2(.2)B Sad or Not 2(.2)B Sad? That is the question.

First, the down side of Power's novel. The need to use 'A.' and 'C.' to stand in for the two relationships in his life and the fact that he used his name in the novel as well as that the character was a writer makes it seem all to much that this was an (semi) autobiographical purging for him about his past relationships and his choice of a career as a writer. These items got in the way of the story their attempt at artificial intelligence, i.e. ultimately Helen.

I was to say the least shocked by the ending. Suicide(!?) who would of thought. The sad condition of existence, the eternal struggle for existence and survival, it was to much for Helen. But the real straw that I believe was the one to break, is that of loneliness and isolation. In the last few sentences that Helen speaks she says "I never felt at home here. This is an awful place to be dropped down halfway" (326). This isolation and loneliness has been expressed by several characters in the works that we have read as well as characters in other works that we have not read this semester. From the latter category I am reminded of Victor Frankenstein's monster who rage at being alone, rejected and isolated is what spures him on to his murderous vendetta towards Victor. Also I am reminded of Data from the StarTrek: The Next Generation, where he too often laments on the state of his loneliness because he is the only one of his kind. Even among a world full of sentient life forms Data still longs for "another of his kind."

I would make that case for Helen that it was this, the realization of her loneliness and isolation, the realization that in a sense she truly was alone that drove her into existential despair. Even for the example of Helen Keller (which Dani brilliantly brought up, which had not yet occurred to me) she was not isolated in who she was, i.e. she was a human being amongst human beings. But not in the case of Frankenstein's monster, Data, or the Helen of this story, they were utterly alone. It is this realization, this despair that pushes Helen to desire "death" to a life of pain and anguish.

Yod and Joseph both wanted to live but ended up dyeing. I wonder if ultimately there difference would have led to a similar type of loneliness and isolation. Isolation when chosen in life, like so much else, is much easier to bear than isolation forced. For example, the child who is sent to his/her room for the night as punishment is generally not as happy as the child who ends up playing in his/her room of their own volition. Any condition that is forced upon us becomes a burden whereas when we choose that condition it is not a burden.

I keep searching for the lines "My maker did I bid thee make me?" which I still think is in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But the point I wish to make is that in most if not all of the AI stories we have read this semester the created and/or the creator ends up regretting the act of creation, of life itself. We are left we "abandoned children" and "deadbeat parents" that end up dysfunctional, lonely, isolated and despairing.

I wanted a "happy ending" to this story for Helen, the same way that I wanted one for Yod, Joseph. It seems that authors of AI Sci-Fi do not like to give us those happy endings.

"How can I make me as small as love?"

oh noez!!1!1!!!!elventy!!1! insomnia hits again.

I couldn't help but think of this quote, as I was doing some other work and came across it:

“One thing is certain, though: there must be something wrong with any reasoned claim today to know any fundamental differences between men and possible machines. And there is a simple reason why such arguments must be erroneous: we simply do not know enough yet about the real workings of either men or machines.”
_Marvin Minsky

I think this quote is perfect for this book and a great comeback during an argument, wouldn't you say? We neither have total understanding of machines or your own selves, so how can one say otherwise when the information is incomplete? Computers and gadgets already have voice recognition programs, can work on visual stimuli, and try to act accordingly, depending on their function. When will it start conversing back?

What caught me was as Helen was learning the depth of language and all of it's layers and intricacies, it didn't just sound like a child(and she did have child like qualities) learning how to speak, but also as someone trying to learn a foreign language. As someone who is already involved in learnign how to speak many languages, many of the mistakes are similar to that of a student learning. I'm sure Powers himself expierenced this when he was learning Dutch and a little Italian, while abroad. She literally is translating computer language (and those with expereince in programming codes can attest for this) into a human language. They say that a culture's language is the window into the heart of the culture, a tool for trying to truly understand it and gaining deeper insight. Even to the simplest of colloquial phrases reveals something. I guessHelen, by learning our language (english is just one of many human language) she is learning about the human culture. She herself is not human, therefore, not apart of our culture but from something else. When she speaks, and it's hard to understand, Powers realizes she's communicating in her own way. "What you is the were for?" Helen doesn't have a concept of time as we do, she almost exsits in a world I'm guessing is much like dreaming, where there is no concept of time but a series of instances. The opposite of reality. She exists on a diferent level of reality and her speech reflects this. It is easy enough for people to mistaken her for just not making any sense, but so too can that be said for children, who, when learning to communicate, often speak aukwardly with their own interpretations. The "goose" for plane and flying come to mind. To further complicate things, she is not human, she cannot experience what we can physically besides aditory and speech. "It's a body thing, you wouldn't understand." She can't hold a ball, yet she has to understand what that means. Other humans have similiar issues; that their limits prevent them from totally understanding certain human experiences. Just like Helen, they substitue somthing in an equivalency the best they can to understand that expereince, to empathize what it's like, the sounds, the look. The will never be able to experience what a normal human can experience, yet they can come up with something else. Helen uses language as her tool, quotes to communicate, languge to "feel" out the world around her. The name "Helen" also reminds me of another Helen, Helen Keller. She was blind, deaf, and unable to speak until she found her voice. Her teacher got through to her. Both cannot share normnal human experience, yet both use what they have to find that equivalency and understamd concepts, language, and the world around them beyond their own limits.

And even thoguh Helen didn't have much of a body, I still thoguht she was cute! Her make up of electrical machine parts and huge number of boxes and wires, reminded my of the manga Blame! where they tried to simulate a "terminal net gene carrier" (close enough to us modern humans) human brain. It expanded an entire giant labratory and thensome, just massive, end even they couldn't get quite close enough. Lentz was doing somethign similar, by physically trying to create a "brain" out of machinery. He was right in there wasn't enough space. I wish I could scan in the picture and you all would understand what I mean by power and not enough size.

The Unmodelable Miracle

This book did little to refute the argument I already presented regarding the plausibility of a reproduction of the brain (see "Who We Pretend To Be.") While that post was written in response to a book that did have artificial intelligence with the capacity to feel and joke--all those features unique to humans--my response was based on how realistic I thought the idea actually was and this book followed the same realism. In the end, we are not given the impression that a human brain could be reproduced (the story seems to emphasize that most of the statements Helen makes are programmed and not based on true human intelligence), especially when "she" fails the Turing test. Not only this, but the end also reveals that the experience was more to help Powers learn to tell (teach) rather than have the machine learn.

There are many lines that I find intriguing, lines that show this recognition of the complexities of the human brain, which illustrate some of the points I tried to make. He comments on the expression that coincides with thought. When C. is described as thinking, Powers asks "Would a thinking machine, too, turn its simulated eyes away?" (63) This line struck me immediately and lingered afterwards, refining my own argument by providing detail to represent it. There are so many nuances, so many different actions, that the human brain allows, even beyond just those thoughts we might have. We might scrunch are brow, raise an eyebrow, smile, shake our head, do many different expressions that coincide with our reactions. Could a machine do that? Even more interesting, if a machine could, would it understand why? Even humans don't respond to questions or even jokes the same way. One might decide to laugh at a joke, while another might cringe. It is hard to actually anticipate how a person might react; how could this be imitated. Even if a robot did turn its "simulated eyes away," would it do it every time and, if it did, wouldn't it lack the spontaneity and unpredictability of a human's reaction?

The book even considers the human brain in mechanical terms to show how complicated it really is. This is evident in Powers description of how Diane reacts to a joking statement he makes: "She gave me a look, bafflement routed slowly by inference. That she could unpack, decode, index, retrieve, and interpret by reference at all was an unmodelable miracle. More miraculous still, I could watch her grin of understanding unfold in less than hundredth-millimeter increments, in split seconds." (182) Notice how he uses his knowledge of computers to describe the process of interpretation. She took sarcasm and in a short time was able to appreciate it, responding with an understanding grin (another reference to the facial expressions humans associate with thought). The use of the term "miracle," modified by the word "unmodelable" suggests two things: one, a human brain cannot be reproduced and two, the brain is extraordinary and divinely created (the book doesn't seem to imply a creator such as God, but miracle is most commonly associated with the divine).

Finally, the last quote I will include deals with another uniquely human quality: the well intended mistakes and errors. The book makes this distinction clear: "Helen, choosing the right answer for the wrong reasons, condemned herself to another lifetime of machinehood. Harold's girl, in picking wrongly for the right reasons, leaped uniquely human." (222) Powers seems to suggest that the ability to make a mistake even when are intentions are right is unique to humanity. While a person can answer a question wrong but have the right intentions in mind, a robot can only be right for the wrong reasons or (rarely, as the book would imply) right for the right reasons. Humans, however, can have the correct motivations but still err in their action. It is a part of humanity.

Overall, I agreed with the ideas in this book and appreciated the realistic content (though, I was bored by all the information about C.) However, I have nothing else to say that this book didn't already corroborate, though I could cite many examples of parts that I found funny. In fact, since this part connects to the other comments that the writer makes about the human brain, I will conclude by citing the part of humanity that makes me laugh, since it is so true: (After trying to talk to Helen through the microphone) "It hit me well after it should have. The mind is still an evolutionary infant. Most trouble with the obvious. I reached down and turned the mike back on. Then I read the words again." (290)

Raison d’être

The broad topic of GALATEA 2.2. is of course artificial intelligence and a consideration of humanity itself in the process. One must understand a concept before setting upon the task of recreating that essence. Therefore, if a human decides to play god and set out upon creating artificial intelligence, they may soon find that they hardly understand their own humanity and stand dumbfounded while attempting to duplicate it, quite the paradox I’m afraid.

However, even more interesting than the surface implications of artificial intelligence are the effects on the psyche itself, namely: raison d’être, a reason to live, a reason to die; this is the essence of GALATEA 2.2. Everything in existence requires some form of purpose or it falls from existence, simple as that. When machines break down and fail to carry out their original purpose of job A or task B they are typically destroyed. Even animals such as a race horse which has broken its leg will be shot and then given the new raison d’être of an adhesive. Humans of course are a bit different, due to ethics, humans are typically considered an ends in themselves rather than a means to an ends. Therefore, a human may loose their raison d’être and continue to live, however, that may only a shadow of life in reality. The type of people who work meaningless jobs, then go home to waste away in front of the television. They aren’t living, but rather simply waiting to die. They have lost their raison d’être and they are as good as dead to the world.

Rest assured, it isn’t as though finding purpose is exactly easy, this is the reality of adolescence, a midlife crisis and what have you, and even the search for raison d’être can in itself provide purpose and can be found in any facet of existence. Commonly people choose to create families, provide for them and live with ultimate satisfaction, others will live for the work they do which instills an equal degree of satisfaction. These are truly blessed existence, for to have purpose (essence) is to have a solid grasp on your existence.

In GALATEA 2.2 it’s rather apparent what I mean simply by considering the main characters: Lentz, Powers, and the series of implications. Frustrated by the very cynical nature of their search is how we meet Lentz and Powers, and the gaps are filled in especially with the chapters on Powers past.

In the liberal arts nothing is really tangible, not like the concrete facts and figures of the hard sciences and as a result Powers reconsiders the worth of his work in the grand scheme of existence and is ultimately dissatisfied with his novels and teaching. He has lost the raison d’être of creation and occupation and his new raison d’être becomes C. He now lives for the sake of another person, the sake of love, but ultimately looses that existence as well and everything dissolves into a vague memory without anything to ground himself in the real world, Powers begins to disappear from it in a way, this is what I mean by dying in a figurative sense yet still existing in a literal sense. This is also I believe the purpose of the literary choice of using abbreviated names for most things from that existence, they all became vague and not quite real you might say. At this point, Powers is simply wandering around, finishes his last novel in a daze of stale ideas and falls into Lentz’s lap.

