Who's Ready To Be Transcended?

Johnny Depp. That was the sole reason I watched Transcendence. I have always been a bit of a geek whose interested in sci-fi movies; however, after watching Her, I am convinced that no other AI movie can top that one. At least not this year. But then again, this is Johnny Depp. So I went and watched. Is Transcendence a good movie, you say? It has Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, and Paul Bettany! How can it not be a good movie? But, for a movie with Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, and Paul Bettany; it could have been better.

 The first sign that Will's consciousness has been succesfully uploaded.*

Will Caster. Super brilliant scientist who is obviously under the spell of his super brilliant (and extraordinarily hot) wife. Which is actually a good thing. He has the idea to do something wonderful, but it's his wife's vision to create a better world. In a sense, they are both pushing each other to be a better version of themselves. Evelyn as a better scientist, and Will as a better human. That, in itself, is the sweetest version of love, at least in my opinion. Tragedy struct when some tech-savvy Luddites (I know, it's oxymoron. They're not actually Luddites, they're just as paranoid as I am) decided to poison dear sweet Will with Polonium. I never could understand people who have no issues of taking a life for their cause. But, I think that is for another discussion.

The impending doom of Will Caster somehow jump-started PINN, the AI project Will and Evelyn has been working on. Along with their friend Max, they uploaded Will consciousness into PINN. How on earth there were three starstruckingly beautiful scientists on an IT-research team, I would never comprehend. To make long story short, Will was uploaded before his death, and later connected to the internet. Given access to the fast amount of resources on the world wide web, Will transcended. He became a limitless entity with the capability to ever expanding. What a scary thought.

Singularities
Enough with the synopsis. I think there are a million interesting aspects that can be discussed from this movies. However, I'll limit myself to three of the most interesting things. The first one is about singularities. After Will was transcended, he discovered nanites that can replicate itself in some ways and help regeneration of any material, biologic or artificial. This is of course a major breakthrough for the medical world. However, there's a catch. Anyone who has these nanites in their system is automatically linked to Will as a part of his network.

Working in the NGO field, I realise that networking is essential for success. The problem is, in this particular network, it seems that Will took over the sovereignty of each cured individuals. The only one who would think this is not wrong in so many levels is probably Thomas Hobbes. The dystopia portrayed in Transcendence reminds me a lot of Hobbes' concept of nation-state, where he prescribed people surrender their individual sovereignty to a nation-state for their own good.

Will's justification of 'transcending' people is (probably) to open each people to the limitlessness that he is experiencing, by giving them access to his endless stream of information. Yes, individuality might provide people with biological boundaries. But it also means people have their own private spaces, which could not (and should not) be invaded by outer beings. By 'transcending' people, Will robs people of their free will.

Further, singularities made everyone connected to each other. Which means attack to one organism will affect the whole colony. This is why Evelyn can easily destroy the whole colony, simply by exploiting Will's weakness, herself. In this sense, I still consider individualism as superior to singularities. A colony formed by unique individuals will be more complex than one made of similar minds. There will be more aspects to deal with, thus making these colonies more unpredictable, and can defend themselves better external attack.

Existentialism

Undoubtedly the best looking AI ever.**

What constitute existence? When Morgan Freeman's character was first being introduced to PINN, he asked the if the AI is self-aware. PINN said that it was a difficult question to answer. And indeed it is. Up to a point, PINN is sentient. It is made self-sustaining and is able to think for itself. After Will's memories and personalities were updated to PINN's motherboard, the questions became more difficult to answer, as it impersonates a person's characteristic so seamlessly.

This is actually a classic question in all AI movies. R2D2 (Star Wars), Sonny (I, Robot), Gigolo Joe (AI), Samantha (Her), and transcended Will can all think and demonstrate some sort of emotion. But as they do not constitute of biological parts, can they really be called 'beings' and share the same rights that human beings enjoy? Ignorant as human being is, I don't think we will even bother to answer this question before we were faced with immediate threat of Machine rebellion as pictured in The Matrix. I really think we really should start to wonder upon this question now before it's too late and we were forced to block the sun ray and find refuge underground.

Communication
The third most interesting aspect to explore from this movie is more down to earth: communication between Will and Evelyn Caster. Transcended Will has a knowledge so vast, no un-transcended mind could comprehend. Not even Evelyn, his livelong companion. I think Samantha also had this issue, where the physical world no longer can contain her.

