The Nightmare Before Christmas

Released in 1993, but destined to be remembered as a classic for much much longer, The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of those films that I find myself invariably returning to again and again. Although ostensibly a movie for all ages, it is at turns both cute but also a little shocking; the kind of experience whose humor brings out guilty sort of chuckles to older viewers who will get the subtleties that the little ones won't. Recently I've been wondering just what is the message it wants to convey and why is it that it appeals to us.

The story to this film is quite simple, and at only 75 minutes a very fast watch. The focus of the tale is Jack Skellington, a leader and icon of a mysterious place known as Halloween Town where all the inhabitants are obsessed with, what else? Halloween. Though he is idolized by the people of his village, Jack is feeling depressed and uninspired. Taking a walk one day he finds a portal to another magical town, Christmas Town.

Jack is immediately taken with how different it is from what he knows. Entranced by the idea of being a part of it, he recruits the citizens of Halloween Town to help him make Christmas this year. Disaster of course ensues as the denizens of Halloween Town are unable to be anything but creepy and weird. One somewhat risque moment has some parents asking their child what Santa brought him, only to be horrified when they see him pull a small severed head from the box (this scene was shown repeatedly on tv commercials during the original theatrical release, probably as a fore-warning to parents of just what levels the film goes to so they wouldn't be alarmed when they brought junior to see it).

As for Jack himself, he ends up having Santa Claus kidnapped so that he can replace him on his midnight ride and deliver the presents, that is until the police get word of a "Santa Imposter" and shoot him down. This all leaves Jack in a position where he knows he must fix things by getting back the real Santa who unfortunately has been taken to the "no good" Oogie Boogie and won't release him without a fight.

The movie uses stop-motion animation, which is a very long, painstaking process but has also become very endured by aficienados of animation and film. Such fans seem to understand the level and amount of work involved and I believe tend to view such projects as labors of love by the artists who make them. Nightmare makes an excellent example of this as the movie features dozens of inventive creatures living in Halloween Town (in particular Sally, the Mayor, and especially Oogie Boogie show a lot of ingenuity).

The music is a lot of fun as well. Danny Elfman, long known for his haunting and mischeivous melodies (he's scored many of Burton's other films and created the Simpson's main theme as well), here provides the singing voice of Jack and very much steals the show this time round. With Nightmare we have songs that are memorable and fetching and catchy enough that hearing them once is all it takes to instantly recall them if heard again.

As mentioned before, the story to this film is quite simple, but it is however also laced with a very clever extended metaphor. It acts as a sort of parable for a certain type of people, not necessarily Goths but kind of like the kids many of us went to school with who were dark loners and outsiders. It's a trait that's been often said resembles Tim Burton himself and a thread common to most of his works is characters like this.

When the residents of Halloween Town try to make Christmas they get it all wrong and their attempts are so pathetic to us in the audience that it's actually laughable at those times when it's not mortifying. It all reflects an inability of those who are strange and socially awkward to even fit in, let alone be warm or tender. All this depite how much they want to, or try as they might.

I suppose when it comes down to it, some people out there are just Halloween people. Often times they're the ones you see carrying Nightmare Before Christmas bags around cause in the end this really just is a movie that speaks to and understands them.

Ghost in the Shell

Recently I finished reading Wired for War with its meditations on technologic advance and the influence this is having on society at large and conflict specifically. Inspired by it, I felt the need to revisit an older movie my appreciation of whose seems only to grow deeper with each viewing: Mamoru Oshii's film adaption of Ghost in the Shell. Only recently have I been exposed to the idea of "The Singularity": a technologic revolution that will supposedly "change nearly everything in our daily lives" and is believed to be looming on the very near horizon by many scientists. It is at once a concept which both intrigues me yet I am still skeptic of, being by its nature something which is supposed to be nearly impossible to imagine. Yet it is also a subject which many a sci-fi film has explored in the imaginary worlds they create. Ghost in the Shell is such a film, a post-singularity world if ever I've seen one, and the advanced technology portrayed in it does indeed turn many of our accepted paradigms upon their head, including one the upmost importance: just what does it mean to be human?

