Alcides Fonseca

I’ve always wanted to recommend a few movies for my students to think about societal impact of their work. This semester I am finally doing it, and I’m starting with Wargames, from 1983.

A very young Matthew Broderick plays a young “hacker” that learns about how computers talk to each other, and his curious mind leads him to play a game against an 80s style AI. This AI is realistic in the sense that it learns from different executions (min-maxing strategies, pre-Reinforcement Learning) to estimate the best course of action.

Early in the movie you see him using early modems and connecting directly to any machine in the world via phone number. Later you see him trying some phreaking with a payphone. Too bad he didn’t have a Cap’n Crunch whistle with him.

It also features one of the first uses of hallucination in AI, predating the 1995 origin material. I might be stretching it a little, but it makes whole sense to me.

Finally, there is a message in the movie that critical systems should have a human in the loop as a safeguard. I wonder how many companies and individuals today have the same urge to replace humans with machines in super-critical scenarios. Oh, but machines act immediately, without a second thought.

I watched the Champions League final the other day when it struck me: I’m basically watching millionaires all the time.
The players are millionaires, the coaches are millionaires, the club owners are millionaires. It’s surreal.
This week I watched John Wick Ballerina and, again, there’s Keanu Reeves, who is a millionaire, and Ana de Armas, who is as well.
Yesterday I heard about Trump and Musk fighting. They are not millionaires, they are billionaires!
As I’m writing this, I’m watching the Rock am Ring live stream, a music festival in Germany. Weezer is playing. These guys are all millionaires.
I don’t know what to make of it. It’s a strange realization, but one that feels worth sharing.

— Matthias Endler

The most impressive thing is that my grandparents did not do this. They barely listened to the radio, let alone TV, which was only available when they were 50+.

Personally, I have given up on watching TV or Radio. I watch the TV shows and Movies that I decide, and I listen to the music that I choose. I still watch millionaires, but I am intentional about it.

I recommend looking for the indie content, both TV and music. last.fm is a great source for the latter. Following movie critics blogs is another way of finding interesting TV. For me, I rely on jwz.