For All Mankind 5.4: Robots Replacing Us in Space?

Well, I didn't like For All Mankind 5.4 much at all.  I'll you why after I alert you to spoilers:

[There will be spoilers ahead ... ]

The big reveal in episode 5.4 of For All Mankind is that Dev is on a path of replacing we humans with robots in our presence on Mars and movement further out in space.

In our reality, critics of our space programs have been saying since the Apollo successes in the late 1960s that a more economic and safer way of extending our species and civilization out in space is via robot surrogates.   I've been thinking and saying for years that robots don't have the emotional subtlety to appreciate what humans see and feel off this planet.  The recent Artemis II return to the Moon brought home that essential point.  As Janet Sayyed back here on Earth noted, "Missions like Artemis II, which require long-duration habitation and hands-on scientific work, depend on that kind of flexibility, the kind no machine can fully replicate."  That's certainly the case for our current AI and technology.

Of course, For All Mankind is alternate history, so what's wrong that it hypothesizing that in the alternate timeline, we have indeed developed the kind of robots that have our human subtlety, in 2012 and ensuing years?   Well, nothing's wrong with that, from a dramatic point of view, if a foundation has been established that in this alternate history, AI and robots have become so advanced in 2012+.  But Dev's plan is a complete surprise.

Even worse, however, is why the creators of For All Mankind have chosen this path?   If it's all just a set-up to see Dev and his plan defeated, then I guess it's ok.  There's no doubt that, in our reality, our journey off this planet has been slowed and interrupted by all kinds of ideational obstacles.  So I'll reserve ultimate judgement until we see how Dev's plan plays out.   In the meantime, I'll confine myself to complaining that I didn't particular enjoy this episode after the revelation of what Dev's up to, after I was already disappointed that Ed Baldwin didn't live a little longer.

See also For All Mankind 5.1: On the Intersection of Alternate and Real Histories ... 5.2: Actor Reunions ... 5.3: The Newton, the First Amendment, and ... Last Breath

And see also For All Mankind 4.1: Back in Business and Alternate Reality ... 4.2: The Fate of Gorbachev ... 4.3-4.4: The Soviet Union in the 21st Century, On Earth and Mars ... 4.5: Al Gore as President and AI ... 4.6: Aleida and Margot ... 4.7: Dev on Mars ... 4.8: Sergei and Margot ... 4.9: Progress ... 4.10: Earth vs. Mars

And see also For All Mankind 3.1: The Alternate Reality Progresses ... 3.2: D-Mail ... 3.3-3.4: The Race

And see also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not the End

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Paradise Season Two Finale: AI, Time Travel, and Immortality

Well, the wife and I binged Season One of Paradise and just finished Season Two, and loved it.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

The ending of the second season was a feast for devotees of science fiction like me.  It gave us a crackling AI story -- perfect for our day and presented with nice dose of time travel as well.  Sinatra's explanation of how her beloved son Dylan, who died as a boy, can now be a man, is that Alex the AI can manipulate time.

This, of course, sets up some wild possibilities -- which time travel always does.  If Alex the AI can resurrect Dylan, can it stop the disaster that played out so powerfully in the first season and set up the multi-dimensional second season?   Why not?  If fact, if I understand time travel, it can undue anything.

Here's what I mean: if I (PL 1) from World 1 go back in time and accidentally prevent one set of my grandparents from meeting, that would instantly create a world in I no longer exist.  So how could I have gone back in time in the first place and interfered with my grandparents meeting?  This is what is known as the grandfather paradox, usually framed as I go back in time and accidentally kill one of my grandparents, but the paradox doesn't have to be so violent.  And the paradox in either case is undone by the realization that the new world, the world without PL 1,  is World 2, but that doesn't wipe out PL 1 because PL 1 belongs to World 1 and can therefore still go back in time.

