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Depp to Star as a Supercomputer in Christopher Nolan Film About the Singularity
- tomrod 14y agoThis should be entertaining, if nothing else. Nolan seems to bring a complement of actors between projects (e.g. Inception vs. Batman trilogy). Will be interesting to see if he continues this trend.
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- polyfractal 14y agoHopefully it will make an entertaining movie, but man, I really hate all things associated with "The Singularity". Nothing fills me with more irrational (impotent) rage than people babbling on about the Singularity.
- bhousel 14y agoOk, I'll bite. Why do you care?
- thwest 14y agoIt reifies the teleology and savior complex that make monotheistic religions troublesome. It ignores morality and aesthetics in favor of an unknowable, uncontrollable machine logic.
- megrimlock 14y agoIt kinda has a similar problem to the Hegelian dialectic that Marx built his stuff on. The Singularity argument observes some trends and presumes they will continue along the same profile, carrying our society towards a specific phase-change that we've never seen before. Extrapolating trends is one thing; arguing that some novel configuration is inevitable is another.
- thwest 14y agoThat's interesting, can you elaborate? The dialectic is troublesome, especially from the perspective of Deleuze's multitide, but I don't immediately see how it is tied to a claim of novel configuration. In my experience with Marx, the dialectic mostly let Marx approach Smith and Ricardo's works in a way that allowed for the inclusion of a wider conception of the conditions and consequences of capital. Whereas a WSJ oped might say "capital has benefits! the downsides are simply worth it", Marx takes a benefit and a downside, considers them 'an internal contradiction of capital', then uses a dialectical mode to reveal some hidden 3rd variable. Are you referencing Das Kapital's inevitability of the rate of profit to decline? Or something in one of the more explicitly political texts about the inevitability of communism? I can only really discuss Das Kapital, which I feel is more of a historical reflection on political economy than the explicit party politics you might find in the Manifesto.
- ksmiley 14y agoHere's a criticism of the Singularity I've seen a couple times that originates from the web comic, Pictures For Sad Children. "There's a special kind of nerd though who thinks computers will overtake mankind in thirty years, changing humanity in ways incomprehensible to us now. Ignoring the third of the world without electricity. So the singularity is the nerd way of saying, "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome". It's flying car bullshit: surely the world will conform to our speculative fiction. Surely we're the ones who will get to live in the future. It gives spiritual significance to technology developed primarily for entertainment or warfare, and gives nerds something to obsess over that isn't the crushing vacuousness of their lives." Although in my mind that's more of a criticism of the adulation of the Singularity by its adherents than of the actual Singularity itself.
- Uhhrrr 14y agoThe nerd adulation comes from the idea that having understanding of computers will be more awesome, not being rich and white. The fact that they make that substitution shows a certain mired pathos. EDIT: FWIW, I think the Kurzweil view is ridiculously optimistic.
- mej10 14y agoIt has always struck me as odd that people dismiss the singularity as a nerd fantasy. They latch on to one view of it and make up their minds about the idea itself. The people I know that take it seriously are much more afraid of it than anything. They think that it will be an extinction event rather than the nerd rapture.
- salgernon 14y agoThis is exactly the mindset among evangelical christians that believe the rapture is right around the corner - and every generation of evangelical back to the 1800s has believed that the rapture is imminent and of course, that they as individuals will be saved.
- dbaupp 14y ago> Ignoring the third of the world without electricity ... "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome" There is a portion of the "Singularitarians" pushing for the Singularity because such a large segment of the world is so disadvantaged, they want humanity to move forward. Their line is more "in the future, being human will be even more awesome". (For the most part, this group has a fairly low opinion of Kurzweil and his accelerating curves or whatever he calls them.)
- polyfractal 14y agoOof, Comcast died as soon as I made this post. I have two major contentions. First, I'm a neuroscientist by training, so hearing anything related to "upload my brain" just makes me weep. The only realistic way to "upload your brain" is to pump your body full of fixatives (paraformaldehyde), section it on a cryostat and then perform electron microscopy across every single slice. Then put it all back together (fixing skewing artifacts, etc) on a computer. THEN make a simulation out of it, where every atom of your body is replicated with pristine accuracy. Otherwise you are not yourself anymore. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's so far from likely that being near-immortal due to bio-enhancements is almost certainly more practical. Or you can develop some "scanning ray gun" which does the same thing without killing you first, I suppose. Second, the whole notion of "exponentially increasing intelligence" I find silly. Are we more intelligent than homo sapiens 3000 years ago? Perhaps more scholarly, more literate, more capable of engineering complex systems. But our inherent, base intelligence is not any different. Just applied to different problems and starting at different bases of knowledge. Edit: Musing on this, I find a "Matrix"-style hostile takeover of highly intelligent AI much more likely than humans "transcending" into some super-computing cloud of blissful hyperintelligence. That's seems much more likely than humans ever fully shucking our meat bag bodies.
