#andriods

AN-Something that was hanging around in my drafts. This takes place in the Detriot Become Human universe. Captain Price gets his own android.

War was becoming something John didn't quite understand anymore. It was all drones, AI and fancy algorithms that told them when and where a terrorist attack was most likely to hit given data from the cloud, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit.

He adjusts in his seat as he looks at the newest military toy. The indicator light on the side of her temple is cycling shades of yellow, her brain is in a sleep mode. The manual said all he had to do was touch that cycling light.

He touches the LED on her temple watching it cycle to blue.

"Hello. I am model 20-398 shipped from the Cyberlife. What would you like to name me?" The andriod smiles, it sends a zip for fear up Price's spine at how human she looked and sounded. The only telltale sign that she wasn't right was that constantly osscillating indicator.

No one had told him he had to name the thing.

"I have 3 preset names, would you like to choose from one?" She asked when he hadn't answered. John scoffed and tossed the manual aside.

"How about Wires?" He asked, his other men had a callsign, why wouldnt this machine. He watched the LED spin through a cycle of yellows before she spoke again.

"Wires, it is." She answers finally "And your name is John Price. Captain, SAS, 141" Price is almost alarmed by the amount of information she was able to pluck from the ether spouting it like a printer that has become sentient.

"What are you gonna do next, rattle off my national insurance number?" John scoffed as he went back around his desk to sit down.

"GH67-" She starts and he cuts her off.

"Stop it!" He snaps at her and her mouth immediately stops moving. He sits down lighting his cigar as he takes a long draw off of it. He wonders briefly if they'll let him send her back, but this is their pet project and John was the guinea pig.

"8 million people die a year due to tobacco use." Her voice is level no inflection as she looks at the cigar and it's thick smoke. Her indicator spinning red once before cycling back to blue as John blinked up at her.

Another great series with Seo Kang Joon as the lead. It was amazing how well he acted in this one. At times I truly believed he was a straight up Android.

Before I get into the complaints I had about this series, I’ll start by listing off the things this nuanced drama did well. First, they brought up a lot of the morality issues with AI in a subtle way that make you think long and hard about what robots are built to do. They show this ever present moral issue through humans always using Nam Sin3 for their own game and never allowing him to have his own choices. This leads you to think, as a robot, does he deserve his own choices? Overall, the show does a great job of showcasing this, as well as showing us that we build robots solely for selfish uses. Which is also really interesting.

Beyond just the issues surrounding the AI, this show also does a great job building up and destroying relationships. We see this in almost every relationship (friend and partners). I especially like the slow breakdown of Nam Sim3’s family (Dr. Oh and David). Dr. Oh became so obsessed with getting her real son back that she began rejecting her robot son by trying to kill him. David’s undeniable father-son love for Namsim3 is the best part of the show, if I’m honest.

My complaints : the first half of the show was enjoyable. Every few minutes I would be crying from laughing so hard. But near the halfway mark when the real Namsim woke up, things became really dark. It got harder and harder to want to watch as all of those carefully constructed relationships were being ripped apart.

I also didn’t really see how The human Namsim was so evil? His motives didn’t make sense at all. Personally, I expected them to be more like brothers when the real Namsim woke up, and in some weird way, so did Dr. Oh. But then he ended up doing really snotty shitty things, like tricking Kang So-bang into thinking he was her. [no body liked that] should have been the immediate subtitle lol

[spoliers ahead] Another issue was that the very end was really unsatisfying. Like I didn’t expect to have another History 3 modc moment on my hands where I have to pretend the last episode didn’t happen because I can’t take the emotional stress of the main pair dying. But luckily Namsim3 did come back at the end. But even when he did come back it felt,,, fake? Unsatisfying? There’s really not a good word to describe it. I guess I wanted more happy moments of Namsim3 and Kang So Bang dating and I didn’t get it. Idk

Overall, not a bad drama. I thought I’d be bored since sci-fi really isn’t my cup of tea, but I was sorely mistaken. Would recommend

~~~ Spoilers ~~~

I’d like to start out by saying I don’t tend to do reviews of any media in particular, but I feel the need to share my thoughts on Star Trek Picard. I’ll be focusing mainly on the most recent episode ‘The Impossible box.’ With few exceptions, I think this was the best of all the Picard episodes so far.

I feel that Picard started out a little sluggishly. It took the first three episodes to complete the pilot introduction and I am not a fan of 3-episode pilots in general. I think it failed for Stargate Universe and I think it did a disservice to Picard. It was absolutely possible to condense the pilot into the standard 2-episode format.

Anya Kamenetz is an NPR education correspondent, a host of Life Kit and author of The Art Of Screen Time. This story draws from the book and recent reporting for Life Kit's guide, Parenting: Screen Time And Your Family.

Elise Potts picked up her 17-month-old daughter, Eliza, from daycare recently. When they got home they were greeted by a strange scene.

"My husband ... he's waving his arms around like a crazy man." Potts says. "He has these things in his hands, he has a black box on his face ... and [Eliza] looks and she points, all confused, and she says, 'Daddy?' "

Daddy, it turned out, had a new Oculus virtual reality headset.

Potts, who lives in Seattle, can't help but wonder what her daughter is making of all the digital technology that surrounds her. Eliza's reaction, she says, is "really cute, but it's also terrifying, because I think of it from her perspective. What does that mean to her?"

Parents, Sometimes You're The Problem When It Comes To Tech Use