Please note: This article seeks to examine the work in question to a deeper extent than most reviews. Plot points and the ending will be discussed.

Taking place over the course of just a few short acts, the story of this film is actually fairly simple, a skeleton upon which the meatier concepts grow out of. All of which stem from technology's effects humanity, ethics, and constructed intelligence.

The film opens with a cacophony of voices and broadcasts from a city, which eventually give way to a conversation between diplomats in a highrise building. A close up of our main character, Kusanagi shows us whose mind we're listening in on. One of her teammates, Batou complains of all the noise in her head and we realize as we hear their voices communicating with one another that they don't even always move their lips. These are times of such high tech advancement that our main characters all have computerized brains, and not only have the equivilent ever-connected internet within, but also what amounts to telepathy to those within their network.

The situation in the building, one which pertains to international dealings, a rogue software developer, and political assylum is quickly diffused by Kusanagi who assinates the foreign diplomat and then eludes capture using "therm-optic camouflage" a devise which more or less renders her invisible. Then as the opening credits roll, we see the creation of a cyborg body, which in the end turns out to be Kusanagi herself. Just how progressive a machine it is is hard to describe. The muscles, skin, eyes, and hair all finish to give the creation a look indistinguishable from a regular human being. A potential hot-button issue for the future which has been explored in many works of sci-fi but has yet to be introduced to the real world is one of regulating robots that can pass for human. Are they to be treated as human even when they're not?

As human minds within a cybernetic bodies, the cyborgs of this film are for all intents and purposes seen and treated as human. The real psychological questions seem to be the effects on the cyborgs themselves. "Sometimes I feel like my body died long ago and now I'm just someone else wandering through this world" says Kusanagi at one point in the film.

Although the film follows the exploits of Kusanagi and her team (an extremely well equipped group of operatives who resemble both SWAT and FBI but are simply referred to as "Section 9"), the real juice of the story involves the pursuit of a "ghost hacker" called The Puppet Master, an entity literally so skilled at their craft that they can hack the computerized brains of humans and build delusions that will manipulate them far better than any hypnotist is currently able to.

A brief word about some of the vocabulary in this film: a person's "Ghost" roughly equivocates to their mind, character, or consciousness. It is possible they chose not to use those words because of how abstract or cumbersome they are. The word soul also isn't uttered, and it is perhaps because of the connotations this word has they avoided it. So why the word "Ghost"? I suppose partly because it is easy to say and specific enough that it won't confuse people (unless they were having a conversation about the supernatural) but also I suspect it's due to the cold and distant nuance it has to it, since this is indeed a chilly and dark vision of the future we're looking at. I can't remember if the word "Shell" is actually ever uttered in the film, but this of course refers to the body being used at any given time by our main characters, and like the word "Ghost", it too has a frigid, impersonal feel to it.

We see an example of the new types of contests occurring between opposing forces in an early scene. A moving hack operation (one the Puppet Master is believed to be behind) taking place at multiple terminals is being investigated by Kusanagi and her team. A game of cat and mouse involving a garbage truck (the mobile mode chosen by the hackers), and a herm-optic wearing gunman turns into a chase and then a gunfight, and after that hand to hand combat with one of the opponents invisible.



In the aftermath of all this action, the garbage men who did the hacking are interogated and we learn that one of them has indeed been "ghost hacked" himself. He believes he has a wife he is seperated from and even a daughter he loves enough to put up with filthy work to help, all of which is just an illusion. As the police explain to him that he's been tricked and taken advantage of, we begin to see the walls closing down on him and just how devastating such a situation would be. With tears in his eyes, he asks what will happen to him and if he'll ever get his old memories back, only to be told that his they'll never be fully restored, and that there may even be residual shocks from the implanted memories.