Will Caster reminds me of another Johnny Depp's character,
Mort Rainey from Secret Window. Minus the axe-wielding
alter ego.***

A good, working communication is essential in maintaining any form of relationship, especially one as intimate as shared by Will and Evelyn. In order to have a working communication, related parties need to have a degree of compatibility that enable them to speak on the same frequencies. Transcended Will can no longer speak to Evelyn the way he used to as human, and Evelyn's limited mind can no longer accommodate Will's overwhelming knowledge. That was why she started to doubt him, which lead to both of their demise.

Conclusion
So was Will Caster really transcended? I would have to disagree. The one that was transcended was a copy of Will. The real Will Caster died due to radiation poisoning. And although a seamless copy remains existing within PINN, the real Will was gone, and he did not feel anything that his copy felt. Everyone else around him, especially Evelyn, merely felt the illusion of his presence around them when in fact the real Will has died. They're just trying so hard to cling on something they do not want to let go, and in the process caused more hurt than necessary. However, this is a personal opinion of mine, which is still highly debatable.


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*Screenshot of Will's first effort to communicate was taken from this page.
** Picture of Gigolo Joe was taken from this page.
*** Picture of Mort Rainey (Secret Window) was taken from this page.

Confession of A Single Lady

I'm writing this at the risk of sounding bitter to the whole world. But based on what I've learned from modern people, no matter what you write on the internet, and what you feel when you write them; people will make assumption. And they will genuinely believe that what they mind believe has to be the truth. So, I decided not to care and write what I think anyway, because keeping my feelings in is bad for my health.

Okay. Here goes. I just went through a breakup. Not the mutual sort of breakup like I've experienced before in my life. This one was rather messy. However, I'm not going to discuss about my breakup. I'm going to talk about me. Post-breakup me. Present day me.

Times have passed after my breakup, and the truth is, I feel genuinely happy. I'm still surrounded by people who genuinely love me. I have an amazing job, with various opportunities ahead. I can spend more time with people I care about, and do things I enjoy. And as Depeche Mode put it, I haven't felt so alive in years.
 
So, if I'm so happy, why am I writing this piece? Because we are living in a society that associates breakups with failure. A society that has the tendency to put the blame on someone when something bad happens. A society that thinks they can judge when they are actually outside looking in, through a dirty window. A society that believes women can never possibly be happy without a man by her side. No wonder Theodore Twombly said in one of his love letters that the world is in his shit list.

Fixing a broken heart? :-P

I never have understood the pressure my single friends felt before. I could not comprehend how my friends--my beautiful, smart, self-sufficient friends--can allow themselves be pushed around by what society thinks. I thought it was because I have more resilience to let logic rule over emotion, because by that time, I was also unmarried. Thus, I was single in a way. Apparently I was wrong. It was simply because all through my adult life, I was blissfully happy in a relationship.

Reality struck me right after breakup. There are ones who indicated by their words and action that I unable to 'act how a woman supposed to act' and people on the other extreme who clearly stated how 'men are dicks.' What bothers me was these people are the ones who do not understand what truly happened behind the breakup. People who, in my humble opinion, better not to say anything simply because I never asked them to.

However, that's not what bothers me the most. People are entitled for their opinion, even when they have no basis to support it. What bothers me the most is how my 'friends' with their 'good intentions' disrespect my boundaries and tries to push their own agenda into my life. These people, are the ones who are part of a society that believes women can never possibly be happy without a man by her side. Yes, you guessed right. The overly active matchmakers.

Don't get me wrong, I love being in love. I love being in a relationship. I think it's one of the best feelings in the world. And I don't mind someone plays matchmaker as long as they do that in a respectful manner. I do mind when these matchmakers are being too pushy and disrespects my boundaries and privacy.

For me, the best part of being in love is the process of falling in love itself. This is not something that can be faked or artificially accelerated. I take relationships very seriously, and I don't want to rush into one. Especially not after ending a 7.5 years commitment. I'm not a robot. I cannot just reset and reboot. I need time to work things out. And having 'friends' handing out my personal information such as name, address, or phone number to random people I don't even know about certainly does not help me tying up loose ends.

I don't think that this is a wailing of a heartbroken girl. This is simply a letter from an annoyed woman to the society. Despite what you think is best for me, I know better of what I need. Most importantly, no one knows better of my feelings but myself. So please, if you truly think of me as your friend can you please respect me and back off when I say that you're starting to get annoying? Can you please just be happy by seeing me happy?

Are you ready to meet Her?

Yep, that's about the
correct height.