- chc 14y agoIt sounds like you know what they mean by "intelligence," but you're instead choosing to use your preferred definition and call them wrong based on semantics. Being more scholarly, more literate and capable of solving much bigger problems sounds like something that could reasonably be summarized as "more intelligent."
- polyfractal 14y agoFair enough. I mused on this in one of the responses up above. I still don't think that makes a person more innately intelligent. More capable, perhaps, but not more intelligent. But, humans are pretty fond of defending our position in the cosmos and our idea of "human intelligence", so maybe this is just speciesism at work =)
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- jere 14y agoI totally agree. Just hearing the name Kurzweil enrages me these days. But! I think the singularity deserves to have a presence in fiction, even if it can't have one in reality. Some of the best sci-fi is built on whimsical and unrealistic technologies.
- freyr 14y ago> even if it can't have one in reality It doesn't have a presence in reality, it apparently won't have a presence in reality any time soon, but saying it can't happen is about as egotistical as we could be. Our generation has not yet discovered a means to synthesize this type of intelligence, but there is still plenty of time left to figure it out. We just don't know yet if it can happen or not.
- enraged_camel 14y agoExactly. Claiming a singularity is impossible is like claiming there is no life elsewhere in the galaxy. Only fools speak in absolute terms about unknowns.
- mcguire 14y agoFlying Spaghetti Monster for the win!
- jere 14y agoThat's perfectly fine, but Kurzweil is putting some rather precise dates on these things happening and how they're going to happen. I actually think strong AI is probably inevitable, but I have no reason to think it's going to take 30 years instead of 3,000. The credibility of the claims is somewhat diminished by the convenience. His argument is literally "I am going to be able to live just long enough to live forever and resurrect my dead father." And assuming we did invent strong AI, so what? It doesn't necessarily or immediately lead to a singularity. We already have several billion human brains and have had them for quite some time.
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- baddox 14y agoHopefully you're only expressing disdain for people who treat it as a scientific inevitability, rather than a science fiction trope. As a sci-fi trope, it's pretty darn cool.
- polyfractal 14y agoYep, as a fun science-fiction idea...it's a lot of fun. I've enjoyed several novels where the Singularity is central to the plot. Fun to read about. Mostly ridiculous to talk about in practice (imo).
- rayiner 14y agoIrrational (impotent) rage is really the right terminology.
- gojomo 14y agoRage is irrelevant. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
- mullingitover 14y agoOh please tell me the movie will end up being titled Lawnmower Man 2.0.
- dalke 14y agoAs there's already a "Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace", that title is unlikely. :)
- Gilly_LDN 14y agoMy old music teachers favourite claim to fame was that he is in the choir who made the soundtrack for that movie.
- Shorel 14y agoAnd he will be like this: http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/392076_10151206115188731_543647151_n.jpg http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/392076_1015120611...
- kmfrk 14y agoI am not a Nolan fan, but I respect him for consistently choosing challenging projects.
- tspiteri 14y agoI don't respect him solely for choosing challenging projects. I respect his ability to direct really smart films, which are self-consistent. I usually don't care much about contradictions in films, as I think "It's just a film." But with Nolan's films, if there are contradictions, I don't find them. It's as if he has a very good set of rules for a film and sticks to the rules meticulously. And I enjoy that a lot, which I guess makes me a Nolan fan.
- swombat 14y agoWell, if by "the rules" you mean "having plot holes you could sink the Titanic in"[1] and "the cheesiest lines ever uttered"[2] then yeah, you have a point... [1] - WW1 showed what happens when a bunch of people with pistols charge at a bunch of people with machine guns. [2] - " So, you came back to die with your city." "No. I came back to stop you."
- tspiteri 14y agoThose are fair points. I'm thinking those examples are from the Batman films, which I like in a way, but which are my least favourite Nolan films, although I think they are the most well known. I was more referring to films such as Memento and Inception. But then again, I still might have missed something or other.
- cobrausn 14y agoUgh, No. 2 literally made me facepalm. Despite that, I still think that's a problem with the writing, not the directing, though he likely could have changed that line if he felt the need. In regards to No. 1, they were already pretty close when they started the 'charge', and the machine gunners were not in trenches. Although far too few people seemed to be getting hit with gunfire during that charge scene.
- raimondious 14y ago> Johnny Depp may seem like a strange casting choice, but given his penchant for bizarre roles, we imagine he’ll play a mad scientist quite convincingly. Actually it seems like a really predictable casting choice. When will people get tired of seeing Depp playing a weirdo? I don't even have to guess that Helena Bonham Carter is going to be bug-eyed with big crazy hair in this one too...
- kingkawn 14y agoThe man is a really good actor. But thank you. There are some celebrity actors who have stopped playing new roles, and made the roles they take on into studies of their public personas rather than explorations of a character. If he gets along with Nolan and gets pushed in the right ways he might not phone it in, but all of his recent work points to him being emptily encouraged to do the same thing repeatedly. I want some art, dammit.