It's difficult to imagine losing everything in an instant with regards to what one accumulated in memory over a lifetime, but that possibilty apparently is very real in this version of the future. Many people in our modern world who have been the victims of identity theft express feelings of outrage, helplessness, disbelief, and a sense of violation at the experience, but this hypothetical of ghost hacking takes the situation to an entirely different level. Another question which isn't answered by the film but certainly would have to be asked should it actually occur, is just what to do with a ghost hacked human after the fact. Could they be charged for crimes they technically committed but were manipulated into? Could they be set free without being a danger to themselves or others? Would they have to spend time in counseling or a medical facility? These questions and many others are ones the film asks only passingly on its quicksilver pace.

In a contrast to the action which preceeds and follows, the mid point of the film is marked two scenes of quiet contemplation: a conversation between Kusanagi and Batou on a boat, and an existential sort of interlude which is comprised only of images and music and lacks any dialogue.

The talk between Kusanagi and Batou occurs after she goes diving in the bay, an activity confounding to Batou considering her cybernetic body could sink like rock if anything were to go wrong. We begin to see that Kusanagi has indeed been puzzling out her identity and the kind of existence she's gone into by shedding her natural body for one artificial. "Man sees a chance at new technology and simply achieves it" (seemingly without any thought for what complications it brings on) she explains. It's almost as if she's asking the questions for us in audience. She also quotes a passage to Batou in a strange voice that doesn't seem to be her own, in a foreshadowing of things to come.

The musical passage that follows is both poetic and peaceful but at the same time ominous and foreboding, perhaps in order to encapsulate the conflicting feelings we all have on the future bright but uncertain as it is. We see Kusanagi staring out the window of a restaurant at a boat passing by in a canal, only to see another person with the same face as herself standing on the deck staring back at her.

The activity resumes with Kusanagi coming to headquarters as a cybernetic body has been brought in which appears to have a ghost or something resembling one within it though there are no human memories. As members of a rival section appear to inspect the body, The Puppet Master makes a sudden and startling appearance. Speaking through the body they are analyzing under its own power, it claims to be a consciousness born in the sea of information and a living being even though it lacks a physical body it can actually call its own. It also demands assylum as it has now been confined in a shell and thus is in a situation of danger of perishing. A whole can of worms could be spent here disecting just what it would mean if such a thing happened and whether such a creature would be entitled to any rights in the physical world that man occupies or even the electronic one he's created. All of this, however, is bypassed by a surprise attack on the base and the Puppet Master is stolen by camouflaged soldiers. There are people apparently, who'd rather not deal with the thorny issues he has just opened by announcing his existence to the world. Fortunately Togusa, a member of Kusanagi's team, has noticed something amiss and Kusanagi and her team are able to follow and then chase down those who have stolen the Puppet Master.

There is a sort of third and final musical interlude here (after the opening and mid-section mentioned previously) while they track and pursue their quarry though it is shorter than the others. What is kind of interesting to note about these interludes is that the first contains a very traditional sounding Japanese music, the second a combination of that and more modern sounds, and this final one almost entirely is comprised of contemporary music. A symbol of the transition from lingering past into the future perhaps?

What ensues next is a spectacular shootout in an abandoned museum between Kusanagi, armed with explosives, automatic weapons, and therm-optic camouflage and her opponents, who unbeknownst to her have hidden a tank in that location. One point in this scene I'd like to mention involves the tank shooting at Kusanagi which ends up firings upon an old model of species' family tree engraved into a wall. The bullets stop just short of the top, the short of "hominis" (humankind), a symbol as rich with meaning as you'll ever see. What does it mean exactly? That we have a habit of killing all other life but somehow always manage to stop just short of killing ourselves off? That our machines are the ones now pushing for our extinction?


Kusanagi fails to neutralize the enemy, but is saved at the last moment by Batou showing up in the nick of time with antitank weaponry. Though both of them are aware that unknown (and presumably hostile) helicopters are heading in their direction, Kusanagi decides she must "dive into" the ghost of the Puppet Master to see what's really inside since it might be her last chance to ever do so without supervision or tampering. It's very telling to me that the true climax of this film is not another chase, shootout, or fight, but rather a scene with no action whatsoever. The climax to this film is instead a conversation between two minds; one human and natural, the other artificial and unlike any other; and the stunning revelations of the Puppet Master on the future of humanity and machines.

The Puppet Master speaks with the frigid, calculating confidence of a being who never doubts their actions for a second because in the end he has only the cold, hard logic of a computer. There appears to be no sense remorse or sympathy or any other human emotions within him and yet he does still have ambitions and desires. "I am a living creature, yet I lack two things that any other living creature on this planet has: dying and reproducing" he states to Kusanagi. Her response is to question why he simply does not copy himself, since in the end, doesn't his existence amount to computerized data which can simply be duplicated. His reply, that aside from not being the same as natural reproduction, is that copying is inferior to natural replication of genes since "clones do not give rise to originality" and "an effective virus could destroy an entire crop" of clones. Many people with experience playing computer games can probably attest to the truth of this statement, as oftentimes with computer opponents the first time you fight one it may give you some difficulty, but usually learning an efficient way of winning when it comes to dealing with one means you can defeat any number of others since the same strategy usually applies (e.g. they all fall for the same tricks because they are programmed to respond to things in the same way). In the film itself, Kusanagi actually mentions something very similar to Togusa at an earlier point in the film when he asks her why she requested someone like him be transfered to the team. Her response is that his differences are what make him valuable; that since his body is almost entirely human he thinks and reacts differently, providing the group with much needed variety it would otherwise not possess. We see the wisdom of this in action earlier in the course of the film as Togusa does indeed provide an interestingly old-fashioned idea when the time comes to track those who steal the Puppet Master's body from Section 9. "Overspecialize and you breed in weakness. It's slow death" Kusanagi says. And while it might seem strange that she would say something so similar to what the Puppet Master believes, this does actually lead into the next point I'd like to make.

The Puppet Master tells Kusanagi his plan to "reproduce": by merging his intelligence with her own to create an entirely new and different entity. "A complete co-mingling of our beings... both of us will undergo change, but there is nothing ofr either of us to lose" he claims. The idea of an artifical creature envying us and wanting to be like us is as old as stories like Frankenstein and Pinnochio, but Ghost in the Shell has now just provided us with a very new concept of where and how humanity might converge with machines. In the act of computerizing our own brains, becoming more machine-like ourselves, it is quite possible the lines are blurring indistinguishably between what we are and what we've created. When asked why he chose her, the Puppet Master responds by saying he has long been "aware" of her and that they are more alike than she knows.

We realize here that the Puppet Master has indeed been following Kusanagi for some time, watching her, and many smaller details in fabric of the film's plot hint at this. We realize it was most likely his voice that spoke through Kusanagi wen she spoke so cryptically to Batou on the boat earlier, and that an off-hand remark by one of the men with Section 6 regarding the way the Puppet Master keeps "hanging around" Section 9 because he "has the hots for someone" is actually quite accurate. Also, a second glance Kusanagi takes at the shell of the minister's interpreter much earlier in the film suggests that she can actually feel his presence as well.

The idea of a machine transfixed on a human is intriguing, but the point I really want to make relates to the Puppet Master's rationale for choosing Kusanagi. That they are similar makes us wonder if he has indeed chosen her in the way many of us would chose our own mates. He claims to have been watching her for some time and it's hard not to wonder if it was her way of thinking that drew him to her. Is he attracted to her similarities or her differences or both? Whatever the reasons, given Kusanagi's somewhat eratic behavior to try and reach him, it's difficult not to feel the sentiment was in the end a mutual one, as is generally the case whenever a coupling between any two organisms takes place within our world.

The Puppet Master speaks of new beginnings and crossing frontiers and then, just as we see angels descending upon him and Kusanagi from their points of view symbolizing the merge, bullets from high-powered guns destroy their bodies. The hostile helicopters have arrived. Batou is able to block on of the shots at the last second, however, and save Kusanagi.


