We continue with part two of our three part look at The Sphere  in Las Vegas, this time with a review of the film on the "screen", Darren Aronofsky's "Postcard From Earth".  We look closer at whether the film can be separated from the theatre, and if Postcard, and the experience at the Sphere approaches what Andre Bazin called "Total Cinema"> Join us for our first movie review on this episode of the Implausipod.

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In the first of episode of a two-parter, we visit The Sphere, in Las Vegas Nevada with a before and after personal reflection of my first encounter with the site, and how my expectations meshed with the reality of the experience.  We ponder the site both inside and out, and whether The Sphere is the future of filmmaking, or if it is just a one-shot globe in the dark.  Also: Robots!  What's up with that.  Join us and find out.

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Spreadable media is a theory of how media is distributed in online culture, but is the theory, originally proposed in 2013, still relevant in 2023 when everyone is trying to "go viral" online?  We take a deep dive at the theory, and look at how at it's core it is really a question of value, and how competing ways of determining the value of a cultural good continually clash against one another.

Music for this episode provided by Calvin Becker, and one of his bands, the UnderLites.  You can listen to them at www.theunderlites.com and you should check out his music at calvinbecker.com

(Implausi-note: had some technical issues with this one, which delayed it's release so it's probably showing up out of sequence.  It's not perfect, but I feel it's close.  Thanks for your patience.)

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What does a sci-fi fan who's never seen Doctor Who think of their first exposure to a full episode of the series?  Can you even be a sci-fi fan if you haven't?  Well, we're about to find out.  Welcome our guest, an academic and Dr Who fan Dr Aiden Buckland who helps guide yours truly Dr Implausible through some of the details of "The Star Beast".

 You can contact our guest at [email protected]

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 In episode 18 of the Implausipod we return to Appendix W with a little known but pivotal short story for both science fiction generally and Warhammer 40000 specifically, and the creation of the Warp, and the daemons that dwell within: Cordwainer Smith's "The Game of Rat and Dragon" from 1955.

Read along here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29614/29614-h/29614-h.htm

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If you had asked me on October 15th, 2023, how to self describe myself, I might say I was a techno optimist. But on October 16th, Mark Andreesen, the founder of Netscape, released the Techno-optimist manifesto, and I can no longer say that I'm a techno optimist.  

In this episode we'll walk through the quick scan of the document, and the red flags that it raised while looking through it, and where some of the problems lay in the underlying assumptions of the manifesto.

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EEE, or Embrace Extend Extinguish has been making the rounds again in 2023 as a number of silicon valley tech companies have been coming under the spotlight for their business practices, and some striking similarities are showing to a strategy outlined by Microsoft in an internal memo back in the 1990s.  Everything old in tech is new again. 

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What happens when you're forcibly ejected from Virtual Reality?  You may experience "dumpshock" - a bewildering disorientation from the rapid change in context, and you may experience something similar on the internet if you shift from an ad-saturated to an ad-free environment.  Like a fish out of water, you have no anti-environment by which to understand your reality, and the discovering one can leave you flopping around.

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Tiktok has a noise problem, and it's indicative of a larger issue ongoing within social media, that of "context collapse".  But even context collapse is expanding outside its original context and evidence of it can be seen in the rise of generative AI tools, music and media, and the rise of the "Everything App".   Starting with a baseline in information theory and anthropology, we'll outline some of the implications of noise and context collapse in this episode of the Implausipod.

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AI provides a refection of humanity back at us, through a screen, darkly.  But that glass can provide different visions, depending on the viewpoint of the observer.  Are the generative tools that we call AI a tool for advancement and emancipation, or will they be used to further a dystopic control society?   Several current news stories give us the opportunity to see the potential path before us leading down both these routes.  Join us for a personal reflection on AI's role as an assistive technology on this episode of the Implausipod.

References:
Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press.

Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. October, 59, 3–7.

Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating Inequality. Macmillan.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. The New American Library.

Quan-Haase, A. (2015). Technology and Society: Social Networks, Power, and Inequality. Oxford University Press.

Russell, S. (2019). Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control. Viking.

Links:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/08/microsoft-ai-suggests-food-bank-as-a-cannot-miss-tourist-spot-in-canada/

https://tomglobal.org/about

https://www.makersmakingchange.com/s/

 https://sfba.social/@brennansv/110911923848423204

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/health/ai-stroke-speech-neuroscience.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06443-4

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/08/ai-powered-brain-implants-help-paralyzed-patients-communicate-faster-than-ever/

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/temporarily-abled/

https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-removes-embarrassing-offensive-ai-assisted-travel-articles-2023-8

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