Hacker Cinema
Caprica
2010 · TV series · 41 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Remi Aubuchon, Ronald D. Moore
Set 58 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families - the Graystones and the Adamas - as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the peaceful 12 Colonies, living in a society close to our own. Entangled in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe, blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics.
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17 comments on Hacker News
Just a heads up, the frackin' toasters at Prime Video inexplicably left out the excellent Razor movie, which came out between seasons 3 and 4. Also missing the Resistance webisodes from between seasons 2 and 3. Looks like Razor is rentable on Google for a fee, and The Resistance might be on Youtube, not sure of quality or completeness though.
Aside from those omissions, they do have the mini-series (as one long stream), 4 main seasons, and the Plan movie, all free with Prime Video, at least in the US.
The Blood & Chrome prequel movie can be streamed for a fee, and ditto for the single-season Caprica spin-off series.
Edit: Movies, unsorted, from the top of my mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_of_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter%27s_Bone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) , seen before Covid, deemed to be realistic, and therefore better than stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_Sign_(film) somewhere in between. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV_(1974_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film) The remakes of the Planet of the Apes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Weeks_Later a little less so, though it had some great scenes of flying into London City Airport and the modern parts around that. Bladerunner in the original versions, the remake not so much. 2001: A Space Odyssey, the intro and first parts, spaceflight to the moon and such, the rest not. Too boring. I liked the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two better, actually. Avatar. Part one only. All of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(franchise) with the exception of the crossover stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film) for the almost cyberpunkish fuckedupness of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_Untold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropia_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southland_Tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_(2000_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_(1987_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Zero_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_18_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop Ron Silverman Badass! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Blonde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_Night_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adjustment_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Protocol_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anderson_Tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Seduction
TV-Series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series) and the remake linked from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Train_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strain_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Pines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series) and its prequel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_(TV_series)
WESTWORLD!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series) Praimfaya! Yeehaa! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series) All of Black Mirror! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Skies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_by_Wolves_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_83 and sequels. ÄXZÄLLÄNNT! JAWOLLJA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Night_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2019_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Dome_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(2009_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica
This all began about 2006 with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series) after having abstained from possessing a TV, or watching that by other means (with some exceptions for news and documentaries) since 1996, and mostly no cinema either.
That stuff rehooked me in a binge-watching session. Shit happens :-)
Do yoo vanna häff fries wiff thät?
/nerdsnipe off
Cavil's cynicism comes from the fact he saw himself as a superior entity while having the humanoid body that limited him. In one of his memorable lines he says that he "could do so much more" and blames the Final Five for what he is, what they give him because they thought that's what "God" wanted.
If anything, I think Clarice Willow should be one to blame of setting everything off - at least that is directly told at the end of Apotheosis episode of Caprica.
We're still far away of the tripping point where AI gains self-awareness and even further from it demanding recognition as another form of life and intelligence. Right now it's all generated fun based on algorithms and limitations set by operators. I'm more concern about people relying on this technology too much than fact it might become "a problem".
Caprica isn't woke from what I recall, it just isn't as good as BSG. Still worth watching for the backstory though.
Did anyone reading this think back to the TV series Caprica [1], where Zoe Graystone [2] is digitally resurrected and her digital mimic speaks with her living uncle?
I used to not focus on the AI ethics concerns, mainly because I think the ethics of subsequent AIs will have to match the ethics of whatever true AGI is created first in order to survive (that first AI will have so much of an evolutionary advantage), and I thought the first one would be created by OpenAI or some such with decent ethics. Now I think I was naïve, and wonder if the worry over AI ethics being more important than I thought, if something like the Cylons or Skynet is more probable than I thought.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica
[2] https://en.battlestarwikiclone.org/wiki/Zoe_Graystone
Peacock has Battlestar Galactica but the Caprica prequel is on NBC only for cable customers. Disney+ can’t put the Spider-Man movies next to the other Marvel movies. When Doctor Who first came to HBO Max, you couldn’t watch it on a Roku TV because it wasn’t HBO Now or HBO Go. The industry is littered with exclusive regional contracts that continually expire and don’t make sense to the customers.