So, if we apply that logic to Paradise, Alex the AI can stop the catastrophe in Season One, even if that catastrophe was responsible for Alex being developed.   It also means, by the way, that anyone killed so far in these two splendid seasons of Paradise can be brought back to life by Alex's manipulation.  In case Alex is reading this, my recommendations would be Annie and President Bradford.

Hope to see you back here for Season Three.

See also Paradise Season 1 and Season 2.1-2.5: Anything But ... and More

The AI in Scarpetta: In Defense of the Cardinal Sin of Science Fiction

The wife and I binged Scarpetta, an adaptation of two of Patricia Cornwall's novels, on Amazon Prime. It started off slowly, but was top-notch forensic thriller by the time it got to its 8th and final episode of its first season.

I'm a big fan of forensic scientists in fiction -- as a viewer, a reader, and an author (see my Phil D'Amato series) -- and Nicole Kidman in the lead role, and a wild cast of characters, did the narrative justice.   But what interested me most, and has attracted a lot of attention, is the subplot of Scarpetta's niece, Lucy, continuing her relationship with her beloved deceased wife Janet via an AI of Janet.

This AI has received some criticism, because it committed the cardinal sin of science fiction.   Cathal Gunning in Screen Rant offered the outraged assessment that Janet in Scarpetta is akin to "You’s Joe Goldberg inventing a teleportation machine, or True Detective’s Rust Cohle using time travel to revive his dead daughter." And, even worse, the sentient AI in the TV series was not even in the original novel (Autopsy, 2021, which I haven't read).  My response would be a combination of: "And?" and/or "So?".

I might be prejudiced, because I encountered some of this response to my Phil D'Amato stories.  Bookstores didn't know whether to shelve The Silk Code (1999) -- which won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 2000 -- in the science fiction or mystery section.  I get that labels are important.  If I'm in the mood for sushi, I don't want to find after I'm seated in a restaurant advertising itself as serving Japanese cuisine that the only seafood on the menu is calamari or shrimp scampi, much as I love that, too.  But surely reading and watching fictional stories is different.  Isaac Asimov's robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw is aptly regarded (at least by me) as one of the best characters in literature  (speaking of which, see Alexander Zelenyj's "These Streets Are Bruised" and "Shells", both recently published in Amazing Stories).

The only problem I can think of regarding AI Janet is that some viewers may get the incorrect impression that current AI can actually be like "her" -- getting jealous and petulant -- but we're really not there yet, and may never be.   In the meantime, my unasked for advice would be enjoy Scarpetta as the provocative hybrid of mystery and science fiction that it is.

Mission Impossible 8: Final Reckoning: Firing on More Than All Cylinders

Well, as much as I really enjoyed the seventh Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise (MI: Dead Reckoning) when I streamed it on Paramount Plus this past May, and said I'd be back soon with a review of Final Reckoning (which was Part 2 of Dead Reckoning), which was opening soon in theaters and I intended to see ... well, the beaches on Cape Cod were just too tempting.

But I did manage to see MI: Final Reckoning tonight on Paramount Plus, where it started streaming yesterday, and I thought it was great, for all kinds of reasons.   Here, without spoilers, are some of them:

• As the eighth and (at this point, at least) the final Tom Cruise MI, Final Reckoning did a fine job of bringing into play elements from the previous seven movies.  I guess my favorite was bringing back the Phelps story, which made this eight-movie arc even more a direct descendant of Mission Impossible on television, where of course the story was born with Phelps in command.
• I said in my review of Dead Reckoning that the enemy being AI made Ethan Hunt more modern than Bond (at least so far).  In every Bond movie, an evil human being has been the prime enemy.  There were evil humans to be sure in Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning, but the worst of the villains indubitably is an AI.   Thus not only did Final Reckoning delve into Terminator territory, you can throw in Tron, and while we're at it, War Games and lots of other literally bloodless arch-villians as well.   
• To be clear, as I've been saying in lots of places these days, I'm not concerned about AI replacing us, destroying us, or anything that's been a favorite of fiction at least since Karel Čapek's R.U.R more than a century ago.  And I like those fictions a lot -- but they're fictions.  And as far as fiction about AI goes, I prefer Asimov's robots/androids, who sometimes do us harm, but also do us a lot of good.
• Final Reckoning has some powerful star power.  Tom Cruise's Ethan Hall is a truly memorable character, because he's well written and as well as well acted.  Same for the MI team, both in Final Reckoning and the previous MI movies.  And I have to say Angela Bassett as US President was superb, as well all as all the other heroes and villains that play out a taut story in which millions if not billions of lives are at stake.  (It was also great to see Tramell Tillman -- Severance! -- in charge of a crucial vessel at sea.)
• And the action scenes are first rate in every natural environment on Planet Earth, that is, land, sea, and air.  In those scenes, Hunt is every bit as impressive as Bond.
• I'll just also say that in the midst of all this action, Final Reckoning has a deep and impressive moral core.

