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Devs
2020 · TV series · 52 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Alex Garland
Science FictionFantasyDramaMystery
Young computer engineer Lily Chan investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a cutting-edge tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the murder of her boyfriend.
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51 comments on Hacker News
The missing piece of data that distinguishes what happened to nerds and to finance bros is that nerds got sold on post-religious cults like Landmark, The Secret, or the metastasized principles thereof (see also Silicon Valley s01’s guru, the marketing for Devs, the documentary The Institute, et al.) — but finance bros were insulated against this because their employers and industry had rigorous belief systems already in place centered around money, profits, and self-confidence; and, most importantly, a much higher tolerance for arrogance.
So, in Civ6 terms: Nerds didn’t have an existing industry pantheon that could stand up to religious pressure by non-religious entities. This is part of what made Jobs and Apple so successful: arrogance is a stellar defense against religious pressure, and Jobs was implemented a rigorous culture that resists religious pressure very strongly. It’s not invulnerable to sects from within, but it’s nearly impenetrable to sects from without.
There’s also a subtler reason why Jobs and Woz could coexist at all: Jobs wasn’t arrogant and cruel to people because he looked down upon them; he was arrogant and cruel to ideas, and so to work with him, that detachment of idea from self-worth and ego and etc. was mandatory.
To use Woz and Jobs as a constructed spectrum analogy: Everyone perceives me as being more like Woz than Jobs interpersonally, though never fully Woz (I’m a little too distant for the tastes of the gregarious), until they invite me to critique their ideas or listen to my describe my own, at which point they (permanently thereafter) perceive me as being much more towards the Jobs end of the scale. It can be somewhat isolating and uncomfortable to ride alongside someone like that long-term, but that’s compensated for somewhat by having a work culture that prioritizes hallway chats over cubicle farms. (No coincidence the UFO, then!)
Most nerds lacked the arrogance and unconcern for other people’s feelings that insulated Woz against the belief grifters, and instead have what we see in Elon Musk: a deep and desperate craving for other people to like them, to value them, to adore them. (Praise him.) So of course most successful nerds fell prey to the basic grift that hooks people on religious and secular cults every day: “we’ll sell you a feeling of belonging, of being valued, in exchange for your adoption and propagation of our beliefs”. Jobs didn’t give a fuck if you propagated his beliefs or not, so long as you adhered to them at work; and Woz clearly doesn’t need to belong to be confident in his value to others.
Zuckerberg is a good example of someone who has the arrogance/asocial of Jobs down pat, but in contrast is fully decoupled from prosocial outcomes. Investigating what the guiding forces in Jobs’ life were that directed him towards prosocial outcomes, rather than asocial outcomes like Zuckerberg, would perhaps be quite revealing; Jobs built a company that tends to minimize harm to its customers, while Zuckerberg built a company that tends to maximize harm to its customers, but both succeeded at building institutions that resist external religious pressures. That’s a distinction missed by this post, and separates the outcomes neatly into a simple 2x2 matrix: asocial/prosocial (Jobs), asocial/apathetic (Zuckerberg), social/confident (Woz), social/needy (Musk).
So, your theory says it's about prediction, estimation, extrapolation? Like a Kalman filter?
I'm thinking of the first episode of Alex Garland minisery Devs, where a somewhat brilliant Russian guy demos predicting the exact movements of a bacteria. That would be proof that the model works. And even it it were to mispredict, most of the time, it sounds plausible.
The TV Series Devs explores this concept as well. It is decently executed, but it is a bit too cringe for my liking (supposedly world-class "devs" working on those keyboards you often see in museums, the protagonist having a fibonacci-off to establish engineering creds). Anyway, might be fun!
Also, the show Devs (2020), by Alex Garland. The joke is "Devs Ex Machina", Ex Machina being another film of his.
great recommndations, Patriot is amazing dark comedy with great atmosphere, SR is great semi-documentary about alien planet ecosystem, very peaceful, didn't like CSE and Counterpart though
I would suggest also Devs just for the visuals and Tales from the Loop for the most peaceful TV show I've ever seen
For a minute I was like (spoiler alert) « wow the creepy sci-fi theories from the DEVS tv show is taking place »… then I looked up the video and that’s just video generation at this point
Devs is an American science fiction thriller television miniseries created, written, and directed by Alex Garland. It premiered on March 5, 2020, on FX on Hulu.
The series explores themes related to free will and determinism, as well as Silicon Valley. It received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its imagination, cinematography, acting, and soundtrack.
This gives me Devs vibe (2020 TV Series) - https://www.indiewire.com/awards/industry/devs-cinematography-rob-hardy-alex-garland-1234583396/
Interesting article, but no reference to "DEVS"? Prediction of the worms behaviour is a key scene[1] in the opening episode.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEfyT3vLD2c
I always watch The Matrix on NYE. The ending just makes me feel like "Alright, bring it on New Year." It is the greatest movie of all time.
Don't watch Inception, if it hits you like it hit me it is emotionally debilitating and you'll be sad until February. Tenet is cool.
Ex Machina is unsettling but good.
"Devs" is a short series that is Ex Machina-esque in feel. Weird but good.
The 5th Element is best for beer drinking fun NYE.
- Ghost in the Shell (1, then 2)
- Children of Men
- Stalker
- Solaris
- Blade Runner 2049
- Devs (a brief tv show, but just one shot the whole series)
- Contact
- Under the Skin
- Paprika
- Annihilation
- Arrival
- Ex Machina
- The 5th Element
- The Substance
- Primer
- Tenet
- Upstream Color
- 12 Monkeys
- Her
As an aside, The TV Miniseries 'DEVS' covers freewill in an interesting way.
The TV show, is I believe, based on a book.
DEVS focuses on the question of if humans exhibit freewill to make choices, or are our choices determined by the preceding events?
Where I suppose, if we can reason, can we then make choices (freewill) based on the outcome of our reasoning?
There was a TV miniseries/movie a few years ago called "DEVS" that was shot in part at UCSC - science hill and the engineering library emerging from the mist was unmistakable. (Not defending or promoting the show.) That coastal morning fog...
There's also a decent (not documentary) limited series that explores the idea of determinism. It's pretty good and may be of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_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
Not GP but I also find it somewhat hard to like a TV show, so hopefully that qualifies me :)
The last one that blew my mind was "Severance", and before that "Devs". Both have a very different mood/aesthetic than Breaking Bad, though.
So many works of science fiction deal with illusion of choice, but they typically go the time travel route to make their point.
But for my money, nothing beats Alex Garland's miniseries Devs for the way the entire production is designed around the idea of a deterministic universe. They really try to get you believing and feeling the reality.
What would it feel like to be in a deterministic universe? To have the certain knowledge? Dread isn't quite it, but to contradict the OP a bit, something like existential terror is an understandable reaction. To quote from a poem appropriated in the show, "the mind blanks at the glare."
Great cast, original concept, single writer/director's vision, what else do you need?
Thank you, I never knew this is what Devs was about. I'm now watching the third episode already!
Basically the plot of the wonderful TV series "Devs". Well worth the time investment.
The Devs is an amazing mini-series, and I think highly underrated (or just unknown) among the nerds. The summary doesn't really give away how big the plot gets.
> the formation of what he’s calling xAI, whose goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe.”
Sounds ( a bit ) like the plot of Devs: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/
Reminds me of the first episode of Devs ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/ ) where an artificial intelligence engineer does a demo about syncing, and then predicting the future movements of a nematode worm. Great show by the way!
Well yes, I mean, all simulations are, right? You put as much real-life data in as you can, but everything's an abstraction unless you're the team from the Devs tv series.
Devs. it is a miniseries and has only marginally to do with AI. you will enjoy it none the less. also there is Westworld. and ghost in the shell (and matrix, of course) Ex Machina is great, too.
Not movies but worth it:
- Devs (also by Alex Garland, director of Ex Machina) - admittedly doesn’t fit suuper neatly with the other topic recommendations but you’ll probably like it
- Can’t Get You Out of My Head by Adam Curtis
- Westworld
I wonder if this was an inspiration to the "Devs" miniseries. Won't say more about it for fear of ruining it. Amazing show.
I thought season 3 was good. Better than Season 1. The plot was relevant in the world of big data. The show Devs had this kind of theme as well. It asks interesting philosophical questions. But yes, Season 1 had more artistry and nostalgia.
Devs is a great mini-series that has similar themes.
Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction film directed by Alex Garland. A computer programmer is employed by a billionaire to assess whether a human-looking robot is sentient. Maybe not quite a 'hacker' theme.
Although the film is highly rated, I found the premise more intriguing than what the film delivers. For me, the film was OK, not great. But I encourage you to watch and make up you own opinion.
Garland has also written and directed a 2020 TV series was Devs, which I haven't seen. For anyone's seen it - is it any good?
For those interested in this but haven't heard of the show DEVS [0] yet, it explores and asks questions about consciousness and determinism, being the central themes of the story.
[0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/
Much like the parent is the plot of an X-Files episode, this is the plot of Devs. They just kind of handwaved away the resolution issue with some nod to many worlds interpretation. Of course, as they noted in the show, the ability to reconstruct the past this way implies you can also predict the future using the same technique.
I was going to suggest the HBO film "Reminiscence", which was panned as mediocre but I liked it for being Noir and somewhat original. It features a machine that can replay your own memories and record them for others -- useful for investigating crime, but otherwise highly addictive to the nostalgic.
Reading about The Dead Past tho, there's a good deal of overlap with the plot device of "Devs", a periscope into deep history, but which Nick Offerman's character uses to re-live moments of his daughter's short life, as Asimov's protagonist does.