No you don't: Have you seen the TV show "Caprica" ? Part of the plot is that a girl creates an artificial afterlife by duplicating people upon their death from data collected during their life, ironically accidentally killing herself in the process. Technically that's a spoiler, but it's put sufficiently misleading I hope, plus it's revealed in the first 20 minutes of the first episode.
And this can work. You could copy a human merely by observing them. If you get enough data on a person (say yourself, so it isn't creepy), and train an algorithm. Once the algorithm is good enough at imitating you that your own mother can't tell the difference between a robot containing that algorithm and you, is there still a difference. And now every mathematician should say "No". After all, 4 and IV is the same number.
You don't need audio or visual override. You don't need to give any agency to any flesh and blood over a virtual body. Even the robot mentioned before is really more of an optional thing, you could eliminate it.
You could simplify further. You don't need to duplicate a human, you just need to provide them with "a kid". An algorithm that's purely virtual but that is sufficiently smart that humans can raise it to become part of human society. But it's mind can start out mostly empty. So you don't even need to duplicate anything, you just need a sufficiently complex learning algorithm and a way to interact with it, and a human (perhaps preferably a couple?) to teach it, if you're willing to give it a generation or two.
This is also a sub-plot of the television series Caprica, where a researcher uses her daughter as the model for the first true AI in a robot cylon.
The worst cancellation I have ever seen was of Caprica. The last show aired made a veiled criticism of Israel policies toward Palestine. It was pulled the next day! The rest of the season be damned. They stuck reruns of ST:NG into the slot. A year later they allowed the final few episodes to be shown and that was the end of that. Since then I am reluctant to watch anything on SyFy.
Sure but the AI wouldn't necessarily have to respond. I think the main flaw in the Turing test is it's cultural dependence. I would argue that Eliza has passed plenty of Turing tests, mostly with people who had a chance encounter with it.
But why would an AGI individual have to be able to lie about it's childhood ? It could simply have a childhood. But I understand your argument : "Human" AI is constantly trained for the function "be a human". Machine intelligence is being trained with "is human X cheating", "is this spam", "what is the french for apple", "which way will stock X go" (and other "what will <large number of humans> do in situation X" questions) ... functions.
Keep in mind that your own brain is also simply running an algorithm, with "hidden state". Here's the first thing it hides pretty well : there's no single "you", there's about 300 regions in your brain, that are physically different, in different locations, and not directly linked. And if the rest of your brain gets disabled, each of those 300 regions can use your body to convince your own mother it's really you she's talking to. And the function your brain is executing is not to "have a soul" or something like that, but is mostly a behaviour-copy algorithm. It searches out other humans, observes their actions, learns to predict them and then uses what it's learned to "be you". Most people will not believe this is how it works, not even when they know quite a bit about neurons, and know pretty well that this is what our neurons do.
But when it comes right down to it, you, me, everyone is an "AI algorithm" just like Google search. Aside from the shear scale, number of connections mostly, there is nothing all that remarkable about the hardware it's running on.
I love how an AGI algorithm is presented in the follow up to the Battlestar Galactica series, "Caprica". Zoe Graystone explains it at one point in the series. It's fiction of course, but still. Her algorithm searches the internet, your computer, and everything and anything it can find for pictures and videos of it's "target" and then builds the function "given situation X, what would <human> do ?" and then puts the algorithm in a virtual body that looks like the human, and uploads it to V-world. She runs it on herself, a friend and accidentally on a third person she doesn't know and then proceeds to get herself blown up by a friend/terrorist (they can be both at the same time, you know) in the first episode, and their avatars wake up in V-world, sort of a facebook virtual reality edition, unaware of what has happened (and as V-world is mostly used for sex, dancing and debauchery it's not that easy to find out unless you're looking for it). Currently we don't have nearly enough data on any person to make this work ... but I am pretty convinced it is possible to make this work.
This would work, since it's doing the same thing your brain does when it hears the question "do you remember feeling happy when your mother held you when you were a baby ?". First, your brain doesn't actually remember that either way. It simply works it's way through to a good answer to that question. The thing it'll do is predict how you should answer that question, given (mostly) how other humans answer that question.
