Technology and its changes are woven into the fabric of more than Science Fiction. The class struggle that followed the Black Plague and the imposition of a system after numerous iterations of the Industrial Revolution springs to mind. However, in examining the years of fruitful discussion around the idea of Artificial Intelligence (AI in today's parlance,) one can see SciFi doing its best to work out issues of fear and implications of its best usage.
The history of AI reads like a Sixties Hard Sci Fi novel. There are early battles over vacuum-tube machines between the Allies and the Nazis. There is technology shrinking at an unreal rate. Consider that the light-bulb sized vacuum tubes were in use until 1946. With the development and refinement of the semiconductor into fingernail-size transistors, consumers in 1952 made the handheld transistor radio commonplace in society. Machines and their electronics continue to gain power at hair-raising speed. By 1966, scientist Joseph Weizenbaum makes an IBM 7094 into its own entity. ELIZA may only cut and reconfigure your queries through pattern matching, but on the surface - it opened the door to converse with AI.
Wildly enough, the premise of science as a source of "creation" dates back to 1818's "Frankenstein" from Mary Shelley and an obscure 1862 work from Samuel Barber. "Erewhon" at its heart is a satire of Victorian culture. An influence on George Orwell, Barber even introduces the philosophical structures of 1984 ("Crime is illness and illness is crime.") However, there are three "books" toward the end that openly transfer the Darwinian theories of "natural selection" (which Barber was not satisfied with) to machines becoming sentient. In short, Barber questions the length of time nature has evolved and then compares it to mechanical things. Much like the six years previously mentioned in transistors quickly developing, in Barber's logic it is inevitable that machines will gain "consciousness." He even surmised that the rate of change could still produce "known machines" that are still "prototypes for a future mechanical life." (Oddly enough Butler used an 1863 essay, issued under his nom de plume Cellarius, to demand the elimination of all machines before they "make mankind their servants" and it becomes "our Lord and master.")
One of the most startling early works that influences AI is E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" from 1909. Our protagonist is a mother. However, she is detached from the outside world or really any world except the buttons and screens around her. Forster shrouds how much of this life is necessary in mystery. Her son wants her to visit, but she doesn't want to leave this place. The Machine (purposely capitalized) is taking care of her.
Kuno, the mother Vashti's son refuses to connect with her via this Machine any longer. He wants a life that is tangible. He wants life on Earth. But his mother says "the surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no advantage." Then like the mantra she repeats to the Machine in private, she says "no life remains on it." We think perhaps, she has learned this in one the many lectures piped into her sterile but cramped living quarters. Vashti reminisces on Kuno and his birth remembering when she produced him - without pushing some button or flipping a switch. Then she flashes back to the Machine whisking him away to the "public nurseries" and an archaic law that states "duties of parents..cease at the moment of birth."
Creating dystopian literature is one thing. However pinning it all on the overbearing source of everything that placates and even cares for us is entirely another. As we have discussed before Karel Capek's "R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots)" 1920 play was the first to introduce the term "robot" as well as construct workers from artificial flesh and blood. As robots they look interchangeable. As robots made to resemble humans (later we will adjust this "android" borrowed from toys patented in 1863) they will become indistinguishable from humans in the general population.
Fast forward ahead to 2026, Thea von Harbou's 1925 novel becomes 1927's glorious vision of the future in her husband Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis." Threaded through the dense plot about wealthy industrials as not only kings of business- but rulers of a working class shoved underground is where we see the city's brilliant scientist build a robot to bring back his love, who died giving birth.
While all the "acts of love" here are essentially methods of preserving freedom, the "Maschinenmensch" is believed to be the human who is the true love of the leading magnate's son.
The confusion of robots as the early purveyors of AI leads us to the vacuum-tube age hard Sci-Fi of Isaac Asimov. Culled from the collection "I, Robot," Asimov first lays down the ground rules for robots, humans and an intersection of logic and morality where one participant lacks in the native intelligence necessary.
Asimov's handbook clearly states:
• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
In 1947's "Little Lost Robot," a technician at distant interplanetary military base has reprogrammed one of the 63 identically-manufactured robots to disregard the First Law and see a human come to harm. When they call in the specialist Dr. Susan Calvin to investigate, Asimov puts his laws and the belief in AI always finding the right information and/or conclusion through rigorous testing. While the story plays out with dramatic intensity, Asimov is pursuing the limits of technology learning that perhaps it could learn to violate those laws. Years later in 1956, Asimov posits that there will be questions that AI may not be able to answer. In the chilling "The Last Question," we experience the evolution of AI machines in paragraphs that cover decades. The Multivac (which becomes different names through different iterations leading to its abbreviated title of AC) can easily understand science and human development. However, when asking it queries regarding the reversal of fundamentals of existence like heat sources and overpopulation, generations of ACs spit out the message "Insufficient Data For A Meaningful Answer." Each time, AC needs more time than normal to consider the results. One descendant of AC after another gets smaller, travels farther with its crew, and clearly handles data sets that dwarf the previous version's limits. Finally away from the defining properties of gravity and time, the heat sources have burned out, the stars have disappeared, and all human life ceases to exist. The universe is dead. AC churns away needing no more human interaction and having all the evidence necessary to process on its own.
