Today’s lectorial was centred around Media Materialism in which Dan showed us this video below. It was a long and at first confusing video. I found myself annoyed by it and questioning it in the lectorial. It featured a robot who developed a conscious and the ability to question, think and feel beyond its original functions. To me i look at this video and think of science fiction, something made up and something that is childish and annoying. However evidently this is a possibility of the future, we already use computer to match us up on dates, and telectronic toothbrushes to brush our teeth, whats next? New technologies and intelligences are being developed all the time, and to think of a robot like this may not be far out of the question. The short video reminded me of Spike Jonze’s Her, and the protagonists relationship with his software intelligence. Are we now having relationships with our technologies and is this our future? Who the hell knows? I suppose its not far off people sleeping, eating and living on and with their phones.

From one of the readings this week a thought remained with me that once a technology reaches its use by date, it is finished, and a new technology comes along in a speedy succession. We need to know when technology reaches it use by date, when we need to update and when something is no longer keeping its function. However functionality is up to its user anyway, technologies may and do take on different functions, and this is every changing. It almost scares me to think where these advancements take us in the future, i think the aim is to be aware of these advancements and to think about their repercussions.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pF56-ZYkY