- civilian 14y agoYup. I really like his more "normal" roles-- like his lucid moments (which were most of the movie) in "Secret Window" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363988/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363988/
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- Cowen 14y agoGiven what's happened with the last two Batman films, I think Christopher Nolan deserves the benefit of the doubt for all of his casting choices. When Anne Hathaway was chosen to play Selina Kyle, everyone thought she would flop. After the movie, many were saying that she had the best performance. I don't even need to drive home how incredibly, colossally wrong people were about Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker.
- jasongullickson 14y ago"...a scientist whose brain is uploaded into a supercomputer' while trying to create the first ever sentient computer" It's hardly creating sentience if you're just installing an existing intelligence on another piece of hardware...just sayin'....
- Simucal 14y agoIt says that he goes on to continue his research once he is uploaded. So perhaps him being uploaded to the machine is distinct from him trying to create the first sentient computer. He is trying to create a sentient machine before he dies and his uploaded self is continuing his research along those same lines.
- jasongullickson 14y agoAh that makes more sense.
- sp332 14y agoHe was trying to create a sentient computer. It's like trying to make a blue car: just adding blue paint to a (previously) brown car still counts.
- shill 14y agoHopefully Nolan rehires Hans Zimmer for the soundtrack. I could use some more epic coding music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0kGAz6HYM8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0kGAz6HYM8
- Irregardless 14y agoAgreed, Gladiator is my favorite soundtrack of all time, and I've never heard a soundtrack of Zimmer's that I didn't like. I'd put him right up there with John Williams even though he's only received a fraction of the awards.
- nostrademons 14y agoI actually like Hans Zimmer a lot more than John Williams - the latter has a very distinctive style that can seem very in-your-face, more like an "Oh hey, this was done by John Williams" than something that best fits the film. Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones are all recognizable as Williams soundtracks, even though they're very different films. Zimmer seems to vary his music a lot more to fit the needs of the film - it's just universally good, it's not universally Zimmer. The Lion King is very different from Crimson Tide, which is very different from Gladiator, which is very different from The Dark Knight and Inception. BTW, I think Basil Poledouris (The Hunt for Red October, Wind) was another underrated film composer whose music is much better than his reputation.
- rndmize 14y ago> more like an "Oh hey, this was done by John Williams" than something that best fits the film Really? I would be tempted to argue the opposite. The theme for Jaws, for example, is instantly recognizable and well known precisely because it fit the movie so well. Star Wars is near-impossible to separate from its music - from the main theme, to the imperial march - and his use of choral music in Phantom Menace had a big impact in the years that followed, much the way the "Inception sound" has been showing up all over the place in the last few years. And citing the bigger action-adventure movies doesn't really make a good point. Williams has done a wide variety of music for movies, all of which is very good (Hook, Schindler's List, ET, etc.) I do think music has changed over time in how it's used in film, and that Zimmer has a more "modern" style, where the soundtrack ties more closely to the emotional ups and downs than Williams does. (Nothing wrong with that, I like them both.)
- rowsdower 14y agoChristopher Nolan is only producing this film. Wally Pfister, Nolan's longtime cinematographer, is directing.
- kmfrk 14y agoThis should go at the top. I was really annoyed to read this. His career as a producer seems fairly limited, but it's worth considering that Steven Spielberg was a producer on Transformers. I didn't see much of a Spielberg touch on that movie.
- rowsdower 14y agoIt will certainly be interesting to see how much of the "Nolan" aesthetic is present in this film. I'm definitely excited.
- jpxxx 14y agoStill waiting on that Ian M. Banks Culture movie. Or miniseries. Or TV show. slow droool
- Toenex 14y agoI hope I live in the universe where this happens.
- jpxxx 14y agoUntil 'Cloud Atlas' happened out of the blue, I'd no hope.
- Tycho 14y agoMaybe the Ender's Game movie will open the gate for Player of Games.
- javajosh 14y agoAgreed. The problem is that mainstream SF movies have not nearly caught up with written SF. I mean, The Matrix was "mind-blowing" in it's day, even when the idea of simulated universes was old hat in written SF. Banks has basically crammed, well, everything into the Culture books. When just the idea of uploading phases people you'll have a hard time explaining why a sentient Ship would cocoon a human body in another sentient gel-field suit in order to rescue the image of an old scientist that is currently experiencing the slow time of a truly ancient race of creatures that count time in galactic rotations. Etc. I mean, we're talking about a universe where self-replicating nano-bots are considered a joke (or at least a pleasurable pastime for warships for target practice). Meanwhile grey goo scenarios haven't even entered the zeitgeist.
- DutchessPDX 14y agoAnd what role will Helena Bonham Carter play? ...they come as a pair, right?