Chapters seven through nine discuss Terminal Time. Termianl Time is a cutting edge, audience powered history engine. To better educate its participants or viewers on human history, the engine combines mass participation, real-time documentary graphics, and artificial intelligence. The effectiveness of the engine is mainly due to its ability to customize its lessons to reflect the values, biases, and desires of the participants or viewers. I think this is a really cool advancement in technology because it manages to teach people through learning from those same people. The machine learns the values, biases, and desires of the same people it is teaching in order to better service their needs and teach more effectively. I also think this advancement is a bit spooky. I don’t think I can get used to the idea that a machine is picking my brain. I feel like in humans’ attempt to advance technology, we are crossing to many boundaries in terms of reality and fantasy.
The text refers to the allegory of Plato’s cave. I found this allegory to be appropriate for how I feel about the digital world. We are getting so engulfed in technology and in escaping reality that we are losing pieces of reality every day. The main goal for children after getting out of school is to no longer go outside and play, but now it is to grab a seat in front of the computer or in front of the Nintendo and “live” through the characters in their fantasy world. I believe that if this continues people will eventually lose sight of reality all together and will become completely engulfed in virtual presence. This is what I believe was meant of Plato’s allegory of the cave.
I was hoping to see more in depth commentary on the reading.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the Plato theory and it's relevance to our technological world today. Sometimes we can be too emerged.
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