Comcastrodors, please welcome April Arrglington and Jose Delgado from ARchimeral, a gaming startup in Atlanta. April and JD shared with us details about their upcoming project “The Age of Turing,” an alternate reality game that asks how the present would be different had computer science visionary Alan Turing thrived after WWII rather than facing the tragic end he experienced. Here we reflect on Turing’s life and accomplishments, ponder the potential of artificial intelligence, explore the challenges faced by the autistic, and debate the merits of science fiction. April and JD describe the remaining characters in the game and detail the dystopian universe that they created to serve as the backdrop for game play. Reflecting on the intersection of society and technology, we also discuss how the game seeks to make these structures known to the general public.
Learn more at the http://ageofturing.com.
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On Track start ups that sort of thing to do all of the Financial Planning waking us up trust someone else. So the map methods. It’s like politics or for professional work or sleep or people just means everyone needs a lawyer retired and doesn’t have enough of us with our civil rights or the one thing that would bring it to the court. You’re welcome and I was like yeah what anyone ever said that lawyers are like that one. Yeah like the history of law like we’d like there are many times when people of like really triumph to the lawyers it’s like you know we were like the courts really were civil rights got all the traction and that starts with judges and came all the way down to us and like to get a sense of Mars but do they do. CALLICLES I am OK some to me and I’m feeling good and so what we were saying earlier about microphone proximity like you can hear very sort of deep voice from here and if I was talking from here it’s I don’t know it’s a different kind of night. It’s more intimate here than you know here we’re here to get a good answer is you do you lose. Oh it sounds so much better than it was going to come of it so I just find like a drive on a comfortable position and just trying to maintain Like here’s the thing if you want to go further away just maintain consistency and then we can adjust the levels later. But here’s what it’s when you’re all over the place and like look at me here and I’ve been out of there. That’s whenever it becomes a kind of nightmare. But I had a point actually forgot. Now if you didn’t bring up your computer and forgot about every computer and go back downstairs. Yeah. Matthew was saying he had his first senior moment out of these thirty years and have to get my computer and he had brought it up initially but he was down and I have that moment where I look at my car like oh my god the computer’s missing somebody stole it and then but then I started retrace my steps in my mind I was like I can’t be this stupid can I Yes yes I can be that. Absolutely and we’re going to we’re going to cut this short. The opens with can I be that stupid. Yes I can definitely hear first thing where you where you at in the city I live in Marietta. OK so I commute in from here I mean that’s where my office is so you know I just come here for this type of stuff. Now I woke up and I come here for everything a car in years and I got out a book had to see my girlfriend. OK But yeah basically like my whole life revolves around downtown but I work up in Marietta so action and is that way. Yeah yeah I love coming out in the boonies I got myself like a nice little investment house out there. Yeah I think it’s like it was a clue to me while I mean you know it’s pretty secluded. But that way I’m very privileged to have the luxury of staying right in the heart of it all. Even if the party is terrible. Oh yes you know when you get a part. In the building you know we’re lucky that we got like the corner parking over there. But yeah I would have to agree I mean in Panama we live in the city and then we actually went to a few forested university classes like a smaller towns I’m like well if I’m going to live in America I’m not going to be living in a little smaller town firms like yeah I head into the city of Los Angeles and then when we say move your mike you know us to stay in the city please because otherwise I mean I’m just not OK with way too much open space. Well that’s a that’s a great question like what what motivated you guys to Cumberland. So it’s a no until the very end and what their format here you know make it work. Like some of its former It isn’t really because it’s not going live right now soars when I know I just didn’t know if you did that. Well sure. OK so my name is April Arlington co-founder and C.E.O. of a Camaro and my partner J.D. is the co-founder of under the care of the image. OK Meryl. Yeah that’s beautiful. Well they are is from for for multiple things. Manus both for of materiality meaning immersive experiences and then Q Merrill it’s come from Team era. I don’t know if it’s an English word or a Spanish word for Greek world. Yeah yeah it’s a little beast form the Arab heads of sources. Yeah exactly like us. Sure and if you see our logo is exactly that like the idea let us know if a dragon with a snake and kind of like multiple. OK that’s that’s more traditional and then is that because of my back entrance media meaning telling stories across multiple platforms. So it’s almost like you know looking at it as telling a linear story or stories and then linear way by doing you know all these multiple things that make it makes everything one and so that’s where that whole name comes from. So our cameral I mean would you describe some of the trans media company and it’s a little bit of everything it’s more like as a scurvy easily as like entertainment tech startup because it meshes like stuff like a mature reality and all these other cool stuff that we’re thinking to include in their experiences with you know creative ways to stories stories of now meaning you know. Multiple platforms and things like that so it’s kind of like a mesh between the two. Yeah so like what’s our key roles like number one project going on right now. So yes so we moved here to Atlanta because we were looking for you know really getting into you know the you know the tech aspect of you know you know doing something very unique and original and so we we’ve been brainstorming on this story for years now and then and we decided you know what that should be the first project out of our slate to turn the age of touring Yes And so yeah it’s like something that we’ve been brainstorming for years I think we first started talking about it in two thousand. Six to seven something I mean how far back it goes I mean it has like a huge background universe but then we’ve been caught like narrowing it down to like OK what should we like focus on the first story out of the play and then go from there kind of thing and it all goes back to you know Alan Turing. So I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that at movie theaters. Fantastic. Yes And a lot and think thanks to that movie a lot of people you know been educated on who Alan Turing was because I mean he was not know prior to this movie that much at all and so unless you’re a computer science degree. Yeah. Unless you had a computer science degree that was pretty much the only people I hear that all the time people like I don’t know this guy is like what school did you go through you know players like Mark are saying they don’t know Edward Bernays was what’s wrong there. And so and so. Well I’d obviously back in two thousand and six or whatever we had the first conversation I don’t know who he was in for some reason the you know J.D. brought it up one day and he was telling the story about this guy you know and how he pretty much conceived I kind of like Jesus would. But I have this vision of like doing it by conceiving like the first actual computer. Like I mean we do know about Atta Lovelace and other kind of like programmers you know back in history but we’re talking about some of the actually went on in to actually create from the ground up like you know a computer machine and look at it like OK you know kind of like how would work you know and actually put in the programming to to make it do something and that it was universal it was a universal machine right because before us you know like there were only machines that did the one thing and it was like the first computer like it could be do multiple things you have to put in the right stuff in your car. But anyway so here’s a question for you Do you have like an elevator pitch for the age of turn and we go really deep into it with effort. Oh yeah OK well I was just getting into well anyway so when when he told me about the story about how you know Alan was you know probably artistic pro in the spectrum of you know being Asperger’s or something and then obviously gay and how even after the war when he won the war eventually you know I give you know figure on all this intelligence because he broke the Enigma machine. He still got you know persecuted because he was gay and everything that happened with him is more than just burst through this is like government mandated chemical castration. It was for your own lifestyle. Yeah and it was you know can the government has issues. Apology for the chairman of Yad they issue a pardon and then this huge thing going on with it. Yeah and they have been fighting for the last year and a half because a lot of people want to be part of them for everybody who got sentenced on that the same law including in a while here but because they’re not even the government don’t want to do it so that’s what where the queen stepped up and like gave only to touring so late you didn’t get into that or directly but they’re still going into the night and you know when I was watching a movie like the whole homosexuals thing just kind of crept in there and not being familiar with his background I was like What the hell is this and then you see like how like how big of a deal as I mean like the guy ended up committing suicide after having you know chemical castration and I would just sit there like like mouth agape I was like What the hell happened to again this guy’s life and it was nuts you know if you beat them out so you deserved a little more spectrum you know I feel like you know I mean I gave up one World War two. It’s I think the biggest problem was that like all of these workers were like you know like confidential because he was working for the Secret Service so I think that was like the main problem and like until those became public that I mean you know kind of recently in terms of like when they became probably like nobody really knew one who he was and his legacy. And so it’s like yeah stupor over do but I think that also like tacit Burdett the whole situation and why nobody knew. Sure. So so anyway so this is exactly the reason why I wanted to do this project because we felt like one he needs to be celebrated more people need to know about him and his legacy and three. I mean we just want to honor like not only who he was but it’s like you know and what he did but what would have happened if he hadn’t died and he would have won. They lived a full life and further his work in computer science. And so we are imagining a world in which maybe we would have advanced robotic advance artificial intelligence machines also super computer super fast computers who know you know. Now in the press and then in the future. So I’m going to make in the future now and so we were kind of thinking OK what are the type of you know consequences in terms of like how we would change the world you know human’s relationship with machines like you know our relationship with the media. It will have so many consequences in terms of how our will probably be different and so that’s kind of like the essence of you know what got us started thinking about you know this project and the universe of the project you have when you want to show you first mentioned the transmedia. If you remind me so much of how we’ve created this wild speculative fiction around the courthouse or if like what. How would everything be different just if we accepted his vision. Yeah and so like that it seems like creating the new mythology of what could be perhaps from a cyberpunk forward mind instead of like theirs. He’s become like the steampunk genius and hero thing. Exactly exactly and that’s what I do yeah I kind of like oh we wanted to do with Alan but it wouldn’t make it. Whenever you read the story of touring you think about like how he’s a tragic hero and it is difficult to follow his lead because his dad was so horrible so we wanted to make it that the people in this universe actually saw him laugh like he were to be followed and they wanted to improve technology and use technology in ways to make a better world. Inspired by him. Yeah because we feel like because of what happened to him like that tragedy it’s not yeah it’s kind of hard to to create a hero you know that people look up to. Do you know that it’s tragic. So we decided like Yeah let’s like RE conceive that like OK if that wasn’t the case then and you know and then he really like whatever we didn’t want to like rethink his by biography and like retell the story of what would have happened to him. But more about like the universe and in the world and what would it look like. But but still we still feel that by maybe conceiving that maybe he fled England or you know so he did kind of like if he were to have to just take a stay. And whatever it was if he fled or whatever like it was it was that way of him going against the status quo you know by not allowing just yeah you know I’m going to take that stand and whatever you know I think so how does the game work is it like an R.P.G. that’s growing where we were going to actually break before that if I can just measure that what you describe sounds exactly like the part of the problem and this man creating a kind of band the traumatizes the video game may command. It’s essentially the artist Dr Wiley creates this amazing invention. I think it’s used to oppress everyone and everything he believes in so he has to return to use his own like same engineering prowess to rescue the world from the evil he actually created. Taken from his power I just feel like the idea of the great technology formed by this man later being used to oppress his values and ideals in this world of the people who take it to its purity and fight for power. Yeah I think that’s a little bit what happens within the age of three because I mean if they just turn the story told in the present time meaning I don’t know if Alan Turing in this alternate universe would still be alive but probably probably he would have liked even. Our natural causes but you know still having a full life or whatever right. So it’s not really about him it’s about you know his legacy like everything that happened in terms of you know all the advances in robotics and you know computer science and artificial intelligence and everything and all these like super machines you know and how they affect people in this alternate universe and it is kind of like a mild dystopia because When’s that happening we’re imagining instead. Obviously there probably be this super crazy computer that you know are in charge of a lot of of everything and you want to explain the part about the companies and the super computers and so for a practical standpoint if you want to have a. That people are going to participate online and interact in you cannot get people killed because you know people are like talking online and talking on Twitter about things that are happening and need to be done reality and fantasy is difficult to see at any point and then they start talking about this person getting killed and then everything becomes a mess. So we wanted to create a universe that was a mile to stop you because you have the bad people who wanted to stop free speech but without killing people. So the way we went about it. So in this universe. Technology usually taken over by the people who had the money to buy the better computer equipment and indicate it would be the corporations so you have a wall in which the corporations own most of the media most of the Internet and they control pretty much what people say it’s a complete fiction. Yeah I think the game start here you know you go from seven to three that’s a huge step. Yeah yeah yeah. Or the banks are gone now and when you have eleven outs to me while you’re still one hundred an hour. I’m not for it but you did mention that there’s an alternate reality game. Maybe we should talk more with that even means. Yeah well just to jump in real but you keep going out on a reality game meaning a game in which it’s not like a lot. OK So for example there’s that live action role playing LARP in which you you you. Let’s try to take seriously right now what do you pretend to be a character and then you play out in real life in a scenario you know and they need or they go online and then and they roleplay massive battles in the field with their tennis ball spells. Yeah I don’t think LARP necessarily has to be that lame I mean look at night I think it should be all right. Weekly I just can’t help but laugh over think about indian be together you have LAR Ping. I just like paint ball like you know your toys around the corner that we have it all. I completely agree. Right so and then and an alternate reality game the way I can describe it easy for people to understand it’s like it’s also an alternate universe that which is fictional but you’re not roleplaying somebody you’re playing yourself and then you’re just discovering the fictional universe. What’s happening kind of like interacting with the characters in it in a sense of like you know following the mystery is like just as if you would in a game so like the game is played through our existing communication medium. So like email Twitter Facebook ROACH Yeah I mean typically the alternate reality games are built in a transmedia way meaning across multiple platforms. So you would interact with the characters their social media you know Twitter Facebook whatever. Also I mean there are the ones that they have also live events. They’re the ones that you know you go on like call you e-mail you directly. They’re the ones that you know you can do multiple different ways. Just depends of like what are you trying to achieve what kind of performance you want to you know are may make sense for the game itself so it is just a potato but it is typically across multiple platforms. You serve you actually for one you don’t know why you actually hired a receptionist actress but if you asked her a question to give you a clue this was actually for the June Institute in case it was a case study that I went from there with they actually were from some at San Francisco that particular A.R.G. lasted like almost like a year it was crazy and they actually a documentary film I did or what are called i don’t remember that there is to do the documentary Scarlett insisted but it’s based out of the experience that for the Judoon Institute and the yeah for that one and in San Francisco they hired an actress to play a receptionist and in they put in a building somewhere people would have to go in there and interact with her too. You constructions at different points you know to get start in the game in a different point in the game to go to places and direct in figure out like the next clues on things so the game takes place in the real world like you know I am actually physically interacting with I mean. There are two youths to multiple forms you can have a live experience component and then you can have like only like an online only type of experience so that you don’t really have to go somewhere you know so I mean I have produced an energy before the miracle mile paradox and for that we did also have a lot of experience. But we’ve discovered that those are particular harder to produce because we then obviously would have to like if there’s multiple aspects that you have to think of in terms of them. But yeah budget like logistics you know actually marketing people so that you people get to go and I do this and then you have to plan how long you need to. Put it out there for in order for people to you know find out and you know so is multiple logistic. You know chaos that you have to figure it out and then ultimately and there are a lot of the gears or people that like to play disc games are not like you know locally based in the same area they’re like everywhere in the world. So it’s kind of like hard for them to get into energy and find it I can go to the live experience because I’m like in another country so we want to do specifically you know I could just go only you know digital maybe at some point people are into whatever I have you know a little bit of it maybe lives dynamic here out of Atlanta at some point but that’s probably not going to be what we call in the season one. But later on it was just really depend on the audience itself and you know get a sense of what is it that they want to sing. So like what kind of experience is what I am what I have my playing this game. Like I like my gaming experience primitive like I know console games and board games. So like what is like what do you do when everywhere a line is going. OK Well it depends I mean typically you know there’s like what we call rabbit holes. So the idea is that the story is seeded in multiple different ways multiple different platforms and then like you as a player would find out or we would reach out to you it where you live and apart from where you live in just you know kind of feed a clue or like something uniquely interesting to you that you would be like whoa what is that and you just follow the rabbit hole and the idea is like all roads lead to Rome and then once you get to a point you can get a sense of like oh this is that this is the story you know. He started filming the show. Kind of like evil machination plug as play time I was thinking more like a scavenger hunt but yeah OK I’m going to hunt in a way because it’s like once you get to a point where then you’re following through even if you jump around from point to form or whatever it was you do following a linear story in a way I mean in an own linear way but but still you can I get a sense of what’s happened with these characters or what is the sense of the universe and then once you’re like in the path no matter where it takes you you get you then further discover are like all the back stories of all the characters on things and then so I think that the hardest thing it’s like at the beginning because it’s like you know how do people jump in you know at the beginning you know when they are G.’s for kind of like started it was it was a little bit harder because people were very hardcore in like you know this is not a game and you know you can say you know you have to keep the fourth wall in there you know kind of like a lot of controversy with the you know in the Creator’s side being like Oh so you know do we do we have like a suspension of disbelief or should we just go it’s like you know what this is it’s not a game and Israel and like you know were people going like no we should like brand everything so people know this part of the game I mean but. The end of the day I mean people are used to reading a book and imagine that this is like cool rear scenario that is fiction but still you enjoy it because you see it. You’re immerse yourself in it as if it was real so I think that now that people are a little more familiar of these type of experiences maybe not one hundred percent dependent on goods and they’re a sure demo you fall under but you still get a sense of like oh this is this is fiction this school I’m just interested in the story regardless of how we store so this is kind of like the idea of it and how much of a lot of changing stuff works. No one thought that the record player would be an instrument itself like this is supposed to play back music but I’m scratching becomes part of a whole hip hop concept in the same sense that if you’re having if people argue with you guys that like Twitter is not a game Facebook’s not a game you know like this is just taking a step to write invasion forms before it’s too I mean I had seen you know it could be used for Twitter fiction specifically and multiple different kind of like experiments that you call novels and novels. And this is where people are collaborating in to in to you know tell a story in that format or people even role play in as well and what are you know and stuff like that so yeah it’s like a creative way of looking at a tool and used in an intimate way. I think Chris Hardwick has a game show where you’re Pertwee certain hashtags. It’s called Midnight I’ve never seen it but I have to follow his career so we become giant freaking podcasts. Them are just parked his car so I mean what it sounds like you’re doing is really expanding like what constitutes a game like you know you’re taking gaming from you know kind of a traditional format like here’s a board game or here’s your meager console and you really just kind of taking it into the real world I mean I think the you know the comparisons with LARP ing are pretty valid in the sense that you know we’re going out into you know we’re going to leaving our room sort of speaking and we’re going to interact in the world and and role play a little bit. Yeah it definitely sounds like it’s under the greater umbrella of role playing which is which is fascinating because roleplaying games traditionally speaking are they rely so much on your own imagination. You know I mean like in the end if you’re doing a D.N.D. or if you’re doing even even a text based adventure the player themself is responsible for creating you know the rich world in which you know we’re all you know kind of interact. Yeah I mean. It’s. Yeah the idea is it’s like you just just have a more immersive and interactive experience I mean especially now with the younger kids I mean they’re like in multiple platforms and then unlike our you know older generation that grew up just being very passive in the way they consume the entertainments I am just going to sit here and watch this movie I don’t expect to do anything else like the kids now are like I want to put a character on Twitter you know they you know it’s like if feels like we’re headed to a more interactive entertainment from a point where we actually can interact with our celebrity culture both directly tweeting them as nobody is in fact that they rely on that in order to make themselves better. I think yeah like people want to talk to each other like you know you know play a game together in a way where they can communicate about like fan girl but I call that do you know. All that this this characters are going to gather and then go and fangirl and create a whole tumbler to you know feed about it and you know I mean things like this I mean we think that like communities really want to kind of like you know reconnect and so you know it’s kind of like allowing them to do that you know in a way that I mean not to say that there’s not fan fiction or a fan art or fan you know driven stuff online from think from you know movies and things that we know but this is actually going to that next level and have them be like play into like right here with us not like outside of the story but like inside a story. No I think it’s a great idea. I think we’re really drives drives home for me is the fact you have like Twitter like becomes part of the game. Facebook becomes part of the game. It really starts to turn because the real world into the gaming environment and then it kind of you know that that that’s a lot. Fine because you know it brings it away from the structured you know like the creator walk through my little maze environment and now it really kind of you know allows us as the players to sit there and kind of you know explore much broader boundaries than before and it kind of piggybacks on technology to sit there and really open up more ideas for how to experience a game I mean like what you’re really kind of like jumping around here is something that’s so directly intertwined with modern technology that there aren’t many previous examples where you can really analogize unless you want to call like hunting foxes like like like going out to like into the into countryside like hunting like that that was a game for a lot of people who are going to have those a little more real as only one person I know who is still foxhunting particular whale who joined us from Lisa. Sure some very very classy stuff. No no. OK So I think that this actually takes us back to what we were talking before about you know because we’re conceding this is mild dystopian universe you’re right that it’s really close to where we’re at now you know and so like we really want to put people in that frame of mind where it’s like oh shoot you know this really close where where we have going on right now. But a little more exaggerated like it really makes you start thinking more seriously is like whoa how does this affect me or how does this going to affect me because some of the things that are in this universe because of like how corporations essentially are taking over you know every thing is a visioning like OK there’s not going to be probably any privacy at that point because if we barely have any now at that point there’s absolutely no way there’s anything obviously same thing. Or no net neutrality. They’re probably not going to be any of that last as we can see that a lot of ways in which corporations manipulate media and social media as well is that they would have like this like are probably robots on this if you were telling a story about technology by using technology. So for example in social media like everybody in reality not everybody but a lot of people are used to these like tension of trying to get followers in Twitter and in order to get people to listen to you you need to have the father work or do you want to look at the father what is your need to really stupid things that people will find that while this is all true or just continuously be every single day of your free posting and putting stuff out there that is our exact things out there right now with the show that we feel we have to do that now. It’s such a pain to work out of fun and if you can work for and when you know you’re a teenager and you translate your entire sense of beanies how many followers you have and that you know a very competitive world. So what we’re doing in these universities into corporations have so much control is basically is you start saying things that are good for the corporation or this corporation is really awesome and is part of this thread and then suddenly you start getting a lot of followers and everything starts working for you know one of you on all of your thing just smile. But if you say things that they don’t want to hear sort of the you they like about you and goats and there’s your sled becomes a complete mess for your life and you’re voted down in the field and suddenly nobody follows you. Corporate for crime. Yeah it’s it’s it’s so manipulative you know so you’re forced to do you know what they want which is no way like what’s happening right now like right like everything you know you have to it’s work it’s like you have to look at everything as a brand and whatever you cannot talk freely. I mean people that rant you know you know I do a podcast Yeah it’s so weird and so. Last fashion with a friend of ours. You’re welcome. So so we thought like you know very interesting how like everything would be rum by dislike you know a I you know a little kind I like robots and artificial things that like essentially are the masterminds of like who gets voted up who gets voted down type of thing. This to me strikes me as like the perpetual struggle of humans I mean nowadays corporations essentially run everything in but in the days before that I mean you had feudal overlords. You know you’d sit there and work their land and don’t you dare speak out against a master. I mean because if you did you know they were going to drive you up the land if you were lucky. More than more than likely they just you know take your head and you know your family and then all of your friends just to send a message and. Really what I think the universal. I get the message that I’m getting out of this is you know the sense of you know us versus the power. But what’s cool about you know modern technology especially with social media is that we can actually unite messages in ways that you know much faster than ever before of course the irony of this is you know we have so many messages that you know so fast that you know there is no unification. You see for example the Occupy Movement that’s a really interesting example because like like Obama worked to keep Twitter up during the Arab Spring right. Yeah the measures I was having locally but with the government interaction with Twitter we happening if there is some sort of well I think I think the Occupy movement represents a fundamental failure of something and I and I used to say it was a fundamental failure of the millennial and I don’t know if I don’t know if that’s fair maybe because I am a Millennial but you know the hippies did more with pot and you know flowers and pamphlets then we were able to do with all of our modern social media I mean the sixty’s social revolution was it was it was a major thing and then you compare and contrast with the I. Your PI movement which was a direct response to the failure of our financial system in two thousand and eight and nothing happened. You know even though you know the people you know all three hundred million Americans now can sit there and communicate with each other instantaneously you know cross country you know we should be able to rise up and take over the corporate overlords you know have this utopian society yet you know bitterly nothing happen I mean and there’s like the controversy of like well you know exactly why I get the Play by Play you know like you know our brands really because they have the dollars behind the marketing it are the ones I like. Most heard or like you know but then you have the countries like in Egypt like there’s no other form of you know freedom of speech except for what you see in Twitter but still unless you are tuning in you know you still don’t know what’s happening I mean even if it starts a trend or whatever I mean it’s such a such a weird you know they concepts so so we in the image of touring bike we you know we’re exploring the stuff it’s like you know are essentially. A relationship with machines and how like you know because at that point they’re become more intelligent and faster. It’s like this whole idea of like you know this artificial intelligence yet also they do the thing that we wanted to explore to see if you have like the situation with corporations and you have a letter for your arms and you don’t get to like speak freely online. Also people react to it kind of inspired by Turing by taking technology over like the people who are most discriminated treated words in society and the people who most know what they have to go to technology and learn the most of technology to make their own computers so they’re not track and be able to teach other people about technology. So you bet I gained their feet on their power. Yeah yeah I mean that that tracking you know online I mean once you’re in the grid obviously you’ve been cracked but. So we’re like conceiving just like what you mentioned before about like the Tesla universe and steampunk were conceived in that in an age where everything is like soup or like you know advance in terms of like Intel and fiction on television the machines that we can we imagine like like ricing of a subculture of people that it’s not they go analog but it’s like they are forced to create their own computer systems outside the grid to create like a grade of their own or that a dark matter kind of emerges from a yeah but it’s kind of like a safe like a safe haven for them because it’s like you know the way they go about looking for older equipment you know that you know cannot be tracked and things like that so it’s like a little more print. Maybe but at the same time I see further and you know it’s so fast but right I mean is that correct. Slower but you today correctly you can get to do what you need to do so was first thing about so far in general is that it’s not necessarily predicted we use Sy fi in order to you know explore modern reality. You know you look to the future and see the dystopian society and I think one of the reasons that dystopia and post-apocalyptic fiction resonates so well with us is because you know you look at the source of that the stuff you’re the source of the Armageddon and it’s always rooted in something right now that everyone’s concerned about and you know if you talk about the zombie virus you know you have major concerns about overpopulation and maybe epidemics pandemics that sort of thing you know you see like you know Louisiana where they have like you know the rulers of the society like I just couple of the really good people now like everyone else was just like living in this you know terrible world underneath you know that’s explored in these modern concerns about like the the widening gap between the rich and the poor. So that’s really where Saif I like gives us such an interesting perspective just by kind of dressing up reality. Close the sale if it allows you to kind of approach problems from a unique person like unique you know this is a thing like human beings are unable to feed things that are right in front of them. When you stretch it a little bit and like make it look like you’re looking at your own world but only with like any infinitude and you can see the things that you couldn’t feel it was yeah I was actually only get it because like you know if we go back to the you know obvious example of Terminator right it’s like oh the rising of the machine you know they’re going to be all evil that we’re not we are kind of like setting up the world like not that far away you know where that’s the case. But like just as it begins. So like this story during revolves around this Superman supercomputer right at this point all of their artificial intelligence are still nod. Cognisant like they’re not aware they’re still you know robotic like working for under a construction right and so we are imagining how the supercomputer Stanley you know kind of like becomes aware and goes online. So is the infancy exam since it’s like you know it goes online nobody can track or know where it is because the location is encrypted and people and then suddenly it’s like people start reacting to it because it’s like they’re going to be the people freaking out about it’s like oh my God oh yes there’s going to be to people it’s like oh my God we need to figure out where it is so that we can profit from it and then there are the people saying we we have to nurture it because we have to hope it’s a new scare. Exactly they are going to be the people is I hate why rip it out. It’s just wanting to know about humanity and and what I feel. I wonder where that exact thing happened on the enterprise do when the slick lifeform merges out of random cards like what can we do to not damage this thing. There will be a father that we accidently birth. Here’s where I think there’s some ethical questions that if humans give birth to a new species whether it be of silicone or something else I mean like it if it’s a where it’s living it’s very hard for people to imagine living machines but the truth of the matter is that once AI reaches a level of awareness it’s it’s got its own unique concerns and thoughts but what but where I think we fail is in figuring out what its thoughts and concerns will be I think that the dichotomy is is false like you look at Japan and things like Mega Man or Astro Boy and like there’s a very I think built into their culture they’re very much accepting of the rise of the machines you know going to America and the terminators but they want more oil. All the everything that we know to be aware of this. And I don’t think either one is is real. Yeah I mean when you think about the processing power of a of a of a I in the speed with which it will be thinking. I’ve read comparisons saying like this tween a human in a thinking machine. Is there a stream like a fly in a human like a fly just doesn’t it has no ability to conceive of how we think it’s just not with it like it and if Y. is so small it’s hard for us to even conceive of how it thinks. So you know analogously this we not on a machine we might not be able to understand what a computer wants needs and desires could be something that is just so foreign an alien to us that it will just go off of it I want to sound like a post-human movement now. Well well I mean you’ve seen that movie her that came out like maybe a year or so I talked about is it a good time scene it’s actually quite good. We recommended I try not to go to these when I see things like this they feel too close personally and if I can’t like watch it like I can’t watch Silicon Valley it feels just the jokes aren’t funny person but it was a very interesting movie. Essentially it’s about I know as you know that you know develop that level of like. You know it feels like a person and this guy essentially you know falls for her quote unquote. And then and then but then what happens is as they become better and better in terms of you know being in an artificial intelligence like she was developing way fasten in terms of what she could do. I don’t want to spoil anything yet as you watch it and it’s interesting what happens at the end with a lot of love the statute of limitations for spoilers hydrated so get over your yeah but to put it the idea is that this is exactly where we want to explore the fact that if the cons come it’s an artificial intelligence you know becomes aware so it’s like OK this is out of my to qualify to have some sort of like quote unquote human rights but it’s like you know what what what what Stan are you going to be going to I’m going to freak out. Are you going to consider that hey you know we can treat that humanely. So Or are you just going to see it as a machine and it’s like it works for me. It’s kind of you know I’m going to. Then from it I mean we we essentially want people to take a stand and I know it’s like which fraction faction couldn’t quite behave like look and artificial intelligence like this. Could you even recognize artificial intelligence if you saw I mean like there are so many forms of life on this planet are a strange I mean it’s I didn’t know any better if I just like sat down on this planet for the very first rate of spiders of any female or just which sort of squat you should already know this I was getting at when I was like like take a mushroom For example if you had no education whatsoever you just sat down and you found out oh it turns out mushrooms breathe oxygen I guess they’re living like you wouldn’t immediately know that I mean an uneducated person obviously identify it. Mike my question about AI is once it emerges will we even be able to know that it’s there or will it like you know just happened so fast it’ll quickly you know that the program will start to self improve at a rate we won’t be able to keep up with and then engine. It’s the end of the and it’s gone it just kind of exists and so I mean maybe there is one other exists in our comments section right now just learning English only for things like there’s this joke it like it’s not even a joke act on them laughing are founded on bone up for the past couple days because like the Astros hacked by spam bots learning English and having conversations with each other. Oh yeah. Because dear velvet extra I mean I think it’s really weird. I see that a lot on Twitter as well. Spam bots talking with each other. It’s it’s it’s because there’s so many rope like robots yet or so and actually J.T. found like a robot to robot hash tag of some kind cage but personally the ones where they like to do graphic manipulation. Yeah people that we actually experience. Yeah they didn’t like artistic fights of different like styles or perspectives like morphing these photos. It’s it’s really weird it’s really weird. Well so you have a situation that happen when you have a Lego role was like a pro and they were created to interact with people and suddenly they start interacting with another program without noticing and I go to them like they want this casing Amazon and you had like two companies that were selling in Amazon and books and he should then program their bots to raise the price ten percent more than the other highest priced at and then to be in these like twenty year old book about flies like flies for nine million dollars. It’s some of the game in Snow Crash where this one two computers one but they would take a word of the Japanese then back to English and back and forth until they found like equilibrium of what it would stop changing and then that word becomes important like well there’s risk and then scares me whenever I think of a drone warfare and this sort of problem like spam bots going back and forth through an irrelevant things is kind of funny but what happens when if you have like drones from you know to live. Countries going at each other over a civilian territory and it’s just like they’re just fighting and they’re out of our control and they’re going to keep going until they run out. Like that’s what they’re that’s a part of me that’s definitely something that as soon as you start getting into non computer controlled drone warfare that is that is a very real reality that in the military they talk about this you know there are there is a huge hesitation on especially in the Air Force talking talking about you know letting go of the drones like totally unmanned strikes in something like that. The positive going totally unmanned is that you know computers can make faster decisions and here it’s the negative being the sky net scenario and then like what happens whenever they just are going rogue so to speak. Well it’s like Well done Michael Moore based on data so it’s like the danger of like well do you have the right data. I mean you know I didn’t think in terms of like make the right decision which is that I haven’t like a set of stations we’re going to soothsayers for a culture you know like Joel Silver calls the entire election eight film makes over. Yeah and that’s what I like and so now everything he says is thought of as this premonition of what’s to come. Well no no no and I think that’s absolutely right I mean where you look at stuff like I think Isaac Asimov and sit there and talk about you know if you have healed sufficiently advanced computers you can sit there and calculate every permutation of the future to the point where a super sufficiently advanced supercomputer would be able to know everything all over happen. So long as the data predictive models are right. Yeah yeah you know when Facebook and Google started to an advertisement and they felt like they were you know really really really bad stuff like you would never want and they were complaining about that and I was like no you should be afraid when they actually get it right then it means that we actually know everything about you. So I get a deuce home decorating is fun for me right. So I get e-mails from all these Web sites that are designed for like. As lives right and so I got one today though that said Hey Max enjoys some heavy metal wall art and it’s like they know that I am not their demographic but they’re twisting it a little bit and sort of like My guess was right I was like sweet but it’s so useful I mean like at the same time you can fall I mean it’s not a very it’s not difficult to justify that because at the end of the day I need to buy a lot need to buy stuff I like to have art and it’s computer predictive algorithms can set them provide me the art that satisfies every one of mine. Well that should not be so lucky to live in that world I made the weirdest jump right there. The entire idea of like art and its value being computer decided now as opposed to like subjective to the soul and what it means for us to have a computer properly choose the art you want is like the end of the self and should we be so lucky that I don’t. We’re going to solve them for you. Not a soapbox. I’m sure we’re going to bring you guys but I think like the whole Big Data thing but we have yearly year to year standardized testing scores situations for children can’t be leveraged in a way it’s like education more than the answer just limit resource access as much as you know and this is an interesting point you bring up because other than like going into this you know what about artificial intelligence and things like that and the point of course you know we’re talking about the super computer. It’s not a robot I mean it’s not robotic it’s just you know it accessed online so it’s not you know we’re not on the story of like how it becomes you know something more advanced don’t inception story of that or whatever but it’s actually floated that Turing himself when he was talking I want to he said like you shouldn’t try to lecturing to us or no. And we’re glad that you shouldn’t try to make an AI that I thought and also refrained you should try to make an AI that is a child. I start learning from everything so it’s this idea of like this constant being that it’s starting from and something in a way but we also wanted it to make this experience a limited patient all because we feel that there’s a lot of opportunity giving the sort of Alan Turing and what happened to him through a people to the passion of a computer science for for a good reason. You know so so in that whole you know education point in that we include an experience and it actually ties a little more with the actual characters the more characters of the story that had all three of them or an actual character of the main three of them all have components are elements that tied back to touring it himself. So I’m just going to delve into that a little bit. Sure OK so one of the main characters Her name is Abigail she’s seventeen year old and she is. I’ll just take the morgue like in the Asperger spectrum so that’s taken one you know characteristic from touring and she also is a math genius at her age. And but the problem is like you know she’s an orphan so she’s been in the forest and for a while and so it’s like you know the struggles of having a person you know having that challenge of you know interactive and communicating with people but at the same time you know I had this genius ability of you know you know equations and algorithms and all this awesome stuff going on in her head and growing up like. Unable to answer a problem really fast and then like spending the rest of the day trying to explain it to older people like me is what I’m saying is that if you can explain simply don’t actually do it and then one of the cool things also about her and how we bring the Turing Test into the story is that at some point she’s doing some some work for this organization that ends up like helping her out in giving her a grant and stuff like that and she had to go online and in order to log into their system there’s like some sort of like Advance Turing Test but like at that point in this alternate universe where the captures are actually from Blade Runner you know actually captures it. Like we can explain the spite because we will come up believe there’s a turtle on its back. SIMON But you’re not flipping over. Why is that Abigail I don’t understand I think a little bit more visual I think their partners only to be in a movie because you need to make a movie visual but in any case I do know that the captures to intice Yeah. Though I’m actually doing like they’re actually part of the name of the capture the captions are trying to and I thought of that way. Yeah moving or your computer. Yeah you’ve proven they are and that’s essentially the first train test was to figure out you can be a if you’re a human or if you were talking to a computer a machine another like another like more higher order to because it’s like and sort of just write what you see it’s like perform math or like what is this picture of you know there’s an age test of a V.H.S. because a man says that like super computers are a path in those states now you don’t even need a super computer and I was like what a powerful Raspberry Pi just take care of it like that. What out of a really good computer account so if I capture like a roller coaster faster than a human rhino and fill in so we’re going in there like in this future. There is you know in this alternate universe then they would have or have to resort to a different type a test in order to figure out if you’re him or not that he would be more emotion based right when running it all over to get it straight up as well but I mean I mean like we’re not saying I don’t think I ripped him off I think this is just a natural I mean this is the max if anything Philip K. Dick was just creation and the wind was really predicting the future in a way that most people weren’t and you guys are sitting there just kind of this now mind you know if you know this is this is coming in and the thing is it’s already here I mean I almost feel like ours here again but like nothing you know. So is this the plot of the development that they actually passed the emotional capture and we know that there are a lot of products that we’re going to get if they’re actually end up in the stories. Something like that happens. But for this I think that we’re talking right now for Abigail. Go ahead and explain that the test so basically it’s kind of connected to run and if you’re going to Omar somebody if I figure you have to look at it of course I meant but. So basically the passes like this your picture and you have to like the camera so you have to think about how would this person like that show you a person of a tree a picture of how would this person react to this picture like emotionally and from your facial expressions that you can actually like empathize with that emotion. Then you get to pass and get to show that you’re human. For example if there were that picture of like a little old granny looking at a band like a gang members like she probably be like scared or whatever and so it’s like you know your emotional reaction to that circumstance and then the camera captures that and then it’s like you log in or it doesn’t. Well that becomes a difficulty for restore an artistic freedom and I think you know yes. So then that is the whole idea of having to understand how humanity spectrum you know it’s so diverse. How if you can’t connect physically and now the computers are expecting you to do the same thing and they’re going to be better at it and you know so. So it’s fascinating because she’s a teenager she’s