Sci-Fi Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

[QUOTE What about the ladies' opinion on this site? Would a male "Joi" be of interest or disgust for you all?}

For me, neither interest or disgust. "It" would simply exist, like Alexa or Siri.
 
That's interesting Verna. Just about every guy I talk to who has seen 2049, outside of this site, tell me they would love to own a "Joi." Listening to them, I sincerely believe there is no sexual component involved in their opinion. Makes me wonder if a 3d companion is more of a "guy" thing than a lady thing. Does that say something about how some dudes look at relationships in comparison to women?

I felt the same vibe about the sequel that I did when I first saw the original in '82. At first I thought the movie was just "ok". But the more times I watched it, the more I enjoyed it. Both of these movies were very well done, imho. Doesn't seem to be a great deal of middle ground concerning these two movies. People either seem to love one or the other or despise them both.






"Have I ever told you you've got a lot of issues?"
"I'm a woman. We all have issues. It's what keeps us interesting and you men interested."
"Oh yeah. It's what keeps us crazy and die younger."
"Do you love me?"
"I love you more than life itself."
"See? It's working."
 
I have zero interest in sharing my thoughts with something that doesn't have any of its own. Which isn't to say that a Joi wouldn't grow and develop from interaction, but she would never choose to do something entirely independent of me.

A real AI would have to choose to interact with me in the first place, rather than be pleased to by design.
 
If not AI then what do you attribute her decision to in aiding K with escaping from the police?
Her function is wish fulfillment, not law enforcement. If she was sapient she might do something that K didn't like but she judged would be better in some other way besides his immediate needs.
 
Her function is wish fulfillment, not law enforcement. If she was sapient she might do something that K didn't like but she judged would be better in some other way besides his immediate needs.
But she did do something he didn't like, self harm for his benefit. It wasn't his wish that she make a decision on her own to aid him nor was it his wish that she put herself in a losing situation to aid him. Scenes like her enjoyment of the rain would seem to indicate that she was capable of self-awareness.
 
But she did do something he didn't like, self harm for his benefit. It wasn't his wish that she make a decision on her own to aid him nor was it his wish that she put herself in a losing situation to aid him. Scenes like her enjoyment of the rain would seem to indicate that she was capable of self-awareness.
"Seem to" being the important part. She might appear to enjoy rain because that assists in making her appear "real" to fulfill her role as a companion. And she arguably did no self harm if she doesn't really exist. She is just providing one final kindness at what was going to be their last interaction one way or another. Why wouldn't she do that for K? What does she truly have to lose as a non-person?


Don't get me wrong - I'm agnostic as to whether Joi is a sapient AI or not. I think this is a key enigma in 2049, much like Deckard's nature was the enigma of BR. But it is enigmatic exactly because her behavior could be viewed both ways. And in case you're seeing her sacrifice as final proof, the advertising Joi who shows up later seems just as personable as the previous one, yet generic. I think the filmmaker even doesn't know for sure what K's Joi is or had become - we witnessed all the same things as the intelligent K, and he is clearly wracked with doubt.
 
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Interesting, isn't it? Brings us back to the age old question, "what is real"? (thanks Morpheus) Just how physically "real" was Joi? She and K were interrupted during a kiss by a phone call from his boss, she was real enough to be able to light K's smoke with just her finger, but still Joi needed a surrogate in order to have sex with K. She was sentient enough to display some possible jealousy when K's boss paid him a visit at his apartment. ("wouldn't you rather be with your Madam?" "Oh, so you were listening.") If an individual believes in such a thing as angels or ghosts, does the fact that they are not corporeal make them any less "real"?
Here again, as related in the first Blade Runner, does an entity that is artificially created, a being "virtually identical to a human", make that being any less human merely because he or she was created artifically and not born as regular humans are? Also, as shown by the Roy Batty character in the original, some of Joi's actions and responses could be considered more human than most of the physically born humans in 2049.

Also, has anyone noticed this by any chance? The original Blade Runner was set in the year 2019. obviously 2019 is here. Haven't noticed any replicants as of yet, just like "Big Brother" didn't appear in the year 1984, as in the book or movie versions, although 1984 proved to be more prophetic than Blade Runner ......






"I don't like violence Tom. I'm a businessman; blood is a big expense."
 
She and K were interrupted during a kiss by a phone call from his boss, she was real enough to be able to light K's smoke with just her finger, but still Joi needed a surrogate in order to have sex with K.
Joi is the product of a hologram projector, and that projector must have enough output to ignite a cigarette. So it didn't happen physically.

Also, has anyone noticed this by any chance? The original Blade Runner was set in the year 2019. obviously 2019 is here. Haven't noticed any replicants as of yet, just like "Big Brother" didn't appear in the year 1984, as in the book or movie versions, although 1984 proved to be more prophetic than Blade Runner ......
I wouldn't say that anything 1984ish has really happened, either (outside of Maoist China). I can't think of any near term SF movie (or even story) where we have met or acceded the predictions. 2001, Space 1999, Strange Days, etc. Apparently no one wanted to create a story about people who sat around watching porn on their phones.
 
"Seem to" being the important part. She might appear to enjoy rain because that assists in making her appear "real" to fulfill her role as a companion.
By that argument, I'm little more than a faux-sentient being for my wife because I also enjoy being in the rain and that enjoyment is the result of electrical pulses firing off, the same as Joi.
 
By that argument, I'm little more than a faux-sentient being for my wife because I also enjoy being in the rain and that enjoyment is the result of electrical pulses firing off, the same as Joi.
Hardly. Since we don't have an Joi type AI programs, I'm going to give you credit for being a fellow human being. And as a human being, I have a pretty good idea what it is like to enjoy the rain, and assume you experience life similarly.

