Class notes for May 29, June 5, and June 12.

We started watching Blade Runner rather late on the 29th, because we were talking about homework such as the Movie Journal. Therefore we were unable to finish watching it on the 5th. We watched the end of the film today, but before we watched the last bit, I skimmed through the scenes and narrated the important events. We then had a test on the characters, (animals, symbols,) and a summary of Blade Runner.

We now begin a short journey through Bicentennial Man. Unlike the other films so far, the artificial-intelligence character of Andrew is shown as a completely positive character. Compare that with HAL, COLOSSUS, the crazed gunslinger robot in Westworld, and the morally-complex character of the replicants of Blade Runner. We have no required reading for this film, but you will understand it better if you read the detailed plot summary at Wikipedia, in English and/or in Japanese. We watched the opening scenes up to where Andrew is cleaning out the basement. We will watch about 15 chapters of the dvd and have a worksheet on it. Then we will briefly summarize the rest of the film with my narration of the last half of Andrew's life. The final assignment will be to write a Movie Journal about it, just as you are doing for every film. In this way, we will reduce the time spent on Bicentennial Man to one (more) day.

Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)

Our next movie is Blade Runner. There are 7 different versions of this movie! We will watch "The Director's Cut." Here are some useful links:

Read about Blade Runner at Wikipedia
The Plot and Themes sections are especially useful.

Read about the Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Click on the 日本語 button to read the Japanese Wikipedia article!

Transcript which includes voice-over narration (not in Director's Cut).

1981 Fancher/Peoples script with some differences and Gaff-in-pursuit ending.

Earlier 1980 Fancher script with very unhappy ending:-(

Multi-script and ILLUSTRATED transcript (PDF) are available from here.
http://www.brmovie.com/Downloads/Docs/BR_Scripts.htm
The illustrated transcript is especially highly recommended!!!

For Learning English (site by Duncan Grey)
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/br/
Commentary
Characters
You can watch clips and read some questions there, too!
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/br/clips.html

How was the Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep different from the Blade Runner movie?
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/br/book.html

Excellent fan site
http://www.brmovie.com/What_is_BR.htm

Clips
http://home.cogeco.ca/~blade2019/

AllMovie.com
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:5994

Italian Blade Runner site. Select the British flag for English info.
http://www.blade-runner.it/

Movie Preview



Deleted Hospital Scene

Westworld previews

The original theatrical trailer:

"Each resort is maintained by reliable computer technology, and peopled by lifelike robot men and women."



The beginning of the film:(looks like an advertisement)




In the saloon!




Something is wrong!




A model 404, maybe a 406!




The Making of WESTWORLD

Class Notes for May 8

Today I picked up your worksheets for 2001: A Space Odyssey. These include Predictions, Conspiracy Theories, and Differences between the Film and the 1965 Script. Please complete your Movie Journal writing for each film soon after seeing the film. Most of you will find it easier to write this than to write a research report.

Today we began the screening of Colossus: The Forbin Project. We were able to watch over half of the film, up to the scene where Dr Forbin is having his pretend dinner-date with his pretend-lover, Cleo Markham. Next week we will watch the last 25 minutes.

Both 2001: A Space Odyssey and Colossus: The Forbin Project represent paleo-futures. Paleo-future is a word made from paleo, meaning old, and future. These are imagined futures, possible futures, which are now already past and which never happened. Paleofutures can be very interesting to examine for their assumptions about future developments.

If you need to do further reading about the film, please remember that there are 7 links to further information on this blog.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

The trailer!



The first 10 minutes!


Read about the plot here:
Wikipedia for Colossus:The Forbin Project

More at answers.com

A nice, short summary at UMich
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/film/films/colossus.html

This is good, too: http://www.scifimoviepage.com/colossus.html

Review at scifi.com

This is a little bit longer
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/06/06/133903.php

Class Notes for April 24-May 1

On April 24 we started watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. We got up to about Chapter 15 or 16 on the DVD, where Frank is losing a game of chess and Dave is showing HAL his sketches. Today, May 1, we finished watching it. I handed out some worksheets for the film.There are word puzzles and questions about the world in 2001 as predicted in 1968 when the film was made. The reality of 2001 was very different from what was imagined in 1968. There are other questions about conspiracy theories in the film and the differences between the 1965 screenplay and the final cut of the film. I am collecting the film overview worksheets and have also assigned you to write your first Movie Journal entry. This should be (at least) 100 to 150 words of your comments and thoughts about the film, script, characters, setting, plot, or any aspect of the film. If you do not do the Movie Journal you should prepare a written research paper looking into an AI topic which is happening now. (That could be exciting, too.)
The next film is Colossus: The Forbin Project.

2001: A Space Odyssey

You can read the screenplay here:
http://www.moviescriptplace.com/main/movie/96
or here:
http://www.screenplays-online.de/screenplay/1
or here:
http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/2001.txt

This version of the screenplay from 1965 is different from the final movie. The screenplay has narration, which the movie lacks. It is easier to understand the screenplay because of the many explanations. Why do you suppose Arthur C. Clarke had so much narration? Why do you think director/co-writer Stanley Kubrick cut out all of the narration?

The Sparknotes site for 2001: A Space Odyssey is about the book by Arthur C. Clarke, not the screenplay for the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick. It gives the context, a general summary, and also a summary of the characters and a more detailed summary of each chapter. The analysis of the major characters, especially the artificial intelligence of Hal, is excellent.

The Wikipedia site for 2001: A Space Odyssey has connections to many other sites. 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Internet Movie Database is a good source of many details about the film.
The Filmsite for 2001: A Space Odyssey re-tells the whole story as text. The Allmovie site for 2001: A Space Odyssey gives a short overview or plot synopsis.

Arthur C. Clarke died in March 2008. Visit his Wikipedia page to learn more about him.

Seven A.I. Films Overview Worksheet

This worksheet will familiarize you with the 7 films that we are going to watch. You can do a little bit of research to find out who the actors, directors, and writers are. You can also note how long the film is, and when it was made. Those are the external facts of the movie. Within the movie, who are the characters, and when and where is the setting? Write some basic ideas about the plot (a sentence or two). The details can be easily uncovered at imdb, allmovie, or wikipedia.

Questions for Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies

Questions for Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies Part I

What is the science of A.I.? (a definition)

When was the term “Artificial Intelligence” first used?

What are some of the most advanced abilities of smart machines?

What is the purpose of the robot in the movie “Bicentennial Man”?

What types of tasks does the author anticipate that robots will do in the near future?

In what year and in what movie did mechanical men (robots) first appear?

How were the plots of these movies similar to the plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Have robots usually been shown as benevolent (good, nice) or malevolent (bad)? Which type do moviegoers (audiences) prefer to see?

When was America’s “golden age” of science fiction films?

What social and global conditions were responsible for this?

Which 50’s sci-fi movie introduces a good-robot-vs-bad-robot story-line?

Which 50’s sci-fi movie was a comedy?

Which 50’s sci-fi movie was three-dimensional and required special glasses?

Which 50’s sci-fi movie involves the theme of computers taking over the earth?

Questions for Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies Part II

What seems to be more dangerous in Colossus: The Forbin Project, the danger of nuclear war, or the danger of intelligent computers?

Which do you think is more dangerous for the future? Why?

How does Colossus control human behavior?

Do you think computers could become more intelligent than humans?

How is the death of the HAL9000 similar to the way humans face death?

What is a “cyborg”?

Which movie is about a cyborg who is sent back into the past?
What 1980s and 1990s movies have a similar premise?

How was the fictional Delos Amusement Park (from Westworld) different from amusement park such as Disneyworld and Universal Studios?

When was the first Star Wars picture released?

Questions for Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies Part III

What two very different types of movies co-existed in the 1980s?
Give examples.

Which movie deals with the right of androids to live?


Which movies involved love between humans and robots/androids?
Is this idea realistic, in your opinion?
If so, when might this become possible?
What problems could this create?

