Social Issues

Sweeping Under the Rug

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“Linoleum” is a film that succeeds in conveying in a heartfelt manner what goes on in the mind of a person who is slowly losing his sanity. The film leaves us wondering what really happens to all the things we have repressed throughout our lives.

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

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AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs. We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

The Mars Express

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Robots, artificial intelligence, virtual, augmented and digital reality, colonizing and living on Mars, all present and accounted for in Mars Express, representing our longing for a wondrous, uncharted future. Yet this imagined tomorrow is haunted by the same troubles of our past and present, forcing us to confront political and historical dilemmas that technology alone cannot resolve. Analysis and recommendation for one of the masterful, beautiful and thought-provoking science fiction films of recent years.

Human, All Too Human

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At the heart of speculative creativity and science fiction beats the unanswerable question “What is human?”, playing on the edge, examining the boundaries, exploring the frontiers. What is the demarcation line between man and machine, beast and monster; between natural and artificial, cultured and wild; between the living and the dead, the dead-yet-alive, the undead; what differentiates human from trans-, post- and superhuman, non-human, foreign, alien, demonic, and divine.

Response to ‘Pause AI’ Open Letter – It’s The Economy, Stupid

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The danger lurking within the development of innovative AI technologies is anything but innovative or new. Greed and lust for power are age-old forces. Who is threatened by this danger? Those without money. Or power. Or both.

The Eternals

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The prospects for a Messianic age or an ever-lasting Utopia are dazzling, exciting, intoxicating — but what happens when we sacrifice the complexity of the present for a mythical past or fantastic future? What dangers lie hidden in the promise of an eternal Utopia, realized here, on Earth? How does a new generation of Billionaires grapple with human existence? What does it mean for all of us, and how can we still, with all of that, change the world?

What would Ursula say?

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In The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin writes about contrasting worldviews and polar ideologies fighting each another. Can Le Guin's novel teach us something about the reality of our lives, in this moment?

Bearing Hope

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In a cultural field that at times seems capable only of vast, improbable inhuman scales, galactic, cataclysmic, absurd and immeasurably distant, Le Guin has the remarkable ability to contain the intimate within the infinite, the personal human journey upon the strange map of the future she vividly imagined.

Future Screenshots

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I developed a political imagination workshop methodology. In this first article in a series, I will focus on the context and motivation for the workshop and will share step by step guidelines and facilitation notes as well as possibilities for further development and adaptation.

The Extinction of Utopia

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The last one hundred years have been a bloody battlefield of utopias. Is it still possible to imagine a utopian future, and if so, how? Exactly 50 years ago, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a short story that marks the beginning of the answer to this question.

The Robot that Changed my Life > A Malfunction in Humanity

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Alongside metallic saviors and robotic monsters, in the '80s films there were also other possibilities, sensitive, delicate robotic creatures, who tried to tell us in every way – we are not the tools of destruction you imagine us to be.

Companion Cubes

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In light of contemporary discussions about the future of robots as "emotional laborers" and social service workers, Shalev Moran looks back at the history of underrecognized emotional services offered by Non-Player Characters in digital games and media, and what they can teach us about the role of robots in society

Robots! Will Not! Replace Us!

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Robophobia or ‘fear of robots’ is a modern incarnation of the ancient fear of the next generation, fear of our own descendants. It can teach us much about our relationship with technology, the means of production, and the act of creation.

The Neural Link – an Absurdist Reality

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The Neural Link - an Absurdist Reality - Text from the August 2020 PR event for Elon Musk's BCI venture, Neuralink

What is a Robot?

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We’re marking the Robot centennial, 100 years of revolution and evolution, aspiration and agony, a century of mutual inspiration between industry and culture, art and policy, science and science fiction. At the heart of the Utopia “Master and Slaves” edition is the age-old naïve and un-answerable question – What is a Robot?

Face Cover

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CoVid masks. Gas masks. Veils & niqabs. Fortnight Skins. Oxygen masks. Tactical masks. Instagram filters. Batman and Bane masks. A historical and personal voyage through the past 30 years of face coverings and masks, and through the uncanny anxieties and fears awakened when one covers their face.

The Eternaut

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An Argentinian graphic novel from the 1950s accurately conveys the horror and fragility of the collapse of the existing social order, following a mysterious snowfall that leads to the death of masses.

eRace

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A short science fiction story about the present.

Uncanny horror

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The episode "A Taste of Armageddon" from the original Star Trek television series is one of those brilliant parables that only appear in excellent science fiction. Beneath the familiar campy exterior of the series lies a poignant statement about the importance of terror, suffering, and horror in times of war.

Home Away From Home

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אנו חושבים על הבית שלנו כמובן מאליו. למעשה, אנו לא חושבים עליו בכלל, לרוב. חוסר תשומת הלב הזה, העיוורון הזה, הוא פוליטי. לאורך השנה האחרונה נדרשנו להיות ספונים בבתינו – הוספנו להם משמעות, בעוד משמעותם נשחקה, אבל בעיקר – פתאום שמנו לב, לבית. ולכוחות שפועלים עלינו מחוץ ובתוך הבית, בנוגע לבית. מהו בית, כשיש כל כך הרבה יותר ממנו? ומה הם הכוחות הפוליטיים שמנסים לשנות את מערכת היחסים שלנו עם הבית?

The Enemy Within

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The homey, uncanny year. We’ve all experienced in the flesh the unsettling feeling of the strangely familiar, the unheimlich. The Uncanny is all around us - in our haunted homes, beaming from our screens, in the streets - emptied out, now strangely revitalized, our cities, muted and mutated. It’s in the fabric of everyday life, in the sudden strangeness of daily routines. A fear not triggered by alienation... A fear coming from inside the house! Thoughts on the enemy within.

The Spear and the Sack

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If literature departments in Israeli universities seek relevance, they must start teaching and exploring the work of acclaimed science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin