Currently, students in my Intro Seminar and Studio class are in the process of conducting individual research projects on a topic that they find interesting that falls under a specific theme (Science Fiction, Mythology, Social Media and Technology, and Alter Ego), for their Bridge 4 Projects, which challenges students to create an artistic “piece” for Intro Studio that relates directly or indirectly to their research paper with its thesis for Intro Seminar and vice versa. The Intro Studio piece should relate to one’s interests and can take the form of an artist book or journal, an art object or installation, a costume, etc, but must represent in form, material, and concept the research topic of one’s interest. As part of the first few weeks of doing research for Intro Seminar, I was tasked with finding resources, academic, scholarly, and even non-scholarly (with the exception of Wikipedia) towards my topic of research under my theme to provide a basis for my research paper.
Since the theme I chose to base my research topic on was Science Fiction, I had originally decided to do research on the political utopianism and sociopolitical tension found between races human and alien in sci-fi novels and movies throughout the ages and even now– but this ended up being too broad of a topic, and I ended up having to reconsider my research topic. A bit spontaneously, I decided to do research for my “new” research topic, on AI, or artificial intelligence, due to the interest and fascination I have always had with robots and their roles as intelligent life forms in science fiction, as well as the social effects one would expect in an age when they finally live among us– whether the AI spells doom for the human race, or helps it advance further than ever before. At the recommendation of my professors that I do research on my topic, I ended up finding some extremely good resources using the New School Library and Archives on the topic of AI units, their various iterations in movies and novels, their possible benefits and dangers, and the science behind their design and construction (replicating a human brain using artificial components is already difficult enough, but the task is doable). I found everything from articles to books, and the books that I did find on the topic of AI were among the most up to date and best known in their field. Below is a list of my “bibliography” of resources– ten resources that I wad told to compile over the period of this week to serve as a base for my paper, forming one part of the Bridge 4 assignment. They are cited in CHICAGO style format, and are not necessarily in order alphabetically. Feel free to check our some of the references as what their authors say about AI is extremely interesting. Besides my bibliography, I was also told to write and compose a final thesis statement for my future research paper on AI based on the research I had done already.
Before my bibliography and thesis statement, however, I wanted to mention that…
Accompanying my “bibliography” for Intro Seminar are my ideas for my art projects or representations of my research topic in Artificial Intelligence. I will be writing an illustrated short story or graphic novel depicting either a classic AI uprising story or a unique “history” of an alien robot species that happens to suffer the same human pitfalls and imperfections as we have for millennia amidst a backdrop of social and civil conflict. Accompanying either short story (don’t know which one I’ll do yet) will be an Illustrator and Photoshop rendered “movie poster” inspired by amazing sci-fi movie posters of today and in the past, promoting my short story as a sort of a “film” as films like The Matrix, Total Recall, the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, Blade Runner, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Transformers franchise, and the Terminator franchise have done now and in the past (now we have Interstellar with TARS and CASE, Chappie, Pacific Rim, and more, to name a few).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Macdonald, Kate. 2016. “The First Cyborg.” History Today 66, 31-36. History Reference Center, EBSCOhost
Wallach, Wendell. 2016. “THE SINGULARITY: WILL WE SURVIVE OUR TECHNOLOGY.” Jurimetrics: The Journal Of Law, Science & Technology 56, Academic Search Complete, 297-304.
De Witt, Douglas Kilgore. “Difference Engine: Aliens, Robots, and Other Racial Matters in the History of Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 37.
Bainbridge, William Sims. 2006. “Cyberimmortality: Science, Religion, and the Battle to Save Our Souls.” Futurist 40, Professional Development Collection, 25-29.
Chen, Angela. 2014. “One Step Ahead of the Robots.” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26. B10-B12. Academic Search Complete.
Bostrom, Nick. 2013. “Paths to Superintelligence.” In Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2013. eBook Collection, 22-51.
Vinge, Vernor. 1993, “Technological Singularity.” Article originally presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by the NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31.
Zarkadakis, George. 2013. “Love Machines: The Lure of AI is Erotic as Much as it is Rational.” Aeon, March 26.
Zarkadakis, George. 2016. In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence. New York: Pegasus Books.
Bailey, Ronald. 2014. “Will Superintelligent Machines Destroy Humanity?.” Reason. 46, Academic Search Complete, 20-23.
THESIS STATEMENT DRAFT: The introduction of an Artificial Intelligence or AI will no doubt bring profound changes to our society as a whole, have far-reaching effects on our conception of humanity, our stance as a species, our government and legal systems, and our technological and scientific progress, and inevitably either bring peace, prosperity, and progress to the human race, or lead it to its total destruction.
