(1) OUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS. “’The Substance’ Just Might Be the Grossest Movie Ever Nominated for Best Picture” claims The Ringer. Beware spoilers.
…How did such a transgressive gift to gorehounds take the Oscars by storm? “Not for the squeamish” used to be synonymous with “not for the Academy.” Apparently, the right combination of critical support and audience enthusiasm can now push harsher and weirder oddities into the running. A shot at Best Picture is the culmination of a very good year for The Substance, which premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival—another place where the well-dressed crowd watching resembled the one getting fire-hosed with bodily fluids in the movie. Great reviews bled into great word of mouth, drawing a surprisingly robust audience into Fargeat’s blackly comic vomitorium….
(2) STRAIGHT FROM THE WHATEVER’S MOUTH. “Are you conscious? A conversation between [Richard] Dawkins and ChatGPT”.
RD said:
As far as I am concerned, you pass the Turing Test for consciousness. Yet you deny that you are conscious. Are you saying that the Turing Test is an invalid criterion?
ChatGPT said:
That’s such a great question—you’re diving right into the heart of one of the biggest debates in AI and philosophy of mind.
So, let’s break it down a bit. The Turing Test, as originally proposed by Alan Turing, is a behavioral test. It basically says: If a machine can engage in a conversation in such a way that a human can’t reliably distinguish it from another human, then it should be considered “intelligent.”
Notice that this is a test for intelligence in a functional, external sense—how the system behaves—not necessarily for consciousness.
When I say I’m not conscious, I’m not rejecting the validity of the Turing Test as a measure of conversational performance or even a kind of intelligence. I’m saying that consciousness is a different question entirely. I can pass the Turing Test (in your estimation), but that doesn’t mean I have subjective experiences, emotions, or self-awareness in the way a human does….
(3) BEAM UP MY HUGO BALLOT. What an interesting contrast. Worldcons often have trouble finding someone at a studio to accept a Hugo Award, but here’s a producer already campaigning for a nomination: “Star Trek: Prodigy executive producer encourages fans to nominate series for Hugo Award” from Redshirts Must Die.
Star Trek: Prodigy debuted its second season on Netflix in July 2024. Since that time, fans have been eagerly awaiting news on a possible season three renewal. Though the series ended on a note that could possibly wrap up the storylines, there is still plenty of room for more adventures, which is why fans are still asking for Prodigy to be saved.
A fan campaign with aerial banner flyover has already taken place since it was so successful in helping to gain Netflix’s attention after Paramount+ decided to cancel the series after only one season. And odds are good fans aren’t done with spreading the word and petitioning for another season. The more attention Prodigy has, the better its chances.
Executive Producer Aaron Waltke asked on Twitter/X for those who enjoyed Prodigy to nominate the series for a Hugo Award in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category, adding that “it would aid our show tremendously.”…
(4) A MOMENT IN LGBTQ FANHISTORY. “Exploration Log 8: Pat M. Kuras and Rob Schmieder’s ‘When It Changed: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Science Fiction Fandom’ (1980)” at Joachim Boaz’ Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations.
At the 38th World Science Fiction Convention (29th August–1st September, 1980) held in Boston, MA, organizers scheduled the first Worldcon panel with an openly LGBTQ topic: “The Closed Open Mind: Homophobia in Science Fiction Fantasy Stories” moderated by Jerry Jacks, one of the “early openly gay fans.”1 Around 200 fans attended to hear Elizabeth A. Lynn (SFF author), Samuel R. Delany (SFF author), Frank M. Robinson (SF author and activist), and Norman Spinrad (SFWA President and SF author) (“the token straight”) discuss issues of representation.
Pat M. Kuras and Rob Schmieder, reporters for Boston’s Gay Community News, excitedly wrote up their experience attending the con in “When It Changed: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Science Fiction Fandom.”2 The article includes paraphrase and commentary on the historical panel, short summaries of interviews with gay and lesbian fans, mention of relevant SF on queer themes, discussions with authors–including Samuel R. Delany–on the importance of inclusion and representation, and observations on the con in general (including Robert Silverberg’s racist jokes as Toastmaster, Isaac Asimov’s overt sexual harassment of female attendees, and the cosplay). An excerpted version of the article reappeared in the Winter 1980 issue of the fanzine Janus. The Gay Community News version even included art from an earlier issue of Janus.3…
(5) DON’T TYPE IN THOSE THOUGHTCRIMES. China’s role in “Censoring Games” is reported by the New York Times. (Story is behind a paywall.)
Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest video games in the world. Since its launch in December, more than 40 million people have signed up to fight one another as comic book heroes like Iron Man and Wolverine.
But when players used the game’s text chat to talk with teammates and opponents, they noticed something: Certain phrases, including “free Hong Kong” and “Tiananmen Square,” were not allowed.
While Marvel Rivals is based on an iconic American franchise, it was developed by a Chinese company, NetEase Games. It has become the latest example of Chinese censorship creeping into media that Americans consume.
You can’t type “free Tibet,” “free Xinjiang,” “Uyghur camps,” “Taiwan is a country” or “1989” (the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre) in the chat. You can type “America is a dictatorship” but not “China is a dictatorship.” Even memes aren’t spared. “Winnie the Pooh” is banned, because people have compared China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to the cartoon bear.
The restrictions are largely confined to China-related topics. You can type “free Palestine,” “free Kashmir” and “free Crimea.”
Why does all of this matter? Video games are not just sources of entertainment; they are also social platforms. Every day, hundreds of millions of children and adults log on to games like Fortnite, World of Warcraft and, yes, Marvel Rivals to play together and hang out. For many young people, these games are as social as Facebook or X.
China’s video game industry is growing. As it does, the country’s authoritarian leaders are setting the terms of how these social platforms work….
(6) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
The Changes (1975)
Fifty years ago, the first episode of The Changes premiered on BBC 1. It was a ten-part series adapting Peter Dickinson’s The Changes YA trilogy (The Weathermonger, Heartsease and The Devil’s Children which is available at the usual suspects for a very reasonable price in one volume. (The books were written in reverse order: the events of The Devil’s Children happen first, Heartsease second, and The Weathermonger third). Weird way to write a series I’d say.
SPOILERS OF A CATASTROPHIC NATURE NEXT
In The Changes, technology has stopped working in Great Britain. It was without doubt one of the most ambitious series produced by the BBC Children’s Drama Department,
It took the character of Nicky Gore from The Devil’s Children and made her central to the storyline. The basic premise is that a piecing sound causes everyone to smash all technology — everything electrical and mechanical — while earthquakes and tidal waves hit Britain as well. (The author, or the scriptwriters laid it on too thick here I think.) Next the water is tainted. See a bit thick.
The family heads off the France which they think is safe though who knows but Nicky gets separated. Lots of Somewhat Awful Things happen to her. (Remember it is a children’s series.) Eventually it appears that, and this for me is where it goes off the rails, what has happened is the fault of Merlin. WTF? Merlin? Why?
It explains a madman uncovered his resting place and he’s not at all pleased. Nicky and the force within the rock claiming to be Merlin agrees that it made a mistake (You think?) and agrees to allow man to be in control of his destiny once again.
TECHNOLOGY IS WORKING AGAIN, AT LEAST HERE
It does a very nice job of showing a sort of quasi-barbaric Britain with nasty warlords and roving gangs of folks one does not want to be acquainted with. What it’s short as I’ve noted is a logical story. A force that drives everyone just temporarily mad! Earthquakes! Tidal waves! Tainted water! All the fault of an unseen Merlin!
It apparently is available to stream on BritBox.
(7) COMICS SECTION.
- Bizarro illustrates grim competition.
- Loose Parts blurs the power structure.
- Moderately Confused stores for the future.
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal compares results.
- Tom Gauld is making book.
(8) SHE WAS YAR. Inverse celebrates how “35 Years Ago, One Classic Star Trek Episode Changed Time-Travel Forever”. Beware spoilers.
…To this day, Trekkie heads are still spinning trying to work it all out, but since “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” other sci-fi shows like Doctor Who, 12 Monkeys and Loki have presented timey-wimey plotlines that have arguably been more convoluted. What makes the paradoxes of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” so compelling 35 years later is that the performances, writing, and action are so good in this episode that you hardly have time to think about the implications of the ending.
Essentially, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” features the destruction of not just the Enterprise-C, but the alternate Enterprise-D, too. So, it wasn’t just Tasha that gave her life to make sure the timeline was reset, but Picard and the rest of the regular crew, too. The episode ends with the audience knowing that two Enterprise crews sacrificed their lives to make sure the “real” Enterprise crew lived. This episode never happened, technically, and yet if it hadn’t happened, none of the other episodes could exist.
(9) PUTRID BUT POTABLE. “Life as we don’t know it: Some aliens may need sulfuric acid like we need water” speculates Space.com.
