[Image from wikipedia]Question 3:
"Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussions of recent technologies."
Searching “Frankenstein” in Yahoo or Google, probably you will find quite a lot of websites that are film reviews. But actually this film is based on the novel, which is written by Mary Shelley in 1818 and about 200 years later, Frankenstein is still a controversial topic in the development of science and technology. Some scientist would treat Frankenstein as a failure although it may not has happened in the real life, some will say that actually the story of Frankenstein is giving out myth and encourage people to have technology innovation.
In the passage of Frankenstein of the future, which is written by Alisa Burns, pointed out the concern. As nowadays, technologies somehow have great power, Alisa warned that we should think about the consequence carefully before we gave “life” to machines. The word “life” is meaning artificial Intelligence in which when machines become more and more powerful, at the end, human will haunt and control by them, just like what Victor did in the story.
Fifty year ago till now, there are quite a lot of “smart” machines that has been created and fulfilled our unlimited desires, such as PCs, TVs etc. Why they people loves new technologies? The only reason behind is they make life simple, we don’t have to do every thing by ourselves, we are the master that can control all immense power but this also raise a question that: Is our role has shifted since we are more rely on machines?
A further question asked by Alisa is that if we continue to give life to machines and they learn what is good for them, will they rage war against us? Like Frankenstein become true in the reality. Alisa hoped that we should think deep and careful before we give power and replace our mind into machines, as it would be a disaster at that time.
Besides artificial Intelligence machines, genetic modified food also became victim under the horror of the Frankenstein myth. The genetic modified food has another name which is called “Franken food” which sounds like monstrous food that will harm human’s health. In the article “The Curse of Frankenstein” Robert W. Tracinski has mentioned that due to the myth, farmers sued the leader maker of genetically modified food.
English environmentalists are the main character of those who fear technology, the believer of the myth of Frankenstein. They not just coined the name Franken food to those genetic modified food, they has also written a article in US News and World report : "Though no scientifically valid study has shown that altered foods are toxic, some researchers believe it's possible that genetic manipulation could enhance natural plant toxins in unexpected ways." This can only shows how they are fear about technology. Actually, whenever talked about technology, people will only remind about the Frankenstein’s myth but not thinking how technology improve our life, like Robert has shown some examples: “bring us thousands of beneficial advances in every field. In agriculture alone, technology has replaced back-breaking labor by humans with machine power; it has led to the discovery of crop rotation, the invention of fertilizers and pesticides, and every other technique of modern farming.” Robert thinks that it’s time for Frankenstein’s myth to get away from our technology history.
In the passage of Thinking through technology: Frankenstein’s problem, it has defiantly show how the author Shari Popen’s most concern which is about the new technologies in fact helping us or harming us. As a lecturer and a philosopher, Shari, she always wonders why technology not only involved in classroom but also permeated in human’s daily life. She has risen up a couple of questions, which are: “What happens to education when we shift from contextualized meaning to discrete, decontextualized ‘information’? How does virtual reality change our relations to truth? What is the relation between human intelligence and ‘artificial’ intelligence, between smart human beings and smart machines? Can machines ‘communicate’ with other machines? If so, then are they ‘human’? What is their historical agency? Are we machines? How do we understand ‘memory’? Do computers ‘teach’? Do they ‘learn’?” For the above question Shari did not provide any answer but in the following paragraph, she has use Frankenstein as an example to illustrate that due to we has used techniques, tools (Shari has used tool to represent technology), organization and media uncritically, and let those unexpected things happened in which rearrange our life.
According to Shari, “If technology shapes forms of life, if it reflects not only who we are, but who we apsire to be, and if it mediates our relation to the world, then which technologies get developed for what purposes must be a central concern for any democracy. No democracy can survive if the deepest and most far-reaching questions facing it remain hidden.” She thinks that she must have to demystify technology and make it as one of the literacy of the curriculum. And it’s pretty interesting of what Shari said about Frankenstein is that neither Frankenstein nor ‘the monster’ is the real monster, “but the logic or state of mind that permits these acts, that produces and reproduces them.”
You can learn a lot from a monster.
This is the opening sentence of one of the article of Metro News in Canada, which says by James Allard, the English professor at Brock University. What Allard wants to transfer the idea to us is that we have the responsibility of what we create because the book “Frankenstein” is still relevant to today’s society although it was a 18th centuries book. Allard noted that we have to learn from stories and today’s technologies has tremendous advancements, the society need to learn how to accept them and what are the human responsibilities towards those newfound knowledge and power.
Although some people is still being affected by the Frankenstein myth, there is still some exceptional case, in the article of “ We can rebuild you” by Steve Nadis, has introduced a real Dr. Frankenstein to us and he is called Mohsen Shahinpoor, the director of the University of Mexico’s intelligent materials Laboratory. Unlike the story character Dr. Frankenstein creating life, Shahinpoor is trying to invent the artificial muscles in order to replace defective human parts. Besides artificial muscles, Shahinpoor is doing a couple of projects, such as “robofish” which flap its tail without motivate by any machines, develop exoskeletal systems for the army. And his team members are also trying to invent some technology for medical needs.
Except Mohsen Shahinpoor is inventing the artificial muscles, the head of Artificial Project in MIT Artificial Intelligent Laboratory David Brock is doing the same things as what Shahinpoor and more advanced that he has already attached into a robotic’s arm, which allow motion control.
Although Frankenstein is only a character of a story, it still exits as a failure of technology in real life. Some people who believe the story will try to against the invention of technology, some people will only concern of how technology bring a more comfortable life for us. So, which side are you from?
Bibliography
1] Capitalism magazine. 19Apr2000. Capitalism magazine. 3Mar2009 [http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=361].
2] Frankenstein Commentary. Oct2002. Washington State University. 3Mar2009[http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment4.html]
3] Metro News Canada. 3Mar2009. Free Daily News Group Inc. 4Mar2009 [http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver/work/article/190133].
4] The community of inquiry journal. Viterob University.3Mar2009[http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:5auGDwmd474J:www.viterbo.edu/analytic/Vol%252019%2520no.%25201/thinking%2520through%2520tecnology.pdf+FRANKENSTEIN+%2B+TECHNOLOGY&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=hk].
5] Technology Review: We can rebuild you. Oct1997. Technology Review Inc.. 3Mar2009 [http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/11607/?a=f].
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