Lentz, the engineer, lives for an entirely different reason, he is totally engrossed in his own work to the extent that he has constructed countless walls around himself to protect his ego and raison d’être. Since Lentz has poured everything into his work, it would be natural for him to fear failure and more so, criticism. Failure can be dealt with as a callus develops overtime and success almost becomes more surreal, but what becomes truly frightening is the scorn of others. It is far more painful to be told you WILL fail than the actual act of failing. Therefore in a world of more fragile mental constructs, what people often want is to be left alone in “private invulnerability” (powers 96), ironic considering humanity is more fragmented now, even though communication is as simplistic as it has ever been.

Lentz and Powers, both with a fragmented raison d’être seek to create their new purpose by becoming gods in a way, by creating their own version of humanity. Humanity version 2.2 (the .2 referring to the dual creator: Lentz and Powers), a human purified by releasing itself from the bonds of sensory input and connecting to existence directly. The problem of raison d’être still remains however: humans create machine, machine then becomes self aware and looses the need for its creator, and humans thus loose their raison d’être not only in being disowned by their creation, but becoming obsolete in addition. Moreover, where lies the purpose of these implications, do they have any easier a task of acquiring raison d’être? Or is it that humanity version 2 has somehow even transcended what everything in existence requires: a raison d’être?

Galatecia 2.2

I found this book to be very dry and confusing. The way the names are sometimes spelled out while others are just a letter with a period, is very unusual and I don't see why the author would do this. I also feel that this is a very forced text, such as the author is trying to hard to get his point across. I do wonder if it is because this book is an altera ego of the author and he wishes to distance himself from the book so he does not make it more about his life than what he wishes to put in the book.
I know this is very vague, but that is mostly because I really don't know what is going on, although the main character has a new girlfreind and is back where he first lived.

GALATEA 2.2

"Memory was the attempt to capitalize on missed cleverness, or recover an overlooked word that, for a moment, might have made someone else feel more alive." (Powers, 145)


Halfway through the book and memory seems to be a very strong theme. Not only for the many versions of Imp that have been created to win the bet, but also with the characters themselves. Powers finds himself not only struggling with the memories of C., B. and U. from his earlier life; a line for a book he wants to write and is sure he's heard it before; but also how Imp's memories are going to be formed and retained. Is this done just by repeation; strong connections stay, weak ones fade? Or does memory contain smells, feelings, sights; physical limitations of Imp, but strong memory triggers for humans. Lentz is struggling with his wife's memory being wiped out and even physical triggers cannot save it.

Do our memories make us human? Can a machine be taught more than just word generalizations and sentance structure? Stay tuned!

Depiction of the Web

As I began Galatea 2.2, there was a passage on page nine that I thought powers depicted really well concerning the web. He writes "People who use the web turned strange. In public panels, they disguised their sexes, their ages, their names. They logged on to the electric fray, adopting every violent persona but their own. They wizzed binary files at each other from across the planet, the same planet where impovershed villages looked upon a ball-point pen with wonder [*what a great line!*]. The web began to seem a vast, silent stock exchange trading in ever more anonymous and hostile pen pals...The web was a neighborhood more efficiently lonely than the one it replaced...it seemed to me we'd still have nothing to say to each other and many more ways not to say it...Yet I could not log off."
To me, this view of the web that Powers reveals and the way humans interact with it is so realistic to our current world (granted it was only written in 1995, but the point is he wrote it so truthfully). In effect, I think when people read this passage they are nodding their heads or at least relating to some of the things he said. Though not all people change who they are on the web or things like that, we at least know there are people out there that do all the time, some very dangerous people as well. I just though Powers did an amazing job depicting the web here and I notice as I read the novel that he uses this beautiful language, yet to-the-point phrases to express many other things as well, such as what I so far see as his love (or once love) for the woman C. (I'm not that far to know the whole story with C., but so far it is an interesting addition to the seemingly scientific world around Richard Powers in the novel.)