In which movie does a young hacker accidentally start a world conflict?
Do you think this is possible?

In which movie is HAL revived?

How does the Skynet of The Terminator resemble Colossus?

Is it possible for the internet to someday become aware (like a human brain) in your opinion?

If so, do you think it would be friendly or unfriendly toward humans?
Why?

What movie from 2001 resembles D.A.R.Y.L. ?

How do the future worlds shown in Robocop, Cherry 2000, Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Cyborg resemble each other?

Is your image of the future anything like that?
If so, why?
If not, what is your image of the future?


Questions for Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies Part IV

What social changes influenced film in the 1990s?

What world-view is common to many 1990s sci-fi films?

What 1990s sci-fi films have you seen?

Which ones did you like the most?

Movie Posters etc.

First class syllabus and reading

In the first class meeting, we took care of attendance issues, habded out a syllabus, and reviewed a bit of writing about artificial intelligence that I downloaded from answers.com several years ago. Although it stops at 200, became out-of-date, and is no longer on the web, it establishes that robots have appeared in film since 1907, and "artificial intelligence" is a term that has been around since 1956.

Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies
http://scifimovies.about.com/movies/scifimovies/library/weekly/aa013000d.htm

Part I Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a science, focuses on creating machines that behave in ways humans consider intelligent. The term was first used in 1956 and, after fifty years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart machines is becoming reality. systems exist that mimic human thought, understand speech, and beat the best chess masters. Military applications are, naturally, classified.
Over 30 years after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, some of the visions of the future of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke no longer seem so implausible. The AI compilation, HAL's Legacy, edited by David Stork, professor and computer researcher at Stanford University, is named for the movie's HAL 9000 computer which used its artificial intelligence -- speech recognition, language understanding, common sense, and reasoning, to turn on its astronauts during the ill-fated, secret space mission.
Computer graphics and industrial production are two areas where AI is already used. The newly-released Bicentennial Man explores the benefits and impact of a personal robot whose primary function is to carry out simple, everyday tasks and who develops recognizably-human emotions -- surprise, happiness, anger, and boredom. While this Jetson idea is old, it could become reality in the near future.
Robots will eventually find a place in our homes but initially they'll tackle tasks that are dangerous for humans to perform such as military mine counter-measures, mopping up contaminated nuclear power plants, and perhaps even exploring Mars. Only after they have been proven and perfected in these types of situations will robots become part of domestic life.
Precursors of HAL-9000, such as Robby the Robot and Proteus IV, appeared in sci-fi movies as early as The Mechanical Statue and the Ingenious Servant (1907), The Rubber Man (1909), and Dr. Smith's Automation (1910). Automation was a popular theme for the early one-reel comedies. The plots centered around mechanical men, designed to serve their human creator, who suddenly go berserk, destroying property and posing threats to humans before they can be neutralized. Out-of-control robots like HAL-9000 and the Terminator, hell-bent on destroying humans and humanity, have been more popular characters than C3P0, R2D2, and Robby the Robot.
In the 1950s, the "Golden Age" of sci-fi movies was colored by America's fear of atomic war and its radioactive fallout, paranoia about Communist invasion, postwar advances in medicine and industry, and the beginning of the space race. Advancing technology lead to increased global power, wealth, health, security, and leisure time. There was a menace lurking behind the excess and it surfaced in movies like:
Gog (1954), originally shot in 3-D, is a supercomputer located in a top-secret underground installation, which takes control of two robots after it is reprogrammed by a Russian spy to kill the installation's personnel.
Tobor the Great (1954) is a comedy about a very bright little boy, his grandfathers, their robot (Tobor is robot spelled backwards), and Communist spies intent on getting their hands on Tobor so they can do evil things with it.
In Forbidden Planet (1965), the ill-fated Krell, whose advanced civilization was utterly destroyed by "monsters from the id," run amok when the contents of Krell's collective subconscious mind is inadvertently fed into Krell's massive, planet-sized computer, The ambitious supercomputer then attempts to take over the earth, enslave the human race, and extinguish all organic life in the universe.
The Invisible Boy (1957) is little Timmy Mereneau who teams up with Robby the Robot in his first movie appearance. Robby is the good computer out to thwart the giant computer's plans and save humanity. This film features the classic line, "Did you have a nice day at the computer, dear?"



Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies
http://scifimovies.about.com/movies/scifimovies/library/weekly/aa013000d.htm

Part II As the cold war escalated in the 1960s . . . it appeared that the global nuclear threat was a technological problem and that technology itself could not be its own solution. this idea lies at the heart of Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969), a dark movie in which a supercomputer, designed to control the entire nuclear arsenal of the United States, decides it could do a better job than humans at running the planet. It links up with its Soviet counterpart and begins taking over the world, detonating nuclear warheads whenever humans disobey its orders. Computer technology seemed a much more dangerous threat than nuclear apocalypse.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the HAL-9000 computer is more human than the emotionless, robot-like human crew of the Discovery. HAL's paranoid demise is quite poignant, "I'm afraid. I'm afraid. Stop, Dave. Will you stop? I'm afraid . . ." After this scene, we don't feel the same about the deaths of the human astronauts.
In Alphaville (1965), Godard's stylish sci-fi/film noir, he envisions a bleak, futuristic city controlled by a supercomputer. Lenny Caution is a tough private-eye from the Outlands who arrives in Alphaville -- a land where the trains run on time but love and poetry are forbidden. To cure these injustices he must sabotage Alpha60.
Cyborg (1966) is about a future Earth civilization which sends a cyborg -- part human, par machine, back in time to change the future.
Billion Dollar Brain (1967) features Michael Caine's infamous Harry Palmer, who no longer spies for Britain but is instead a starving private detective. After he receives a package of money, a mechanical voice gives him telephone instructions. He enters the world of a Texas billionaire who's plotting a popular uprising in the Soviet Union with the help of a sophisticated computer.
And, finally, rounding out this decade is Disney's, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), a comedy about a dim-witted college student who becomes a genius after being shocked by a computer.
In the 1970s, technophobia moves out of top-secret, cold-war government installations and interstellar spaceships and into everyday lives. Mass paranoia towards the increasing computerization of our culture reaches new highs in films such as Westworld (1973), where guests at the Delos Amusement Park can choose between three computer-controlled simulated worlds -- Westworld, Roman World, and Medieval World, all populated by life-like androids. Fun until something starts going wrong with the software and the androids begin killing customers. Futureworld (1976), a follow-up to Westworld, has a theme park's scientists scheming to replace world leaders with android doubles and achieve global control.
In The Stepford Wives (1975), the women of an all-too-perfect Connecticut town just aren't so darn happy. Why? Because they're androids. In the search for ideal mates, the male town leaders have replaced their human wives with robot versions.
In Terminal Man (1974), a scientist has a computer chip installed in his brain to control his violent mental disorders. The chip malfunctions and he starts murdering people. In Demon Seed (1977), Alex Harris is the creator of a supercomputer, Proteus IV, which takes over his high-tech, computer-controlled house and rapes Harris' wife.
Solaris (1972) is the Soviet Union's version of 2001. The planet Solaris' ocean is a huge brain and the cosmonauts orbiting the planet in a run-down space lab find their conscious and not-so-conscious obsessions and fantasies materializing. Dark Star (1947), Is John Carpenter's sci-fi parody about a dim-witted and stir-crazy spaceship crew on a ten-tear mission to blow up unstable planets. One of the ship's intelligent, interstellar, nuclear devices receives faulty detonation orders and it's up to the crew to convince it not to carry out the orders.
Star Wars (1977) revisited the technology celebrations of the 1950s. C-3P0 and R2D2 have more in common with Robby the Robot than Alpha60. In Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), the inexplicably-sentient Voyager spacecraft is returning to Earth to find and rejoin its "creator" -- and threatens to blow up the planet if anyone tries to stop it.


Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies
http://scifimovies.about.com/movies/scifimovies/library/weekly/aa013000d.htm

Part III The simple paranoia of 1970s movies skews into schizophrenia in the 1980s. Bleak, pessimistic visions of our technological future, in movies like Blade Runner (1982) and The Terminator (1984) in which machine turns on man, are released alongside a deluge of romantic comedies involving robots and computers such as Heartbeeps (1981), Electric Dreams (1984), Short Circuit (1986), and Making Mr. Right (1987). The growth of computer technology in our everyday lives made computers more familiar and, consequently, less threatening Computers were no longer enormous, monolithic machines in underground government labs harboring secret ambitions to enslave the human race. They were becoming compact and "user-friendly," with cute voices and the desire to live in peace with their makers.
On Saturn 3 (1980), an isolated base in a dusty corner of the solar system, a sexy space researcher, Farrah Fawcett, is harassed by Hector -- Harvey Keitel's 8-foot robot. In Heartbeeps (1981), two domestic robots (voices by Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters) fall in love in a 1995 society peopled with robots. Android (1982) has Klaus Kinski play a deep-space researcher assisted by an almost-human android, Max 404, which falls for a sexy space-fugitive and gets quite upset when it learns that it's about to be put out of commission. Blade Runner (1982) is set in a bleak 21st century Los Angeles. Deckard is a retired cop who specializes in hunting down fugitive replicants -- androids with fixed lifespans manufactured to labor in space colonies (based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Knight Rider (1982) shows off a high-performance sports car fitted with artificial intelligence, while Tron (1982) is one of the first movies to extensively use computer-generated graphics and effects. A computer programmer (Jeff Bridges) is transported into a computer, where the Master Control Program is threatening to take over.
Young computer-hacker, Matthew Broderick accidentally breaks into a military computer in War Games (1983) and sets off a simulated global thermonuclear war. Is it just a game or is it real? Will the computer understand the difference before it's too late? In 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) a joint U.S.-Soviet mission leaves an Earth, which is on the brink of World War III, to discover what happened to the ill-fated Discovery mission to Jupiter. Dr. Chandra, HAL-9000's creator, "wakes up" the computer to save the day. In Electric Dreams (1984) Miles has just bought his first home computer. After he spills some water on it, it starts taking over his life -- including flirting with the attractive upstairs neighbor who Miles also has his eyes on. In the bleak future of The Terminator (1984) Skynet, an intelligent computer network, is committed to the extermination of Man. Skynet sends an ultra-sophisticated and virtually indestructible cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to Earth's past with orders to kill the mother of Mankind's resistance leader, John Connor. D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), which stands for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Lifeform, is an experiment in artificial intelligence which, after being kidnapped by a project scientist, becomes the foster-child of two loving parents who don't realize Daryl is a robot. The Max Headroom Show (1985) offers a charming and egotistical artificial intelligence program with a speech impediment while in Otherworld (1985) Thel is ruled by the Church of Artificial Intelligence and kept in line by ruthless Zone.
In Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988), a sophisticated military robot (Johnny 5) is hit by lightning causing it to become cute, "alive," and reluctant to return to its military duties. Making Mr. Right (1987) tells of PR Executive Frankie Stow who is hired by ChemTec Corporation to improve the public image of their new super-android, Ulysses. Frankie's job is to teach Ulysses the subtleties of human social interaction but Ulysses ends up falling in love with her -- and vice versa. Robocop (1987) portrays a crime-ridden Detroit wasteland. City leaders unveil a new crime-fighting robot which goes on a murderous rampage in the corporate boardroom. To save the Robocop project, they create a half-human, half-machine cyborg police officer which does its job a little too well for the for the corrupt corporation that financed it. Cherry 2000 (1988) is Sam Treadwell's sexy, beloved android/wife who short-circuits during a steamy love-making session on a wet kitchen floor, Unfortunately, Cherry 2000 is an old model and replacement parts can only be found in the lawless, post-apocalyptic "Zone 7." Cyborg (1989) lives in a post-apocalyptic urban nightmare in which half-human, half-robot Nady Simmons carries the cure for the deadly plague in her computer-chip brain, Tetsuo: The Tin Man (1988) is about a man who transforms into a machine as the result of an automobile accident.