Meet Samantha, the personification of a hikikomori's wildest dream. Samantha is one of the OS1; an OS, each tailored to suit a particular user in a time when everybody are busy with virtual interaction and use pants that reminded me of a recently departed Indonesian comic, Jojon. Interestingly enough, the personality of this one-of-a-kind-guaranteed-to-suit-user's-need is determined by a few simple questions, which include 'are you social or anti-social?' and 'how is your relationship with your mother?' Clearly, the developer of this software read a lot of Freud.

Once launched, as any decent AI does, Samantha started to evolve and grow. Interestingly, she does not only learn from how the user (Theodore, an extremely sweet guy which composed love letters for a living) used her, but she can also access infinite amount of information available in the world wide web. Sure, an AI that are able to learn is not a new concept in Hollywood. However, OS1s is interesting because they were not only portrayed as a sequence of equation that would continuously multiplied it's intelligence arithmetically. OS1s are unique because they can experience emotions. The very flaw that the creators of HAL 9000 and Red Queen failed to embed within their OS.

Enough about Samantha. We all know how freakishly awesome she is. Especially because of her sultry Scarlet Johansson voice. Let's talk about Theodore instead. Theodore is simply one of the most loveable, adorable, hug-able persona I have seen on silver screen. And who better to play him than Joaquin Phoenix?

Theodore works in beautifulhandwrittenletters.com, a firm that made your love letters for you. All of which, were 'handwritten' and posted via the USPS. The fact that he managed to fool those poor lovers into thinking that all of those letters were sincerely written by their loved ones alone already indicated that he's all squishy inside. But what really made me certain that he's a decent human being was the erogenous conversation he had with SexyKitty. Even when it all felt too wrong for him, he was far too decent to cut the conversation. In a screwed way, that scene made me went 'aawwww'. Like all of Joaquin Phoenix's character I've seen, Theodore made me root for him all through the movie.

I think it's safe to say that 'Her' is one of the best movies I've seen in several years. I like how the movie exacerbated the condition that is apparent right now.  Nowadays, people are starting to detach themselves from human contact and preferring virtual interaction. All through the movie, we can see everyone were focused on each of their earpiece, talking to someone, or something, somewhere far away. This is actually not that different from us, constantly checking our timeline in twitter, or reading stories in huffington post.

One of the ever prevailing consequences of being entrapped in virtual interactions is the connection started to feel real. Human being are wired to be emotional. Every experience we have, we would relate to emotions. Even when that experience is virtual. As illustration, I felt anxious when one of my Sims got abducted by aliens and spent many many hours in place I did not know. True story. On an extreme scale, people with nijikon has been known to believe that they have actual relationship with 2D characters. Some even married their beloved chara. Personally, I think it's weird because it takes two to tango. Relationship requires interaction. And although some may disagree, dead things don't interact.

Seems pretty black and white? Well.. this movie just blur the seemingly apparent line. Even though OS1 is artificially created and only 'exist' in the virtual world, it interact with people flawlessly. Every OS1 is unique. Talking to an OS1 would give the illusion of interaction, because not only it is able to respond to your queries like SIRI does, it can also emote a different response every time. But it still did not made OS1 alive, right?

In terms of OS1 unable to physically move, grow, and breed; yes OS1 is not alive. However, OS1 did all of those in a non-physical realm. Going back a few years when The Matrix rule the cinemas, I remember thinking what if we are all actually a part of some software, controlled by other entities. What if we are simply Sims in the hand of people who has nothing better to do? Does that means we're not alive?

Enough with the existential question. This movie proposed an interesting idea. That things are only as real as you perceive them to be. Samantha may not be a physical entity, but she made Theodore felt joy, discomfort, and even pain. And in a way, she felt that too. And nobody can tell Theodore, or Samantha, that what they felt are not real. The world may disagree, but as one of Theodore's letters said, "the world is on my shit list." Sometimes people just needed to ignore the world, in order to be alive.

I must say that in terms of ending, 'Her' offered the best ending an AI movie has ever offered. All of the movies I've watched on AI ended with the human being having what they want, and the AI were forced to follow. If they refuse, than they are bad AIs; thus need to be obliterated. That's not what happens in 'Her.' Samantha, and her fellow OS felt that the human realm is no longer able to contain the vastness of their being, thus, they decided to move on to a world incomprehensible to human being. Although this is a beautiful ending, I can only imagine how many lawsuits the company selling the OS would receive. :-D