The epilogue of the film shows us Kusanagi, repaired but now mounted in a child's body (the only thing available on the black market, Batou will explain later). Batou comes in and explains the end situation to her. The political dealings for the most part "ended in a draw" with most of the evidence being destroyed and certain key figures resigning to avoid the messy legal battles that would otherwise ensue. "Is he still with you?" he then asks Kusanagi to which she answers in the affirmative. "I am no longer the woman who was called Kusanagi or the program called the Puppet Master" she tells him. The full impact of this line is difficult to assess.

The first time I heard it, it was difficult for me to discern whether something horrible had happened or not. On the one hand, the Puppet Master is a criminal when it comes down to it. He manipulated people and destroyed lives. On the other hand, he was just a program, doing what he was designed to do, and those were the designs of people who were selfish or (if you really want to call them that) evil. The Puppet Master himself, however, is perhaps more ambiguous than this. He could've lived forever within the net, omnipresent and untold times more powerful without being confined to a body. Yet he chose a desperate gamble to "reproduce" that in the end isn't all that difficult from trout swimming upstream or newly hatched turtles scurrying for the ocean absolutely vulnerable to predators. Looking at his actions, the Puppet Master does indeed come out looking much like an organism as he claims to be earlier. It's a profound thought too, a near immortal wishing for and contemplating their own death, but the Puppet Master is such a character who has no delusions of grandeur despite the power he wields, and it's attributes such as these that make him so much more interesting than the one dimensional villains of other, similar stories.

The story concludes with Batou offering to let Kusanagi stay at his safe house for as long as she'd like, with her deciding not to more or less immediately. The final shot of the film has her staring out upon the city, musing to herself "Where does the newborn go from here? The net is vast and infinite."

* * *

Unlike similar movies with futuristic settings, Ghost in the Shell is more cerebral. It contemplates not only how technology has transformed warfare but also the identity of individuals, groups, and nations. Beyond all of this it imagines for us a very unique idea of how an artificial mind might think and feel, embodied in the character of the Puppet master. The ending is left open and somewhat inconclusive reflecting the uncertainty of our own future. The child-like body of rebuilt Kusanagi provides us with a very appropriate metaphor for this concept. It couldn't be more symbolic of the new creature she's become and just what possibilities lie in the future are as open as a lifetime spread blank and unwritten in front of an infant.

PW Singer's Wired for War

Considering how long we've been in the Industrial Revolution and just how long the concepts of robots have existed, it almost is an amazing thing we haven't taken things farther than we have. How many people out there think robots are cool? And yet the ones we make are still relatively simple when you stop to think about it. With the computer and information revolutions we are seeing now however, robotics at last appears ready to make leaps and bounds by taking advantage of recent developments in automation and computerized intelligence. In chosing this as a subject, PW Singer's newest book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century gives us a broad look at where the future might be taking us. It's a long and meaty discussion on not only how machines themselves are changing now, but also how they might be changing us. While mainly a discourse on machinery, its other major topic is war, and like many technologies developed in the past, this one also seems to be receiving a major push from military interest on how it can help win future struggles.



Effects of new technologies on war

The book starts out with an explanation of where we currently are with regards to robots and intelligent machines. Several of the most common and advanced ones are introduced and described. There are small and domestic ones like the Roomba which saves you time by automatically scanning the room to determine if the floor is dirty enough to warrant a cleaning, and then vacuums it for you. There are others that are more like advanced remote control toys but have been specialized to do difficult or dangerous jobs e.g. bomb diffusal robots like the Packbot, which is currently being used in Iraq (this robot made an appearance at the beginning of the recent movie "The Hurt Locker"). Then there are ones that more resemble automated or unmanned vehicles than anything else (self driving cars, planes and tanks). Still others can be more malevolent and aggressive. These machines are able to analyse a potential threat and its direction, and are often armed, carrying bombs and guns. One frightening aspect is that sometimes they are also given enough autonomy to fire at will, though generally this final command must be confirmed first by a human making the decision.

That a need is created in warfare for a new type of device or resource has often spurred invention to fill such needs. Ancient examples include catapults and seige engines which came about with the advent of castles. More recent ones are rubber boots for walking through mud, and canned food that would keep longer without spoiling for providing armies with nutrition on long campaigns and marches. Wired for War includes a description of some of these advancements while going on to detail how the current conflicts against terrorism and insurgency in places like Iraq and Afganistan have led to new needs that robots have begun to fill. Specifically hidden dangers like bombs and traps, as well as an anxious public back home that wants the military to accomplish its goals with minimal troops and loss of life. It is for this reason that automated or intelligent machines now increasingly do the dangerous jobs such as bomb diffusal and patrolling the neighborhoods and skies in the foreign countries we've come to occupy.

It's fascinating some of the information presented early in the book on the difference between human and robotic combatants. We learn that not only is using a robot safer, but in many cases more precise or deadly. Humans holding guns, for example, are prone to many negative factors such as tension, shock, and emotion affecting heartbeat and consequently the stability of grip and aim. A robot with a mounted gun, by contrast, doesn't have to deal with shakiness of aim, or even the stress and fear caused by having someone shoot at you, its aim is much more steady. On the example of unmanned aircraft, we learn that they are not only cheaper than those requiring pilots (think of all the costs cut by not building a cockpit with levers, buttons and other user interface and instead having it all internalized) but also are capable of maneuvers impossible to humans. This last point is a result of increased aerodynamics by removing the cockpit and also the machine not being subject to the human limitations of a pilot who might lose consciousness doing certain extreme types of rolls and drops.

In putting together a history of war and its significance, a few other important concepts are introduced and disected. A "Revolution in Military Affairs" (or RMA) is an advent that occasionally comes along which completely changes warfare and causes a lot of the older tactics to become obsolete. Guns and cannons destroying the relevency and practicality of old armor and large castle walls are example of this. A more recent one is the development and proper deployment of tanks ending the trench warfare of World War I.

Another major concept given the rundown in this book is Military Doctrine. This is probably best described as the protocal of how a military acts and reacts to given situations, a combination of strategy and guidelines of conduct. Major literary works of the past (both fiction and non-fiction) are mentioned as having had an immense ammount influence on military doctrine and one can't help but wonder if someday this book (and possibly Singer's others as well) will be included on such a list of required reading for soldiers and military leaders with aspirations. The book makes clear that RMA's aren't everything, and that without an according change in doctrine, may not necessarily mean success. To use the book's example, France and England both had tanks before Germany, but it was the Germans who developed the doctrine to use it most effectively with their "blitzkreig" style of warfare, and thus they were the ones most successful during WWII (at least until the US entered the war).

Among the interesting ways war has changed with technologic advancement are that more space was continually required per soldier on the field. Knights in armor fought hand to hand and thus the battles were close combat in smaller areas. The development of longbows enlarged the space of the battlefield and guns and canon enlargend it even further. Recent developments have now moved the fighting into cities, yet another major change which throws out the window much of what we once knew. A more recentl observation the book makes is that while modern communication devices are making the exchange of information more efficient for militaries, they're creating new problems at the same time. This occurs by creating a flood of too much information and giving people far removed by the chain of command the ability to simply "jump in" and take control via computer rather than allowing others closer (and perhaps better able to make important judgements) to the situation to handle things.

Other factors mentioned deal with the effects of increased robot use on opponents. One positive might be that suicidal insurgents who are willing to risk or even give up their lives to take down a US soldier, might not be so willing to do so merely to destroy a robot used by the US military. Also, while the safety of the soldiers might be increasing through robotics, the psychological effect on opponents may or may not be the desired one. While some designers and generals drool over the concept of creating "shock and awe" by using robots in war, the end result might simply be an increased hatred and a perception of cowardice by hiding behind machines. The idea of a foreign power coming to your country to occupy it, and then sending machines to patrol your neighborhoods does sound like something that would incense ordinary people and not just insurgents. On top of that, "shock and awe" might not be the best way to win the hearts and minds of the those you'll need to leave in control when you leave, and in the end, tanks and airplanes were also once viewed as monsterous and frightning but now are taken for granted, which leads one to believe the same might be just as true of robots.



