Blogocentric Formulations

Artificial Intelligence & Burn Notice

PROMPT: Artificial Intelligence: If a "robot" looks, acts, and thinks like a human, but was created not through "natural" processes, should it be considered part of humanity? Give us your thoughts about the future of Artificial Intelligence in science.


I guess for me it really depends on how "human" the artificial intelligence thinks/acts. If it has real feelings and emotions and creative thoughts and quirks, then I think it meets the definition of being human. Where I have a difficult time drawing the line and calling something human is when there's an aspect of the human experience that it cannot participate in. And, to be honest, I'm no scientist, but short of a significant and heretofore un-imagined breakthrough in science, I'm not sure whether an artificial intelligence is capable of the full range of human experiences. For example, would it ever know what it feels like to be insulted? Or would it be able to create an original and cohesive piece of music? Would it be able to empathize with someone who just lost a close friend or family member to cancer?

Artificial intelligence is capable of some truly amazing things, and I think that we're not far off from a point where it might - in many ways - be indistinguishable from humans to all outward appearances. But for me, the definition of humanity also has to include what's on the inside as well. So show me a robot that can genuinely feel emotions and exhibit spontaneous creativity and I might be inclined to include them in my definition of human. But as long as there's a distinction between how an artificial intelligence experiences the world and how we experience the world, I think we're two entirely separate things albeit with some similarities.

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PROMPT: Talk about the moment when a favorite show of yours jumped the shark.

BURN NOTICE
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810788/

It's difficult to identify a single episode where this series officially jumped the shark, but there were quite a few of them in the works over the years. Initially, it was a great concept; a covert operative is "burned" (identity revealed so he's useless to his agency) and he ends up stuck in Miami with no money, under observation, and unable to leave. So he sets about trying to find out who burned him - and also clear his name once he realizes he was framed for crimes he didn't commit - and get back into the field.

For the first couple of seasons, it was a really well done and interesting show where Michael (played by Jeffrey Donovan) and the few remaining friends he can scrape together end up solving a "problem of the week" in each episode while also making headway on the larger mystery of the series surrounding why Michael was burned. It turns out that a mysterious shadow organization burned him so they could blackmail him into working for them. And I'm totally with it up until this point. But in subsequent seasons, the show basically fell victim to always having another puppet master behind the puppet master. It seems like Carla is the one calling the shots, but then she's kill and nope, it's this guy Vaughn who's the real boss. A season later, Vaughn is dealt with and suddenly - surprise! - Vaughn was just a middle man and the real bad guy is someone new. I think, if I remember correctly, the show went through five or six of those "but wait, there's another guy!" reveals throughout the run of the show... and it definitely started to get old. I get that conspiracies always involve multiple layers and different individuals, but it started to get predictable to the point where as soon as one of these guys was vanquished, we're just waiting around for the teaser that will introduce the replacement bad guy higher up the bad guy corporate ladder.

I still think this is a brilliant show and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good spy show... but I definitely think it jumped the shark a couple of times during its seven-season run, and almost all of those moments involved revealing a newer, badder, more important component of the organization that burned Michael.