Erstellt am: 1. 9. 2015 - 13:14 Uhr
Today's Webtip: A.I. P. K. Dick
Philip K. Dick was one of those writers that grabbed my teenage mind and took hold with a ferocity that refused to let go. I discovered him sometime after Vonnegut, and perhaps one or two months prior to J.G. Ballard.
I mention that because it always felt as though there was some important connection between the three of them. And because they all had a huge impact on the way I interpreted the world around me.
Even if you have never read any of Dick's stories, you probably have a pretty good idea of what some of the worlds inside his head looked like. Blade Runner and Total Recall are two fairly famous movies based off of his works. Both feature a rather twisted dystopian future and bring up some interesting issues of memories and self identity.
And the stories those films were based on also forms part of the basis for a very interesting experiment in artificial intelligence. An A.I. based on the works, correspondence and conversations with other writers. the result is a very convincing conversational bot. A bot that will at least maintain a small zoo of pet humans should it ever end up going Terminator on us.
Of course, the voice of Mr. Dick as a base for that bot is interesting, for many reasons. Reasons that become apparent when you know a little bit about the man, his works, and his experiences. Fortunately there is a rather entertaining and very 90's style BBC documentary from 1994 that covers just that.
I would like to see someone interview A.I. Dick about metaphysics and spirituality...