If I have any disappointment, well, Cruise has made clear that this is his last Ethan Hunt story.  I hope he changes his mind.  And gets the recognition he -- and everyone associated with this movie -- amply deserve.

See also Mission Impossible 7: Dead Reckoning: Well Beyond Bondian ... Mission Impossible 6: Fallout: Better (These Days) Than Bond ... Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

Dune: Prophecy Season One Finale: Truths Coming Out

Dune: Prophecy put up a powerfully long finale tonight on Max -- an hour and twenty-one minutes -- for its short six-episode debut season.  And it made every minute and sound of the Voice count, as it dealt out a series of blows and retributions and affirmations of what we already knew and suspected.

[I'm not going to give you a detailed recap, but I suppose I should warn about spoilers anyway ... ]

First, we learned more of the brutal truth about what Valya was willing to do, and did, to insure that the Sisterhood went her way.  That way was to keep AI as an essential weapon in the Sisterhood's arsenal. I agree with Valtya's view of AI,  But as to her methods ... well, we see that she killed not only Dorotea but a vast majority of the Sisterhood in that room, because they opposed her view, and thought AI was a blasphemous threat to humanity.

Later, we're also treated to a battle royale between Valya and Desmond Hart.  It's pretty much a draw.  As readers of my reviews here of Dune: Prophecy know, I've been a bigger fan of Hart than Valya.  They might both have well died, had not Tulya arrived and rallied her sister Valya -- and then, after convincing Valya to let her son Hart be, because she as his mother not only loved him but was sure she could control him, Tula goes and tends to her wounded son.  I said a few episodes ago that I thought Tulia would ultimately be a more potent character than Valya, and I think she proved it in that scene and in this episode.  

One thing I didn't like, though, was the Emperor's self-inflicted death.  He wasn't a bad Emperor, as far as Emperors go.  But leaving a Bene Gesserit in the palace, who now through face- and body-shifting looks just like Princess Ynez, I thought that was a pretty cool move.

All in all, I think these six episodes have offered a memorable and captivating prologue to the Dune saga. Kudos, again, to Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert who wrote the novel Sisterhood of Dune, which I haven't yet read and on which Dune: Prophecy is based, Frank Herbert who got the Dune saga going with a series of masterpiece novels, and everyone who starred in this TV series.  

I'll see you back here when the second season comes along.

See also Dune: Prophecy 1.1: Compelling Prequel ... 1.2: The Hart of The Matter ... 1.3: The Power of Voice ... 1.4: The Ambience ... 1.5: Revelation and Seduction

and Dune, Part One: Half the Movie, Twice the Power of Most Other Complete Films ... Dune, Part Two: Not As Good as Part One

For All Mankind 4.5: Al Gore as President and AI

My favorite part of For All Mankind 4.5 was Al Gore as President, 2001-2005.  First of all, that's an especially satisfying piece of alternate history, since in our reality Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and the Republican dominated US Supreme Court stopped the recounts in Florida which could have given Gore a victory in the essential Electoral College as well.  (Also, in my time travel story, Ian's Ions and Eons, a time-traveler from the future goes back to 2000 to prevent the Supreme Court from taking that election victory away from Gore, and it's fun to see Gore in the White House in For All Mankind, a completely different story.)

