Blog 3 — The Robot

▶ BCM310 Emerging Issues in Media & Communication

Image taken from blog.prototypr.io

There are many instances where robots and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) have come into spotlight in the recent news headlines. Now that it is the start of a new decade, you would think that by now the world would be relying on the use of AI and/or robotic technology but this is not the case as there are still some malfunctions and cons about the use of this kind of technology.

Image taken from tesla.com

Over the years, many different engineers have produced and built different products and things that either are fully functioning as a “robot” or has “robotic” features. The Tesla car is a prime example of a fully functioning device that has robotic features, there is a function in the car that allows users to switch on a fully automated mode where the car moves by itself — autopilot mode. The only thing the user has to do is to sit and relax while the car does all the work, this mode allows the car to control the engine, brakes as well as steer in any direction the user gives to the car (Hogan, 2017).

As convenient and useful as that sounds, it generated a lot of problems. There has been a number of accidents from the Tesla car’s autopilot mode, some even were deaths. Walter Huang — a 38 year old Apple software engineer and game developer — has fallen a victim to these tragic accidents as he unfortunately passed away as well, he was in his Tesla Model X travelling on autopilot mode at 70 miles per hour when it later crashed into a safety barrier and struck into two other vehicles afterwards (Rushe, 2020). He later passed away in the hospital from the severity of his injuries. When this accident happened in 2018, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials commented that this accident is similar to other accidents that have happened in the past — especially the one that occurred in 2016 in Florida.

Image taken from youtube.com

Joshua Brown — owner of a Tesla Model S — decided to put his car on autopilot mode while he was on a highway, then leading to the car’s sensors unable to detect an 18-wheeler truck that was crossing the highway thus leading to this man’s death because the car had attempted to drive full speed under the truck (Yadron & Tynan, 2016).

You would think that as the years go by, we would fear robots that are out to kill us and control humanity (Knight & Hao, 2019), but who would have thought that things that already exist and are just modified by us humans are out killing us instead?

References:

1. Elder, A. (2017). Friendship, robots, and social media: False friends and second selves (pp. 90-102). Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis.
2. Hogan, M. (2017). These are the 11 coolest features of the Tesla Model S. Retrieved 13 June 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/tesla-model-s-best-features.html
3. Knight, W., & Hao, K. (2019). Never mind killer robots—here are six real AI dangers to watch out for in 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2020, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/01/07/137929/never-mind-killer-robotshere-are-six-real-ai-dangers-to-watch-out-for-in-2019/
4. Rushe, D. (2020). Tesla driver who died in ‘autopilot’ crash was playing on phone, inquiry finds. Retrieved 13 June 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/25/tesla-driver-autopilot-crash
5. Yadron, D., & Tynan, D. (2016). Tesla driver dies in first fatal crash while using autopilot mode. Retrieved 13 June 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/30/tesla-autopilot-death-self-driving-car-elon-musk

Blog 2 — The Animal

▶ BCM310 Emerging Issues in Media & Communication

Image taken from qz.com

I’m sure as kids we all have had pets before, whether it was a dog, a hamster or even just a family aquarium and while growing up with them I’m certain you’ve tried to ‘communicate’ with your pets before — sometimes you even felt like they could understand you and ‘talk’ back to you. Well animals ‘communicating’ like humans isn’t as uncommon as you would think, a lot of movies were created to depict anthropomorphism in animals as well as create a sort of unrealistic adaptation to how animals act in front of the human species.

Movies like Madagascar, Happy Feet and Over the Hedge portray an alternate reality in the eyes of the animals. An example would be in Happy Feet where the main character that is the penguin ‘Mumble,’ is shown in a enclosure with multiple other penguins that don’t ‘speak’ like a human while Mumble does; and when he does in front of humans — in the human’s eyes or in this case what they hear, is just a penguin making noises at them — when in reality Mumble is speaking as a normal human being would (Leane, E., & Pfeenningwerth, S., 2013). That makes you really think whether animals really are speaking out to us, is that dog just barking at you or are they trying to tell you something?

Image taken from pinterest.com

In other cases we as humans can or have the ability to domesticate animals, training them to understand certain commands through certain gestures, words or sounds — sometimes even rewarding them with a special treat or gift after they accomplish the ability to understand what we are trying to teach them.

Blackfish is the perfect example for how humans domesticate animals but for the pleasure for other humans. To put it shortly, it’s the story of an orca called Tilikum (Tilly) who ‘lashed’ out and ultimately killed his trainer. Theories go as far as ‘he is just an animal, and that’s what animals do,’ while some who are defending Tilly — more or less animal rights activists — say that he did it in spite because of the way he was treated.