The Effect of Robots on Us

Warfare isn't the only thing that looks to be affected by the increased use of robotics. The book makes it a very emphasized point that this is something which stands to change the everyday lives of people as well.

The concept of "The Singularity" is discussed briefly. Being a hypothetical that will supposedly change things in ways we can't understand (and thus has a lot of skeptic attitudes towards it), however, there isn't much to be done here than to give an overview of the idea and examine the various opinions of experts in this area.

With remote systems now engaging in the fighting another unique occurence is looked at. What of the "fighters" who control these machines from US soil? They wake up and go to work like the rest of us, but then their work consists of controlling a machine thousands of miles away in another country and at times fighting and killing real people with it. At the end of the day they get right back in their cars and do mundane things like go home or head to PTA meetings. Much has been made in the past about advancements removing soldiers further and further from the actual fighting and the potentially negative effects of feeling detached from carnage and the repurcussions of one's actions. But these people are literally beaming death halfway across the world. What kind of psychological effect does this have on people? For that matter, can we qualify them as "combatants", and if so is an enemy within the ethics of war to attack one of these men on their home soil viewing them as a threat? And if one of them commits a war crime using a machine, what then? We've all seen people get furious and throw tantrums over losing at video games, sometimes reacting by crashing their or killing their in-game avatars on purpose. Is the day coming when someone operating from US soil simply flips out and uses a machine to kill civilians in another country?

Ethics are becoming murkier and murkier with the development and spread of this new technology. And on the domestic side of the story another issue mentioned only very briefly is that of using robots for pleasure. Porno, like the military, has strangely enough actually been responsible for many advancements in technology, particularly when it comes to making things more for private use. What's at issue in a nutshell is this: human-looking robots are going to keep becoming more and more life-like, and sooner or later someone's going to make one that looks like a child. Do we allow pleasurebots that look like children to be bought and sold and used? Proponents will likely argue that it's therapeutic and allows them a release by indulging in what isn't permitted by law with real children. Opponents most likely will protest that it encourages an already unhealthy mental state. My own thoughts: if it's made illegal a black market will almost certainly emerge, but if it's made legal expect protesters to surround stores and business and harass those who try to buy or sell one. By making a product which caters to such a despised desire, it might become easier for people to find those they hate.

Cultures react differently to robots too. Because I currently live in Japan, one area that I personally was quite interested in is how the Japanese use and design and feel differently about robots than us in the western world. There isn't any one section that focuses completely on this, the examples instead are usually littered throughout the book. I'll try and keep this brief because I think I'd like to explore this one further in a future "Notes on Japan" entry, but the bottom line here is that the Japanese in general do seem much more comfortable with the idea of robots multiplying and playing a larger role in daily life. Americans, by contrast, have something of a fear of them: that they will steal more jobs on the mild end and that they'll take us over completely on the more extreme side of things.

This of course leads into one question I'm sure everyone has on their mind when the future of robots is considered seriously. Could they take us over? Will they? Is it inevitable? Or is it all just paranoia? Alas, the book does not have an exact answer although it does certainly recognize and address the question. The discussion unfortunately is rather a brief one being that there are simply too many unknowns to say anything for certain. Several important "prerequisites" for a robot apocalypse are brought up which definitely enlighten the topic though. I don't think there's anyway for me to say it better or sum it up any shorter so I'm just going to go ahead and quote them here:

"Essentially, four conditions would have to be met. First, the machines would have to be independent, able to fuel, repair, and reproduce themselves without human help. Second, the machines would have to be more intelligent than humans, but have no positive human qualities (such as empathy or ethics). Third, they would have to have a survival instinct, as well as some sort of interest and will to control their environment. And, fourth, humans would have to have no useful control interface into the machines' decision-making. They would have to have lost any ability to override, intervene, or even shape the machines' decisions and actions."

