Ken's Blog

Continuing from yesterday’s post, what is it, exactly, that caused the shift in our science fiction view of the future from optimism to pessimism and even paranoia? When, exactly, did we go from white mirror to black mirror?

From the perspective of the U.S., my best guess is the general response to our nation’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict, compounded by the Watergate scandal. That was a time when a large swatch of the citizenry rapidly grew distrustful of their federal government.

This seems to be supported by the timing of various science fiction offerings in popular culture. For example, when Star Trek came out in 1966, the nation was, for the most part, blissfully unaware of anything to do with the Vietnam conflict other than what their own government was telling them.

By 1968, the debut of two far more dystopian films — 2001, A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes — the cracks in our sunny narrative of the future were starting to burst open.

By 1973, in the wake of both Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, we had Soylent Green and Westworld, two films as paranoid as it gets. The tide had decisively turned, never again to turn back.

I was looking at some mid-century interior decorations today — the simple shapes, the bright colors, the sense of optimism — and it made me realize how much our society has shifted in 60 years.

There was a time when the future meant household robots! Rocket ships! Exploring the universe!! Now everything is dark and foreboding, and the future means dystopian disaster.

I wonder exactly when we lost our collective optimism. Maybe it’s time we got some measure of it back.

I wonder whether technology will ever get to the point where we can watch our favorite movie with our favorite actor even though nobody ever made that movie with that actor before we thought of it.

Below the surface, there would need to be plenty of machine learning and lots of other advanced technologies. There would also need to be other kinds of artificial intelligence, perhaps more advanced than anything available today, because human choices in acting are not readily amenable to algorithmic solutions.

But if we get through all that and we end up with being able to dial in our own cast for our favorite movies, I wonder how it will be received. Will people see it as a valid new medium, will it replace the conventional approach, or will it be rejected out of hand?

Now I know why they call them deadlines.

Either you end up dead, or you end up with new lines on your face.

:-/

We are in the final stages of writing a major proposal to the National Science Foundation. It involves lots of people and lots of money, and we have no idea whether it will get funded.

Even less than a week ago, much of the proposal was a mystery to me. But since then I have gotten familiar with every nook and cranny.

You know that feeling the first time you walk into a large house? There are many rooms, and you aren’t sure where everything is. This corridor leads to the kitchen, that door opens to the garage. Somewhere upstairs there may be two bathrooms.

But after you’ve been in that house for a while, it all starts to make sense. You know where everything is, and how to get from one place to another.

That’s what has happened to me with this proposal. But it’s like we’re building the house and getting to know it all at the same time.

As I get familiar with the garage, the basement, the living room, I’m also refurnishing them, making some rooms bigger and others smaller. I’m sort of hanging around in the house while I’m building it

In another few months we will know whether this proposal will be funded, and then we will really be able to move into our new house. I just hope the roof doesn’t leak.

Today I talked to my mom. I wished her a Happy Valentine’s day and she wished me a happy Valentine’s day.

I asked her how she was spending the day. She told me that she spent much of it attending a mindfulness session, which is being held on-line on Zoom. I asked her how it went.

She told me that for most of it she just turned off her microphone and video and did other things around the house. I found that to be delightful.

And I’m sure there is a great joke in there somewhere.

Today is an in-between day. Yesterday was the Lunar New Year, and tomorrow is Valentine’s day.

I suppose there is some mystical meaning to this confluence of meaningful dates. Perhaps the Universe is communicating to us something deep and profound, and perhaps we should try to listen.

At the very least, we should take away the most obvious of messages: Let us all celebrate and share our love for this precious gift of life, and for the opportunity to start anew and face the future together.

When we have truly immersive interaction between people who are in different parts of the world, that will be the beginning of what now seems like an odd phenomenon: We can feel like we are in the same room, but you can be in summer while I am in winter, or vice versa.

Perhaps you are in Rio de Janeiro and I am in New York in December. It might be very hot where you are, but freezing cold where I am.

Suppose further that we decide to take a walk together outside, using our future immersive communication technology. I am trudging through snow, while you are walking along a sandy beach.

I wonder whether we could eventually turn this around. Maybe we could use this sort of technology to allow a person in NY in the dead of winter to have the feeling of walking with their friends along a sandy beach on a beautiful sunny day in Rio.

I, for one, would be in favor of that. 🙂

Of all the inventors essential
There’s one who’s especially groovy

His record was quite influential
He even invented the movie

So a light bulb went off in my head
When I saw it’s the birthday of Edison

Since a light bulb went off in my head
I probably should take some medicine

I am having a debate with a colleague of mine about using virtual reality in education. It comes down to a simple question: Is it more useful to visualize the visible or the invisible?

He thinks it is more useful to use VR to get a better insight into things that we can see but not normally interact with, like planets. I am more excited about using VR to interact with things we normally could never see, like atoms.

It’s not exactly that one of us is right and the other wrong. It’s more a question of which is the more natural fit for VR in education.

At the end of the day, my guess is that we are probably both sort of right. Like my dad used to say when I would ask him a silly question: “Do you want to go to Brooklyn or by bus?”