Have you ever looked at technology and just been completely blown away by its scope and ability? And I don’t mean in the scary ‘I’m gonna be replaced’ way… although I do understand those feelings…. but more in a ‘holy crap this is amazing’ way…
I’ve always been fascinated with the intersection of technology and its implications for our world. Technology has rapidly evolved, bringing with it new challenges for humankind to face. Thanks to all the big-brain people, we’ve had breakthroughs in fields like IT… BioTech… AI… Robotics… Renewable energy… The list goes on. These advancements have, overall, improved our quality of life as a society. Don’t you think?
Technology is not something that I’ll ever truly understand… where would one even begin at my age?!
But that doesn’t stop me wanting to learn more about it. I want to understand the processes behind the WYSIWYG interfaces of our world… better understand the risks of technology in our society and what that means for us as a society… I do wonder if we, as a society, are doing right in the world. Anyway… I digress…
I realised that I watched a movie the other day and wanted to write about it. It was a bit spontaneous… you might have already seen it when you were a teenager… or maybe it was made before you were alive… like me… oop.
‘WarGames’ is an 80’s movie that has been described as a gentle introduction to the concept of reinforcement learning. It stars a young Matthew Broderick as a teenage hacker who accidentally gets into a classified server and almost causes Global Thermonuclear War. Let’s Go!
Now, I’m going to need someone to explain to me how often developers put a single-word backdoor into highly autonomous AI programs… no… seriously… How often? It seems like a… weirdly convenient way to access to programs like this without many defensive mechanisms to prevent misuse…
It’s just a movie….
right?
While this isn’t my first introduction to reinforcement learning, it is probably the oldest version of RI that I’ve seen in movies. Do you know others? Let me know! I’ve been following some advancements with AI and trying to understand how it works. I found quite a few videos that have helped – like coding AI to learn Donkey Kong?
Also – fun fact – did you know that Global Thermonuclear War almost actually happened? A few months after this movie came out, the Soviets had a nuclear false alarm incident.
I’m just kind of obsessed with the eighties. The people. The movies. The weird styling of futuristic movies during that time period. I’m still waiting for my hoverboard… which were meant to be prolific by now…
Anyway… I watched the film. and honestly, it was kind of amazing. I really enjoyed the simplicity of the ending – a simple, yet effective explanation of why sometimes choosing no option is better than those offered.
If you haven’t seen the trailer – check out all that 80s goodness. It’s like a warm hoodie on a cold day…
Till next time.
P.S. I passed the first module of my training. so… yay!