or look into it in any way. As he begins to play, the game seems to suck him in. It pulls him away, little by little, using tactics to make it so Nick doesn't realize what is happening. As he gets farther into the game, he pulls away more from reality. He neglects his parents, schoolwork, and friends to play the game. Nick, at one point, considers what is happening to him. "With every day that passes my reality loses more of its value. It's loud, disordered, unpredictable, and arduous....it causes pain, strikes you down with disease... I withdraw my consent from reality. I deny it my assistance." (152) Nick has pulled away from reality. He has decided that at this moment in his life, the game is more important. Real life has pain and suffering, and within the game, he is powerful, and he is excited. He makes the decision that he will no longer give himself to his life outside of the game, therefore dedicating himself to Erebos.
The video game has had this negative effect because it is pushing him to neglect his relationships with the real people in his life. It pushed him to believe that a computer game is more important than his reality. He is pulled into a world of fakeness, and accepts it over what is real. A takeaway message would be that family and friends and the relationships you have with people are more important than any other material possession.

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Tuesday Write Malcolm Gladwell Discussion

                     Malcolm Gladwell is a very intelligent speaker who takes the time to see what others do not. He is a journalist, screenwriter, author, and writer, and an great thinker. I agree with his idea of examining things closer than they are originally perceived, because I think there are many things that have deeper meanings. I also believe that in some circumstances he looks too close where there is really nothing more to be found. He does this in his talk about David and Goliath. The story of David and Goliath is a widely known to be a tale of a boy with a sling beating a giant. It tells the story of an underdog winning despite the odds. Malcolm says in his talk that Goliath actually had a disease that made him have eyesight problems, and that David was truly the more powerful one, due to his sling. He could be completely right about Goliath, but I don't believe that that was the objective of the story. I truly doubt the lesson to be taken away was that Goliath had vision problems, and that the man who recorded and added this story to the Bible genuinely took this into consideration. The purpose of the story is to provide people with hope when the situation looks impossible, and I think Gladwell in a way ruins this idea by looking too closely. On the other hand, I thought his talk on spaghetti sauce was very good. In this talk, he discussed how different varieties of sauce were created, instead of one special one. Something he said that stood out to me was "People do not know what they want." I think this is quite an interesting concept to consider. People said they all wanted a certain type of sauce when in reality, they all wanted something they had never even thought of, which opened an entire new way of making products. I think the general takeaway message from Gladwell's talks is that to truly understand something, a closer look has to be taken. If only people would dig a little deeper than what they see on the broad outsides of things, there is a deeper,
more complex meaning to everything that can open many new possibilities.

                  I think a phenomenon in my everyday life is how each sequence of events lead up to certain consequences. Each action performed by a person leads to another, and another, and one small change can result in a dramatically different outcome. People usually tend to not consider this when going about their everyday lives, and unless the decision is a large one, do not take into consideration the effect this small choice might make. The first decision we make creates a chain reaction. If each decision is not made with precision and thought, a person can never
know where they will end up. It's something that people should recognize more.
David and Goliath Review
Ted Talks Spaghetti Sauce
Long Lasting Effects of Decisions- Youtube