SeaWorld is the infamous place where a lot of animals are ‘heavily’ domesticated, but also the place where a lot of cases animal abuse occurs. Though the trainers of these animals treat their partners (their animal counterpart) quite well, there is always a darker and hidden part to the story. Majority of the animals from SeaWorld are all taken from their homes out in the big blue, and most of them are young and/or babies taken away from their mothers — you can basically say that they were ‘kidnapped’. But they’re animals, they don’t speak the language that we speak; how would we know… right?

A scene in the Blackfish documentary showed a baby orca being carried away in a net while it was making noises at their mother that was right below them, with their mother making the same noises back. If you saw that same scenario happening but to human child and their mother; would that change something?

References:

1. Leane, E., & Pfeenningwerth, S. (2013). Marching on Thin Ice: The Politics of Penguin Films. Retrieved from https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/pluginfile.php/2197044/mod_resource/content/2/marchingonthinice.pdf
2. Zimmermann, T. (2016, August 25). First Person: How Far Will the Blackfish Effect Go? Retrieved May 31, 2020, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140113-blackfish-seaworld-killer-whale-orcas/

Blog 1 — The Self(ie)

▶ BCM310 Emerging Issues in Media & Communication

Image taken from gulfnews.com

Self-taken photographs, taking photos of oneself — or the most common way of calling it ‘selfies‘. The word was marked the word of the year in 2013 by Oxford Dictionaries (Backer, 2016) with the definition of ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website,’ even marking the term’s origin as Australian since one of the first uses of the word was on a public forum in September 2002 where a photograph of a drunken Australian man with a torn lip was seeking for advice about stitches that he just received. It was later analysed by numerous linguists that Australians have a tendency to shorten their words and end them with (ie); like how barbeque turns into barbie and breakfast turns into brekkie.

According to Senft, T. M., & Baym, N. K. (2015), a selfie is a photographic object that triggers the interaction of human feelings in the form of a two way relationship, (i.e. photographer and photographed, viewer and viewed). It can also be seen as a gesture or a practice, since most purposes of selfies are either to be posted on social media or to be sent to viewers; either way there is almost always an audience — albeit individuals, groups or large communities. Although, the term ‘selfie’ wasn’t around for a long time — the idea of the word was, instead they were named self-portraits. A lot of self-portraits were created long before technology is the way it is today, many famous artists such as: Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali and Lucian Freud have all painted or drawn self-portraits. In my opinion there was a lot more care and meaning with the ‘selfies’ of that decade as compared with the selfies in this day in age.

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  Image taken from garterlane.ie

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  Image taken from dalipaintings.com

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  Image taken from en.wikipedia.org

Apart from these paintings, the first actual ‘selfie’ that was ever taken was by a man named Robert Cornelius. A photography enthusiast and amateur chemist in 1839 decided to set up his camera in the back of his family store in Philadelphia where he removed the lens cap and ran into the frame of the camera where he sat for a minute then covering the lens again (Library of Congress, n.d.). He named it ‘The first light picture ever taken. 1839’.

Image taken from theguardian.com

Ever since technology has improved over the years, so has selfies. From self-drawn/painted self-portraits to just the click of a button and with improvement and changes over the years comes multiple different trends.

One of them being dangerous selfies. A study in 2018 has revealed that over 250 people have died from just taking selfies alone in the prior six years (Bansal, Garg, Pakhare, & Gupta, 2018), drowning being the number one reason because of failure to take the selfie, second being death from oncoming trains and other deaths include height, exposure to wild animals, firearms etc (Lishivha, 2018).

Trends like these have a tendency to become popularised because people today look for a sense of validity and acceptance into today’s society, the idea of selfies or self-portraits have been given a new face. You can either have the most iconic selfie of the year, the most creative or the most daring — people in this society always seek for something new and original, as if everyone who takes a selfie or selfies has a certain ‘like’ counter or rating and if you reach a certain high or certain low on your selfie, you’re put on a virtual scale where others can accept and appreciate you or deny and dislike you just based of a single photograph of yourself.

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  Image taken from cbsnews.com

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  Image taken from usatoday.com

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  Image taken from imgur.com

References:

1. Backer, E. (2016, September 17). History Of The Selfie: A Photo Phenomenon. Retrieved from https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/history-of-the-selfie-a-photo-phenomenon/
2. Bansal, A., Garg, C., Pakhare, A., & Gupta, S. (2018). Selfies: A boon or bane? Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6131996/
3. Library of Congress. (n.d.). Robert Cornelius’ Self-Portrait: The First Ever “Selfie” (1839). Retrieved from https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/robert-cornelius-self-portrait-the-first-ever-selfie-1839
4. Lishivha, W. (2018, October 4). 10 of the world’s most dangerous selfies. Retrieved from https://www.getaway.co.za/adventures/worlds-dangerous-selfies/
5. Senft, T. M., & Baym, N. K. (2015). What Does the Selfie Say? Investigating a Global Phenomenon. International Journal of Communication, (9), 1588-1606.