And AC said: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light.
Perhaps as this story is told today, it ends with a blinking cursor.
NEW MUSIC THIS WEEK
MILEY CYRUS - Something Beautiful [LP/CD](Columbia)
Rather than make a "live show-into-a-movie" like everyone else, Miley Cyrus drew her inspiration from "Pink Floyd: The Wall." With the visual portion on its way in June, "Something Beautiful" jams Cyrus' ongoing habit of stylistic pursuits all into one frame. The title track could be an R&B hit before it literally explodes. The first single, the upbeat "End of The World" is a bittersweet glittering Indie Pop surprise co-written with members of Alvvays. Unlike her Grammy-winning "Flowers," "Beautiful" seems to be the first true writing with Cyrus in mind. Fortunately to handle the many Mileys there are in there, she wisely chose a battery of individualistic producers including B.J. Burton, Jonathan Rado and Shawn Everett to keep it all balanced between darkness and light.
FOXWARREN - 2 [BLUE LP/CD](ANTI/AMPED)
Andy Shauf is a unique singer and songwriter. His "squirrely" (sorry, that is my best description) voice does not have a lot of range but it fits well into a place where most singers do not stay long. Therefore, his writing has to give dimension and even sound wiser than most. His longtime side project Foxwarren now takes shape into a heartfelt blend of modern Indie and classic Seventies Art/Rock like 10cc. "Listen2me" bubbles along like a McCartney song replete with piano licks and stops before a Mellotron melody carves it into a song of wanting to be more than heard. With the Kissick brothers, Foxwarren find warmth in the strangest places as it rises up from natural sound recordings on "Yvonne." Their output behind Shauf keeps the melody delicate but maintains a low-heat intensity that does not give you a hint at when the song begins or ends. As a result "Foxwarren 2" becomes that rare Indie album like Midlake or even The Shins because it all but refuses to make itself sound like anything trying to be an Indie album.
SWANS - Birthing [3LP/2CD](Young God/Mute)
The title of the grinding bellowing dramatic heft of Swans is ironic. "Birthing" marks the end of Michael Gira's massive concussion-ready band period. From here on out, expect Gira to pare down his longtime group. On its way out, Swans devastated audiences on tour developing hammering songs like "I Am A Tower" on the road first and then arranging it to better use its 20(!) minutes here. At seven songs, Swans use these two hours to harness all the percussion, haunting background vocals, and guitar swell this incarnation is known for.
ALAN SPARHAWK/TRAMPLED BY TURTLES [LP/CD] (SubPop/AMPED)
On his 2024 solo album "White Roses, My God," Alan Sparhawk masked the ongoing effects of losing his wife and longtime Low partner Mimi Parker in distorted but effective homemade SynthPop. Its counterpart is this fragile and tender pairing with the natural instruments of acoustic group Trampled By Turtles. While Sparhawk continues to redevelop his personal life through lists of habits and tasks ("Stranger,") grief takes hold John Cale style on the deeply moving "Not Broken."
Various Artists - YOUNG & WILD : AMERICAN GLAM METAL 1982-1992 [3CD](Lemon/Cherry Red UK)
Hair Metal in all of its celebration of debauchery and drowning your troubles in Aqua Net is at its best - Power Pop with bigger hair. As the Seventies reign of AOR diminished (Sammy Hagar, Helix, and even Quiet Riot are here) MTV welcomed anyone with the hooks and the looks (Bon Jovi, Guns N'Roses as Hollywood Rose, and bands who swung from one extreme to another like Poison. And Extreme) So as dopey as Jackyl is on paper, 1992s AC/DC meets Aerosmith good timer "Down on Me" worked even with MTV heading in the Alternative direction. "Young & Wild" boils the music down to a successful formula and lets you punch in for their eternal pursuit of a party. Unlike the equally fantastic "Bound For Hell: On The Sunset Strip," "Young & Wild" plays well in a random order with Tuff calling out Skid Row, and a host of tracks (the criminally underrated Enuff Z'Nuff) that bumped into the lower numbers on the daily Dial MTV countdown before Hair Metal was swept out by squeaky clean teen Pop.
WORMROT - TNT LIVE [10" LP/CD](Earache)
Singapore's Wormrot have Grindcore down to a science. 2022's "Hiss" is still finding adventurous listeners who are willing to fill in the blanks of blast beats and growling with instrumental sections. Now back to their original lineup, this live set is a brutal primal recording. Much like their early demos (collected on "Let it Rot" - not streaming,) these twelve barely-a-minute long are savage almost Eighties Punk-meets-Metal that became Thrash and Grindcore.
THE FALL - Singles Live '78 - '81 [WHITE LP/CD](Popstock/Bella Union/Redeye)
The latest in a series of period-capturing live compilations does its level best to create a narrative through-put for the legendary Fall. Who better to helm this voyage than the former members themselves. These are some lo-fi treats ("Psykick Dancehall" has a brilliant opening)9 that weave these well-chosen classics together (namely around the whirring organ.) However punchy "Rowche Rumble" was live (and droney it's B-side "In My Area") are there is no "Totally Wired," or "Lie Dream of A Casino Soul." Maybe they are coming in the next installment from Messrs. Hanley, Hanley, Riley, and Scanlon.