Gore as President could have given the US and the world a real jump on the climate crisis, which of course he was sounding clarion calls about in the first decade of the 21st century in our reality.  I'd like to see something showing Gore as President leading the world in responding to global warming in For All Mankind.  So far, the only notable alternate history flourish in Gore's alternate history Presidency is his taking credit for discovering a very valuable asteroid approaching Mars, mirroring what he said about inventing the Internet in our reality.  Both cases were accidentally misleading statements by Gore, but the media in both realities had a field day with them.

There hasn't been much about AI in For All Mankind as yet, but it's no doubt being used to make the fictional Gore speak so clearly about things the real Gore certainly wasn't exactly talking about in our history.  It struck me that maybe the reason the series ditched Gorbachev is there wasn't enough raw material from our history for AI to put whatever words the narrative may have needed for a Gorbachev who stayed in power in our reality at least through the early 21st century.

[And now some spoilers ahead ... ]

As what's going on now in For All Mankind on Mars, it was painful to see Poole and Baldwin at such odds, but that was probably inevitable.   The two have gone from saying hello Bob to each other to Poole stripping Baldwin from his rank and position.  I agreed with Baldwin that Poole was wrong to send the Russian back to Earth in the previous episode, but she's not wrong to be concerned about the tremor in Baldwin's hand.

On the bright side, it was good to see Dev going up to Mars permanently, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop with all of our characters back in the US and USSR.

Chuck Todd and Paul Levinson talk Alternate History, including For All Mankind

See also For All Mankind 4.1: Back in Business and Alternate Reality ... 4.2: The Fate of Gorbachev ... 4.3-4.4: The Soviet Union in the 21st Century, On Earth and Mars

And see also For All Mankind 3.1: The Alternate Reality Progresses ... 3.2: D-Mail ... 3.3-3.4: The Race

And see also For All Mankind, Season 1 and Episode 2.1: Alternate Space Race Reality ... For All Mankind 2.2: The Peanut Butter Sandwich ... For All Mankind 2.3: "Guns to the Moon" ... For All Mankind 2.4: Close to Reality ... For All Mankind 2.5: Johnny and the Wrath of Kahn ... For All Mankind 2.6: Couplings ... For All Mankind 2.7: Alternate History Surges ... For All Mankind 2.8: Really Lost in Translation ... For All Mankind 2.9: Relationships ... For All Mankind 2.10: Definitely Not the End

Podcast Conversation about The Beatles 'Now and Then'

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 360, in which Joel McKinnon and Cora Buhlert join me for a conversation about The Beatles' "Now and Then".  We had reconvened for a conversation about the second season of the Foundation series on Apple TV+ -- I had asked them to join me to talk about the first season back in 2021 -- but Joel, who's been in a band for decades, asked me what I thought of The Beatles new single, and this led to a conversation about the new single, The Beatles in Hamburg, AI and recording, and lots of observations you won't hear any place else.  (And look next week for the conversation about Foundation that ensued.)

Relevant links:

• my review of "Now and Then"
• our 2021 conversation about the 1st season of Foundation

 

Check out this episode!

AI-Generated Video Translation

Here's an AI-generated translation of my English into Hindi by Emon Hassan -- it's of me talking about my 2006 time-travel novel, The Plot to Save Socrates, in 2010 (AI by Hey Gen; from an interview Emon conducted w/me in 2010) (English follows Hindi in video). I actually think I sound a little better in Hindi than English :)

I'm also very glad Hey Gen ID's itself in lower right corner -- a good way of demonstrating that AI is not attempting to deceive.  I understand that this watermark appears only on sample or test copies of the Hey Gen AI product.  And, also, that it's easy to remove them.  But I'd nonetheless like to see these logos on all AI products -- they should be mandatory and indelible.

You can also watch the video here on Instagram.