But also as a human being, I understand how to mimic behavior when I don't actually have any strong feelings: "Yes, that certainly was another amazing episode of Doogie Howser!", "Thanks for taking me to Golden Coral, Grandma! My steak was excellent." And because I have this ability (as do you), it is not hard to imagine that a programmer, trying to make an AI feel human, might skip over the task of making an unembodied program actually appreciate rain and simply have it mimic that appreciation.

But what you seem to be missing from my posts is that this point is ambiguous in the film. Joi may like rain, or Joi may simply parrot back to K about liking rain. It is one of the central mysteries of the film that make it, like BR, so interesting.

I'd like to think that Joi is more than the sum of her programming, and that, even if she 'pretended' at first, she has learned to feel what she only acted to at first. "Fake it until you make it." But I don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting that a man-made product isn't "the real thing". The crabstick in my sushi had zero crab in it, so why should a program necessarily have a soul? Joi is a product, not a miracle.


Another aspect of Joi that writing this makes me think about is how different Joi's sensory inputs are. The hologram of Joi is not where she is, and is not even where her POV is. When Joi "looks" into K's eyes, she is actually taking visual data fed from cameras that are no where near the representation of her eyes - so she doesn't experience being gazed at but emulation of that experience based on a spatial model. Joi can't really ever feel like she 'lives behind her eyes' as human beings do, unless her program is so sophisticated that it creates this (unnecessary) experience as an additional layer of emulation. In reality she processes visual cues that tell her what she would see if her eyes were located where K sees them.
 
But what you seem to be missing from my posts is that this point is ambiguous in the film. Joi may like rain, or Joi may simply parrot back to K about liking rain. It is one of the central mysteries of the film that make it, like BR, so interesting.
I'm not missing anything from your posts, I just don't agree that it is ambiguous as you think it is.
 
Off topic as hell, but I'm going for it. Tiran, if I may, I have to humbly disagree with your assessment of the book 1984 in the regard that it hasn't come to pass outside of Maoist China. I recall growing up in the 1960's when privacy was at a premium. In the book, electronic surveillance, newspeak and double speak are at the fore. In our society today, we can't felgercarb in the woods without some form of camera watching a person. (obvious exaggeration, but I have a feeling one gets my point.) Today, electronic surveillance is literally everywhere. Every street corner, shopping mall, library, etc. Everywhere. That can be tapped into by whatever government agency has the tech and/or desire. EVEN inside one's own home if a person has a Siri, Alexa, or smartphone. Maybe not photographic tech, but an individual can certainly be listened to by someone who has the know how to do so inside of one's home. Orwellian by definition.

Then I hear the term "alternative facts" being bantied around by members of an administration. Sir, that is newspeak by definition, to the point of our buddy George spinning in his grave like a whirling dervish. Along with a meek public that takes it lying down. Sometimes I think 1984 has proven to be more prophetic than most of our religious texts, easily.


Thanks for your time and consideration, sir, and am looking forward to your rebuttal. Take care all.








"You run one time, you got yourself a set of chains. You run twice, you got yourself two sets. You ain't gonna need no third set, 'cause you gonna get your mind right...."
 
Off topic as hell, but I'm going for it. Tiran, if I may, I have to humbly disagree with your assessment of the book 1984 in the regard that it hasn't come to pass outside of Maoist China. I recall growing up in the 1960's when privacy was at a premium. In the book, electronic surveillance, newspeak and double speak are at the fore. In our society today, we can't felgercarb in the woods without some form of camera watching a person. (obvious exaggeration, but I have a feeling one gets my point.) Today, electronic surveillance is literally everywhere. Every street corner, shopping mall, library, etc. Everywhere. That can be tapped into by whatever government agency has the tech and/or desire. EVEN inside one's own home if a person has a Siri, Alexa, or smartphone. Maybe not photographic tech, but an individual can certainly be listened to by someone who has the know how to do so inside of one's home. Orwellian by definition.

Then I hear the term "alternative facts" being bantied around by members of an administration. Sir, that is newspeak by definition, to the point of our buddy George spinning in his grave like a whirling dervish. Along with a meek public that takes it lying down. Sometimes I think 1984 has proven to be more prophetic than most of our religious texts, easily.


Thanks for your time and consideration, sir, and am looking forward to your rebuttal. Take care all.
Surveillance is rarely good, but I think the defining line is that there really isn't a power that can leverage surveillance to accomplish anything too dystopian. We don't have a secret police the public fearfully complies with, legal challenges to government authority work and whistleblowing is alive and well. Despotism requires power to use surveillance in a society-altering way, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

You could have an utterly open, no privacy society that completely lacked any coercion.
 
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To me, this film from the eighties is about as classic as sci-fi can get. I absolutely love the film noir feel, the way Los Angeles of the future is depicted, the acting of Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, and especially the direction of Ridley Scott.

Imho, there is a ton to discuss about this movie, from which version is better, (director's cut to me) to the different ending, all the way to whether or not anyone believes Rick Deckard is a replicant. Any of which I would be happy to debate with you.
Most people realize, this movie was lightly based on Philip K. Dick's short novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", and also, imho, a better story was made for the movie than in the book.
Basically a detective story with sci-fi trappings, this movie is one that I always have listed as one of my all time favorites, along with "A Clockwork Orange". Not just in the sci-fi realm, but in motion pics in general.
Not only Ford and Hauer, but Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, and Brion James lending more than just credible performances.


I would love to hear everyone's opinions of this movie........

Dick's sheep story was so different. I am glad what the director created. So original in so many ways. 2049 was a fail. Too suburban in scope. Looked good and that was about it
 

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