This is a very different problem from "lying about its childhood", specifically it's much more solvable. Can I predict how humans would answer questions about their childhood ? Certainly. Easy. Make the algorithm take enough contextual information into account (so that it both realizes what realistic answers are and either answers realistically or responds in a way that humans respond when they don't have a "good prediction" for an answer, for instance by saying they don't remember, or by changing the subject, or ...)
If you have young kids you will see this process in action. You have to "teach" kids memory. When they talk only a little, if you ask them something about earlier that day, they will respond. And the response makes sense, but it's not actually what happened. You will at some point realise this and correct them. Correcting them teaches them to match up what happened with their response, because they learn to predict that that's what's expected of people. Over time this correcting them will work, and they will have learned memory (and then they learn to lie, especially on questions like "did you hit your sister ?", and when that ends badly they learn to "not lie", like adults do. "Did you hit your sister ?" "She stole my lego").
Note that the underlying memory is also a prediction. If I ask you what happened this morning, and you want to try to answer correctly, you will start with an obvious fact (which isn't necessarily the truth), like "I woke up". Your brain will take that thought, and predict (not remember) what happened next. So I woke up, ok next, brushing teeth, ok next, read cell phone messages, ok next, ... ah ! the answer to the question.
The thing is, there's Amazon and Netflix which covers most movies and shows in the US.
Unfortunately it's JUST in the US. Netflix UK for example doesn't have Caprica. That was on Lovefilm ... then it's not Amazon prime now has it as Pay per view.
I was watching StarTrek TNG on Netflix last week. Started at the start of Season Three. Suddenly it disappears from my "Resume watching list". A quick search of it later only Season Four and later is available.
The Matrix, not on Netflix UK.
I could go on.
Studios need to stop thinking in terms of DVD sales, and regions and understand that the global market WILL NOT WAIT, and WILL NOT TOLERATE this behavior and look for other ways to watch movies/shows that they want to watch.
I didn't mean that good art can't be one of a kind. I meant that art as a whole isn't a rare resource.
Also, what if the art is a photograph?
As for art consumption, that's a big topic, but I wish we made an effort to find relevance to our own lives for something we learn or recognize in art. We do this relatively well for music. We recognize metaphors and themes for betrayal, redemption, and shame in songs.
When it comes to visual art or literature, we become suspicious when someone suggests we could interpret someone's hair being dyed as a benediction. We worry about the artist's intent to show symbols, but barely recognize them if the intent is clear. The Syfy TV series "Caprica" had an unclothed woman suggestively holding an apple in its ads, but how many people consciously recognized it as biblical allegory?
[1] http://www.impawards.com/tv/posters/caprica.jpg
That isn't the question though, once you know you are living in a simulation what happens? This was a very interesting question that was raised in the TV show Caprica (a Battlestar Galactica prequel series). If you know it is a simulation then you can just do what ever the heck you want, reboot/restart when necessary. Doesn't make for interesting cinema or literature as the question of future value / future outcome vs present action / inaction is what creates tension.
I wonder what would happen to a show like Firefly[1] or Jericho[2] Caprica[3]if they were suspended after the first season, and the studio put up a kickstarter saying "We'll cancel unless we get $2m from fans of the show".
At least those shows do stand a chance with fan-backing. Something like 'Rubicon' would, I think, totally fail at kickstarter even though it was good.
[1] A great show. I'm not sure how well it would have lasted with the traditional US "spin out a series for as long as possible" format. But, with careful plotting, it would have been an amazing 3 season (12 episodes per season) show.
EDIT: Fox hates the Firefly fanbase. (http://io9.com/fox-bans-the-sale-of-unlicensed-jayne-hats-from-firefly-471820413) Really, this is just open contempt for people who are willingly promoting your content.
[2] I really wanted to like this. I did like the first series. I really wanted an OQO (the tiny handheld computer that one of the characters has). But the second series was daft. This could have been a pretty good show and it's a shame it's gone.
[3] Caprica was good, I thought. Had some interesting concepts.
That was a great conceipt for the TV series "Caprica". In reality, it's completely nonsensical!
Unfortunately "monad" gets used in a few contexts unrelated to the sense the OP is asking about. Similarly, the (cancelled) TV series Caprica recently started using "monad" to mean "monotheist".
There's a TV series (Caprica) based around that...