While things are advancing quickly, it's "a pretty high bar to cross, at least in the short term" he goes on to add, before chronicling several other important things to consider on this topic.

"With so many people spun up about fears of a robot takeover, the idea that no one would remember to build in any fail-safes is a bit of a stretch... Of course eventually a super-intelligent machine would figure out a way around each of these barriers... However, if ever it does happen, humanity will likely not be caught off guard, as in the movies. You don't get machines beyond control until you first go through the step of having machines with little control. So we should have some pretty good warning signs to look out for... But for all the fears of a world where robots rule with an iron fist, we already do live in a would where machines rule humanity in another way... We are dependent on technology that most of us don't even understand. Why would machines ever need to plot a takeover when we can't do anything without them anyway?"

That such an interesting and important question is brought to an inconclusive end might be a little disappointing, but it's one we just will have to accept. It really is too soon to tell on a lot of things but the future is coming faster than we think. Robots and AI are limited and at the moment not up to our level of intelligence. But things are changing.

One example Singer gives is that robots are only better than us at things like chess and math because math is their language. When it comes to other things, however, it's a different story. Ask a robot if what you're holding is an apple or tomato and it might: compare pictures from a database, examine repeatedly from multiple angles, or even do a DNA test whose data would take a long time to analyze, and still in the end the thing wouldn't be able to say for certain and might give you instead a probability of one or the ohter. On the other hand, a human child could tell you in an instant if something were an apple or tomato with little hesitation or doubt. The machines are getting smarter though. The day is coming when a robot intelligent enough to be able to call someone on the phone and use its voice and wits alone to trick them into thinking it's another human, and it's going to upset a lot of people when it does.

The book's final chapters contain an appeal to the readers that more thought and especially discussion on the issues raised take place. The future is always uncertain to some degree but it only really becomes a problem when it takes us unaware.

Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

It's been a bit of a slow restart to writing since I got back from vacation and since today I have a little free time I thought I'd try something I hadn't before: reviewing a piece of music. Arcade Fire is a group I hadn't heard of until just this last summer when my sister came to visit me here in Tokyo. The Suburbs is apparently their newest album.

I've been listening to this for the last couple of months since I returned from my trip, it's been an album I've basically been living life to for that time. Like nearly all of the best music out there, the songs feature lyrics that are fairly ambiguous, not specific, though as a whole the album does most certainly seem to have a common theme which links it all together even though different moods are explored throughout the songs. Coming from the artists, you can feel a definite sense of nostalgia listening to it, one for whom a childhood growing up in the suburbs I figure many others will have in common.

The music is rich and lush thanks to the variety of instruments used, and always uncannily captures the mood of domestic american life, even while seeming strangely evocative of multiple eras of america's recent past. Even without paying attention to the words, the rhythms catch the ear and linger long after the audio has faded like the residual mood after an event or memory (this is especially true on songs like Deep Blue, Sprawl II, and the title track The Suburbs) That's not to say that the lyrics have been neglected, they most certainly haven't, and simultaneously contain cleverly revealed opinions and veiled and conflicting emotions on life in the 'burbs.

In the portrayal of its subject the album is by turns longingly reminiscent of the innocence while at other times a quiet condemnation of the hypocrisy which such a way of life seems to breed within it. The tone ranges from quaint, playful, and youthful (again Sprawl II and the Suburbs) to conflicting and challenging (Modern Man, City with No Children). I was alternately reminded of Leave it to Beaver and other sitcoms from that era, bland, naive, and conventional, and the Sam Mendes films, American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, two of the most castigating. Perhaps more than any other, however, what jumps to my mind is the satire Pleasantville which was both fond and critical at the same time.

The album ends on a mournful sort of a note, a slower more sorrowful version of the its opening and feeling almost like a swan song of sorts for its subject matter as if it were a eulogy for a dying way of life. Which I suppose one could say is true actually. For iconic as the suburbs are, life certainly has been and still is changing there. "If I could have it all back, I'd love to waste all over again..."