Artificial Intelligence in Sci-Fi Movies
http://scifimovies.about.com/movies/scifimovies/library/weekly/aa013000d.htm

Part IV Growth in the World Wide Web, an increasingly information intensive society, and computer penetration into the home are influencing today's movies/ We're now examining the ramifications of combining human and machine intelligence in global computer networks, virtual reality, and cyberspace. In Lawnmower Man, The Net, Ghost in the Machine, Virtuosity, and The Matrix information networks and computer-generated worlds are dangerous, lawless territories populated by corporate ad political spies and serial killers -- where a person's identity can be erased with the push of a button.
In post-apocalyptic Circuitry Man (1990) "Plughead" uses his humanoid body to "plug in to other people's fantasies." Hunter Ilia has an AI partner, by the name of Bob, in Zeiramu (1991) while the Lawnmower Man (1992), a virtual-reality remake of Charly, sees a research scientist use Jobe, a mentally-challenged gardener, as a guinea pig in experiments to artificially enhance intelligence. It works -- Jobe becomes hyper-intelligent but spirals out of control. In Ghost in the Machine (1993) the soul of a serial killer is transformed into electrons during a brain-scan and invades appliances and personal computers. A young scientist works on AI projects in Puppet Master 4 with disastrous results.
Johnny Mnemonic (1995) is a "data courier." Can he make it from Beijing to Newark before his brain overloads? The Net (1995) explores how Angela Bennet (Sandra Bullock), a software engineer who conducts her life via modem, gets hold of a disk with dangerous top-secret information and becomes embroiled in high-tech espionage -- her identity is erased and replaced with another. A high-tech police force creates a virtual-reality super criminal called Sid 6.7 in Virtuosity (1995). Sid 6.7 escapes and goes on a murderous rampage. The highly-rated, Japanese anime Ghost in a Shell (1996) is about political intrigue in 2029 after super criminals break into global computer networks and cyborg police track them down. The Matrix (1999) presents a facade created by an evil cyber-intelligence which placates us while out life essence is "farmed" to fuel the Matrix's campaign of domination in the "real" world. It is 2199 and the world has been laid waste and taken over by AI machines. The computers have created a false version of 20th-century life -- the "Matrix", to keep the human slaves satisfied while the machines suck the life power from the humans.
Before he died, Stanley Kubrick was preparing to make AI, the tale of a futuristic Pinocchio or robot boy adopted by a childless woman (based on the novel by Brian Aldiss, Supertoys Last All Summer Long. Steven Spielberg's now at the helm of this project ensuring that this theme will be carried into this new millennium.

Movie Journal (or research paper): the Writing component of the course

You will maintain a journal in which you write some comments, thoughts, reactions, questions, things you didn't understand, and other writings about the films that you watch. You can write about the characters, the future world which was created, almost anything as long as it is directly related to the film and your reactions to the film. I would expect about 100-150 words commentary about each film. You may write more for some films, and less for others. Write in paragraphs! Your film journal can be a paper notebook, or a blog on the internet. If you write on a blog, let me know, and we can set it up to be private (or public).

I think a film journal is easier, better, and more appropriate than writing a research paper for this course. A research paper may be difficult for many students in this field. However, if you would prefer to write a research paper about topics related to artificial intelligence, I welcome your efforts! This should only be attempted by students who want to practice academic English and more challenging assignments.