a seventeen year old girl like and this is this is what she has to do to log in to do the work that she needs to do in order to keep her grandfather she’s not on the radio you know so it’s like vital for her to do this and so is this idea of like you know if you know it gets to her you know is that she has to do it every day and then so it’s like all these range of you know I don’t I don’t know like depths of you know what it you know who we are as humans and our relationship to computers because a lot of the stuff people just think oh you know Terminator this is exactly the situation. It’s like no look at from this other perspective all the all the different things and diverse people that also can be affected in different ways and that’s also why we gave her those characters during because we feel like he was a very unique person and we want to bring those stories of people being unique and how things would affect them to light and to celebrate and say hey you know let’s think about that for a moment you know the there’s a really beautiful thought there about how you know this girl feeling like her I guess emotion test raises the larger question of like how the rod. How many different ways there are to experience the universe itself. I mean like now obviously you know there is you know being human and you know this is one window into you know the universe one window into life. But even among humans I mean you can range you know from someone who’s you know kind of emotional ease the level in sound or you know unemotional all the way to people who experience nothing but just like the highest of the highs and lows and that’s just within a reasonable spectrum of humans then you start opening up you know what’s it like to be a cat or a dog. In or a machine it really raises like it won’t go ahead next. I was trying to figure out where you’ve gone back to the mountain story. Well I mean what is it to be a star. What is it to be God What is it to be a get a life in the movie her one third game about being about you know there was there was something like that had some good land but I don’t remember not a month and I don’t I don’t. OK That was the story of the guy who developed the game for her. Did a new publication where you have to be a mountain. Yeah probably because Matthew was once and that we came we had to be a mountain what Barry made and not a new idea and in the summer later than that for me. Again even earlier and you know your name is totally new even if it is the way to I don’t know what are you that I’m still like wrapping my head around like so how do I play so so OK so this was happening so. So the character of Abigail. Then it’s intertwined through these other three characters so she does so because she’s artistic you know and the range of more than I can Asperger kind of person she frequents this artistic center so you know every so often and there’s this younger woman Emily that works there and and she’s our second main character and she isn’t your typical meaning she’s not in the spectrum and sounds like Systrom or you know a typical helps us gender. It means you’re straight. Metro typical names as crazies and so it all started I was mean everyone is like ah family loving and I don’t know the character at all. So for just the she is she is. Very very sweet woman she works and in the facility and that is a doctor more of like a staffer. She’s really passionate about the kids you know the smaller kids with autism and she’s fascinate about all the work that robotics are and able to have to have you know in helping this children with communication and we’re seeing that now. If you if you there’s often programs that are doing really advance you know work with having people having kids you know with with with communication issues really connect with robots because robots are you know are something that they can understand in terms of like the reason they are it’s hard for them to communicate with with adults is because they can understand the reading of emotions and what the what is it mean the robot is like a safe thing that they can like you know interact with so there’s this guy there’s been a lot of the bowmen that So do you know if you’ve ever heard a few of the organizations so that actually it’s actually. There’s video if I can I can send you guys a lot of research out of some of universities and stuff like this that we seem to have a bunch of it is that you guys I’m really bad with names but it’s really it’s really fascinating to imagine it like you know in the future it’s like even more advance and so she’s very passionate about the machines was there for good because she’s seen it one on one right in the you know working at this facility. So so the reason the Emily is the one that actually also is one of the first people to that comes in contact with a supercomputer. When it becomes you know aware and goes on and so she’s one of the few people that start a conversation of like why is everybody freaking out I mean I know machines to do wonderful things for humanity. And she she’s there like. Voice of Reason of like you know she actually going to rant on line and you know think enough of it he’s like no he’s going to hear this anyway but you know this is a situation I mean this so far this super intelligence has only you know asked about what it means to be human. In very truth about humanity in the end stuff like this. So why is everybody freaking out I mean maybe he has good intentions and we only have to show you know are the intentions and I mean isn’t that how you want to treat people like people are going to be mean to you and if you can do them to push for the moments where there’s a reasonable to assume that we could you know program a supercomputer to just you know serve the good needs of society you know like artificial artificial intelligence that you have to go Wall Street now. I don’t like all the day turns from a super computer system. No I’m talking about I like real artificial intelligence like is it reasonable to assume that we could sit there and program a benevolent God but I think the whole point of this this this. It’s not programmable. I mean this is actually a little background story but we’re not going to get into spoilers is that was created in a way that completely unbiased. Do you want to get into that. So what’s created by by this computer scientists who wanted the computer to be to make its own decisions to not be constraining they never write your own buy what you want it or what it society wanted. Just learn to make the best decision of what the computer wanted to do with its own life whenever and remember it build it as if you know I think there was a child just like Mega Man X.. So I have been around for so so so the idea is that yeah so Emily this rant online thing is like why is everybody who can out and because of the how sometimes there’s the X. Factor. In fact a factor of him predictability that happens meaning you know when videos go viral you know and it’s like stupid stuff go viral then you’re just like well you know whatever it’s like she doesn’t expect for video to be seen but suddenly everybody you know she wakes up the next day and it’s like it’s everywhere. And so it’s this idea of then it’s like what does that mean. Like is she now in danger like you know people are like because of her video now people are aware of like this. Everybody starts getting to know you know about the super computer in that in that piece of video. She’s in the middle of the firestorm because you’re going to have the great number of people who think that or anything like an AI that can potentially go into like an interactive cycle and become stronger and more intelligent would eventually have to destroy humanity only pin that you can do according to them is to destroy anything that looks like an intelligent computer before he gets to go. Well