ReadTreats - themed on Cyberpunk
Your weekend fix for books, articles, films, videos, podcasts, and anime themed on 'Cyberpunk'.
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This week’s theme — Cyberpunk
“Society doesn't always do what's right. That's exactly why we ourselves must live virtuous lives.”
– Akane Tsunemori from the cyberpunk anime - Psycho Pass
This week, we cover cyberpunk - which, as per Wikipedia is - a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
With the rise of Generative AI and global discussions moving into AGIs, it’s better to watch or read stories on them - till the machines allow you to.
If you have more read, listen or watch recommendations, feel free to share them with the community as a post.
Freebie of the week:
AI Tool Report
Since we are talking about cyberpunk - here’s a free newsletter that teaches you how to save time and earn money using AI - 5 minutes per day.
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Read this Book:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - a novel by Philip K. Dick
The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, where Earth's life has been greatly damaged by a nuclear global war, leaving most animal species endangered or extinct.
Read this Article:
Cyberpunk, Technoculture, and the Post-Biological Self - by Ollivier Dyens, Louisiana State University
This paper argues that because of technology's intrusion into our perception and understanding of the world and its constant production of impossible images of the human body, today's representation of that same body must be fundamentally re-evaluated. As one can see in works of science fiction -- films and literature alike -- such as Terminator 2 or Neuromancer, the body must now be perceived as a quantum-like pattern whose form and essence depend on the human or machine observer.
What do you think? - read this paper and reply to the post!
Listen to this Podcast:
The Road to AGI - Google DeepMind podcast
In this podcast, host Hannah meets DeepMind co-founder and chief scientist Shane Legg, the man who coined the phrase ‘artificial general intelligence’, and explores how it might be built. Why does Shane think AGI is possible? When will it be realized? And what could it look like?
Watch this Video:
AlphaGo | by Google DeepMind | Time: 1:30:27
On March 9, 2016, the worlds of Go and artificial intelligence collided in South Korea for an extraordinary best-of-five-game competition, coined The DeepMind Challenge Match. Hundreds of millions of people around the world watched as a legendary Go master took on an unproven AI challenger for the first time in history.
Watch this Movie:
A Scanner Darkly | Amazon Prime | Time: 1:40:00
There are so many cyberpunk movies like The Matrix, Terminator, Blade Runner, etc. But here’s a gem we found for you that features Keanu Reeves and adapted from a book by Philip K Dick.
A Scanner Darkly revolves around an undercover cop in a not-too-distant future who becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result. The unique aspect of this film is the usage of ‘rotoscoping’ - which gives this film an animated yet realistic look.
Watch this Anime:
Psycho-Pass | Available on Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll | 2 seasons of 20 mins episodes each
I finished an interesting cyberpunk anime called ‘Psycho Pass’ - a dystopic world where a person’s ability to commit a crime is determined by ‘The Sibyl System’. The story revolves around the police force navigating a world where technology determines who and how much a person deserves justice.
Lessons To Pin
Sharing 5 lessons from ‘Book of the Week’ — How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed by Ray Kurzweil
Read the lessons here - Lessons to Pin on How to Create a Mind
Lessons from the previous week’s book: Range by David Epstein
Reading Rooms on Merrative
3 short film screenings by cinemumble community
The featured films are as follows
Rat in the Kitchen a film by Arkish Aftab
The Astronaut and His Parrot by Arati Kadav
Daud by Nihar Palwe
Location: Offline (Mumbai, India)
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