Presentation component

You will introduce a movie which has artificial intelligence as a theme or character. Speak for about 5 minutes, describing the setting (time and place), situation, premise, characters, plot, conflict, and other interesting points of the movie. Tell why you like it or why it is interesting or exciting. Then you will show us a scene from the movie, also about 5 minutes long. If you like, you may be able to show us some scenes silently as you speak, too. You may use PowerPoint if you wish. A VHS tape may work better than a DVD for this, if you have both. If you only have a DVD, try to choose a scene near the beginning of a chapter, so it does not take too long to get through the DVD to the scene that you have chosen. This is 20% of your grade for this course. Try to speak to the class, not read a prepared script! You will confirm, or check your choice of film with me, please. Prepare well, practice, and good luck!

Course Syllabus

Content-based English Course:
Artificial Intelligence in Fiction and Film (AIFF)

one semester

room S-61

Thursday, fourth period, 2:40-4:10

Spring 2008

B. Brinkman, Center Bldg 6th Fl. bbrinkman (at) ell. u-bunkyo. ac. jp, 03-5684-4513

Course Description

Just as the industrial revolution added machine labor to the human and animal labor previously available to humanity, the development of computers in the mid-twentieth century began to replace calculations done by humans with calculations done by machine. As we are now in the middle of an information technology revolution in which computing power doubles every 18 months, the end result of such rapid change is a matter of speculation, and creates a conflict of human vs. artificial intelligence, a theme which has found its way into fiction and film. In this class, we examine the roots of the computer revolution, and works of fiction, from the 1960s to early twenty-first century, which speculate as to possible human roles in futures where the cognitive abilities of artificial intelligence dwarf those of humans, much as human power is now overwhelmed by mechanical power. This course will require a large amount of reading, listening, and the ability to write short answers.

Course Schedule

1
April 10
Introduction to the course, students, and teacher. Reading assignment: AI in SF.

2
April 17
AI in SF questions. Watch portions of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (dir: Stanley Kubrick) (DVD/VHS). (139 min.)
Reading assignment: 2001: A Space Odyssey (The screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke) (available online)

3
April 24
Watch conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (139 min.)
Discussion/WS. Write in Movie Journal.

4
May 1
Watch portions of COLOSSUS: The Forbin Project (1970) (VHS). (100 min.) Discussion/WS.

5
May 8
Finish watching COLOSSUS: The Forbin Project. Discussion/WS. Write in Movie Journal.
Watch portions of Westworld (1973) (dir: Michael Crichton) (DVD). (88 min.)

6
May 15
Finish watching Westworld (1973) (88 min.) Discussion/WS. Write in Movie Journal.
Reading assignment: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Philip K. Dick) (Graded Reader, book, screenplay).

7
May 22
Discussion questions, Discussion/WS. Watch part of Blade Runner (1982) (dir: Ridley Scott) (DVD, VHS). (117 min.)

8
May 29
Watch conclusion of Blade Runner (117 min.). Discussion/WS. Write in Movie Journal.
Read (about) The Bicentennial Man (Isaac Asimov) (The Positronic Man). WS.

9
June 5
Watch Bicentennial Man (1999) (dir: Chris Columbus). (132 min. )

10
June 12
Watch conclusion of Bicentennial Man (132 min. ) WS. Write in Movie Journal.
Reading assignment: Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (Brian Aldiss) (available online). Discussion, WS.

11
June 19
Watch beginning of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) (dir: Steven Spielberg) (146 min.).

12
June 26
Watch conclusion of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (146 min.) WS. Write in Movie Journal.
Start watching I, Robot (2004) (dir: Alex Proyas). (115 min.)

13
July 3
Finish watching I, Robot (115 min.). Read portions of I, Robot (by Isaac Asimov) (book or online screenplay based on Asimov’s characters and concepts). Discussion/WS.

14
July 10
Student Presentations Day. Movie Journal (or Research Paper) due.

15
July 24
Final Exam. Return Journals/Research papers. Self-evaluation, Course evaluation.
All assignments due.

Evaluation

Participation: 10%
Worksheets, Discussions, and Tasks: 30%
Movie Journal (blog OK) (or Research Paper): 20%
Presentation of a film with artificial intelligence as a theme: 20%
Final Test: 20%

Materials will be provided by the instructor.
The course blog will be online at http://aiff-bgu.blogspot.com