Very cool and probably useful but won't the ai perhaps make wrong predictions since it's based on current knowledge?
I assume it's a good tool to make more meaningful interpretations of the past and it sounds a bit like the devs of this watched Devs the tv show and got the idea :)
It's not an entirely uninteresting idea that he is presenting in that TEDx talk, although I can't see how it would be the basis of a business. It's very similar to the premise of the TV show "Devs" on Hulu.
I wonder how your ex-partner feels about the fact that this book exists documenting his missteps and misfortunes. Ironically, with your book, you have created a durable artifact of the type that he described in his talk, giving people a chance to replay a portion of his lived experience.
The TV show DEVS has a computer that looks a lot like those first three links. I always thought their prop was a set designer's imagination run wild, not actually based in what quantum computers look like.
> Makes me think of the series DEVS where a big Silicon Valley company also uses their security force in a similar manner, I never thought that would be the part that was the most accurate.
This was my first thought when I read about the eBay accusations last year. That said, I've worked for a broad spectrum of Bay Area companies and I think pretty much everything environmental and atmospheric in DEVS was accurate. It was a better take on tech companies and their personalities than, say, "Silicon Valley," and watching it gave me a lot of uncomfortable deja vu. Highly recommended if you are in tech, ever watch TV, and haven't seen it.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Alison Pill (played Kim Pine in Scott Pilgrim vs the World) in Devs.
I guess she was in at least one episode of ST:PIC but I haven't followed up on that.
Replying to myself: What about "Devs"? Not a movie but...
https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/devs
I think there was a PET in the Hulu series "Devs", but I'll need someone to help verify. It was in one of the lobby sitting areas.
It's also in almost every episode in "The IT Crowd", behind where Moss sits.
If you liked this story you should definetly check out the TV show DEVS[1]. It's very well produced and good performance. I loved it.
[1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/
And.. what if, when you run it forward ahead of the present time, you come to a point where the simulation just crashes and you can't simulate ahead of that point no matter what you do?
This is the premise of the tv series Devs. Cool idea but super-bad execution, it just devolves into a standard bad-guy hunting good-guys with pistols story..
Yeah, I really enjoyed it even though there were some slower parts like the slugs (and I found the Holden character irritating).
Somewhat tangential, it's wild to me that Devs was suggested alongside The Expanse in that Clubhouse Elon chat. I thought Devs was unwatchable. There's a point in the first episode where they're just saying fibonacci out loud to show how 'smart' they are. I looked up some of the plot after that to see what I was missing and it didn't look like it was going to get better.
I was pleasantly surprised watching the tv show Devs when they made very effective use of "Come out"
If you enjoyed this story and you’re a TV watcher, I highly recommend the mini-series Devs. Especially if you ever worked at a FAANG :)
For reference, op is probably referring to something like this:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/CEO-Forum_IBM-50Q-system_thumb.jpg
As a side note, this was probably also the computer that inspired Alex Garland's tv series Devs since the show's quantum computer looked like this:
https://media.wired.com/photos/5e5ede941e06690008353d15/Backchannel-DEVS_SET_014.jpg
This was recently used for the architecture of the eponymous DEVS division in this highly recommended mini-series - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186/
I figured out that trick recently too! It worked really well for "Devs". Every episode of a cliff-hanger-y show tends to have a point 1/3 of the way through where they have resolved the previous episode's tension but not yet started the next one. I stop right there.
Devs (2020, FX/Hulu). Not a movie, but movie-like (8-part series).
I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the traditional religious god. But Devs presents a fascinating framework for what that could look like that passes the nerd/science test (with some obvious creative/technological liberties).
I've been trying to grok where Wolfram is heading with this approach, and I just had a minor epiphany, probably brought on by binge-watching Devs: All of the rules he's constructing and using seem to be deterministic.
And here I was thinking Kenton from "Devs" was an unrealistic character.
*Devs ep 1 and 2 spoilers in the article
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/devs-kenton-character-episode-2-explained-spoilers-recap
Okay really weird to see this come up because just a few days ago I saw a video about reductionism in science and free will, I think it was a John Searle lecture.
I find the idea of life as an organizing force that locally reduces entropy and 'offloads' disorder on the environment deeply compelling, and what I wondered was, does this not put a pretty big nail into reductionist scientific worldviews that argue purely in terms of bottom-up physical explanations?
Is there some account of life at the level of particles that could ever give a reasonable description of the behavior we observe, or is the existence of living organisms evidence of some sort of genuine top-down causality?
The reason why I was looking into this was the TV show Devs that toys with the idea of determinism and the idea that even though someone could look at a prediction of their future, they could not change it, and to me this made sense if the world could be purely explained in terms of bottom-up physics, but I started to scratch my head if decision making could actually go top-down.
Anyway slightly rambly post but if someone has a book, or essay or some other reading recommendation on this I'd appreciate it.