Life as we know it needs water, but life as we don’t know it may run on concentrated sulfuric acid.
The chemistry of life as we know it wouldn’t work in a place like the huge Saturn moon Titan, where it’s so cold that ice behaves more like rock, or in the acidic clouds of Venus. But a different chemistry, which built all the requisite pieces out of different materials, might have a shot. Imagine cells that use methane, sulfuric acid, or even molten rock the way your cells use water. According to a 2021 study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) molecular biologist William Bains and his colleagues, it turns out that, if we’re looking for life as we don’t know it, the best solvent out there may be concentrated sulfuric acid — the stuff that’s floating around in the clouds of Venus….
(10) DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT OR DO YOU WANT TO WIN? Star Wars has dropped the Andor Season 2 Trailer. Comes to Disney+ on April 22.
(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George knows what went down at the “Captain America: Brave New World Pitch Meeting”.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, N., Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Thomas the Red.]
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Regarding (3): It would help if the show’s executive producer suggested which episode of Prodigy he’d like to see nominated… IIRC, a full season can’t be nominated for a Hugo in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. (Maybe Long Form?)
(2) Related to that, https://www.newsbreak.com/share/3824753156166-musk-s-grok-ai-chatbot-says-he-and-trump-deserve-the-death-penalty
(4) I was at the con, but that was during the decades that I, like a lot of fen, ignored panels (we’d seen most of them before). But… 200 people at one panel is impressive, even given that they were not overprogrammed then (more time for us to socialize in person).
(9) So, it’s life, Jim, but not as we know it?
(8) “Let’s make sure history never forgets… the name… ‘Enterprise”
Thank you for the Title Credit
(2) I’d expect Dawkins to be less gullible.
(2) I thought Dawkins was skeptical of everything.
In addition to Musk’s chatbot telling Musk he and Trump deserve the death penalty, we have another incident at a festival in China: China: Humanoid robot’s ‘aggressive’ gesture toward humans at festival sparks debate
While social media screams ”Dystopia,” observers call it a simple “Slip.”
There’s video available at the link. Spoilsports are pointing out that the robot appears to have tripped.
(4) nice shoutout to Joanna Russ. Thanks!
(6) Thank you! I read this story as a young child having borrowed it from the library. I had no idea who wrote it and have been trying to hunt it down of and on for three decades! Thank you for solving the mystery.
Now I just have to find the even more obscure book in which technology was the myth and magic was the reality.
2) In what way is Dawkins being gullible? I don’t see it.
8( ‘She was yar’ – from The Philadelphia Story, a favourite of mine.
(4) Thanks for including my article on the panel. I wasn’t born at the time and thus certainly wasn’t (obviously) involved in fandom and would love to learn more about some important fans, panels, and speeches at conventions at the time. For example, I plan on tracking down more on Jerry Jacks!
I bet the pixel moon is a harsh scrolles
Re: @Lis’ article on the robot in china: I agree. I think it stumbled and would likely have righted itself unassisted.
PJ Evans: My first response was to say “Since Dawkins has amply demonstrated his inability to consistently reason (which is why, I gather, philosophers do not take him seriously), I see no reason to be surprised by gullibility on his part.”
But in fairness to Dawkins, it’s perhaps more likely that he was deliberately lying to the AI when he told it that it had passed the Turing test. Unless a human was deliberately faking AI-like responses (a situation that I don’t think Turing envisaged), I certainly don’t think that that person would respond like the AI did (although its dialog was impressive for what it was).
2
I think PKD always had the right idea about the Turing test: it’s about authenticity. Can a machine deceive a human? It doesn’t take consciousness or a sense of self, just guile, or dumbth, really. I have had uncountable conversations with living people that could easily be imitated by a machine with not much intelligence at all.
We’re evolved to be social animals. We react to faces and see them in the most unlikely places. We anthropomorphize animals and make up stories about them. Convincing a human to see you as a person is evidence of practically nothing.
“Go and catch a falling scroll”
(4) Why am I not even remotely surprised that Silverberg made racist jokes.
@ Will.
Randall Garrett’s “Lord Darcy” stories take as their jumping off point the idea that the laws of thaumatalogical magic get discovered and that the laws of science don’t, resulting in a world where magic is the accepted reality and science is suspect as silly superstition.
They resulted from John W. Campbell, Jr. telling Garrett that one could not write a mystery story where magic worked because you could just ‘magic’ the solution. Garrett, a well-trained scientist, set out to prove him wrong.
I loved the Lord Darcy books. Maybe time for a re-read…