Motley - Volume XIV - Issue #3 - Artificial Intelligence

Volume 14 Issue 3 November 2020

A CONVERSATION WITH GOOGLE'S PETER NORVIG

ILLUSTRATIONS BY RUTH O'CONNELL

INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT SHEEHAN

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Masthead

Editorial Staff

MOLLY KAVANAGH Deputy Editor-in-Chief Molly is a recent UCC English graduate who is now doing an MSc in Government and Politics. She's also our former Deputy Current Affairs Editor, and is overseeing Motley's brand new Wellness Section!

HILARY BARRY Designer

Hilary Barry is currently a student of Music and English and co-host of the Break it Down Podcast. As the the new graphic designer she hopes to bring her love for design and illustrations to the pages of Motley.

ALANA DALY MULLIGAN

NIAMH BROWNE

JACK COLEMAN

GRACE CLARO

Current Affairs

Features & Opinions

Entertainment

Fashion

Alana Daly Mulligan is an award-winning spoken-word “artivist” & filmmaker of Déise extraction. With work tackling social issues by playing with heartstrings, she hopes to apply her artistic formula to her role as Motley current affairs editor.

Prolific writer and notorious flirt, Niamh Browne is currently completing a BA in art history and philosophy and is this year's features and opinion editor for Motley Magazine. Winner of the HotPress outstanding achievement award in 2018, she has since been staff writer for Motley.

Jack Coleman is a third-year Government student, who got his start in student media in second year as Gaming Editor for the Express. Making the not-so-controversial controversial decision to join Motley, Jack looks to produce peoplefocused content that appeals to all students.

Grace Claro has been a fashion photographer with Motley since 2018.

She is taking the MA in History this year.

Working with the magazine all began with a zealous email to the editor. This is something which she encourages everyone to do, as Motley is a wonderful platform to amplify student voices .and creativity.

DEPUTY EDITORS Current Affairs Features & Opinions Entertainment Fashion

Stephen Moynihan Emer Walsh Rebeckah McCarthy Kaia Purcell

STAFF WRITERS Head Staff Writer Current Affairs Staff Writer Fashion Staff Writer Contributing Staff Writer

Kane Geary O Keeffe John Hunter Emma Treacy John Hunter

PHOTOGRAPHERS Carly Fitzgerlad Rebecca Dineen Diego Leon

CONTRIBUTORS Mike Ryan Dr. Miranda Corcoran Shivka Marwaha Célio Fioretti John Finbarr McGare

Deirdre Heffernan Colm Maye Marten Hass Jack Van Lang Billy O'Connor

ONLINE TEAM Online Editor Social Media

Grace Byers Erica Shelly

This publication is made from 100% recycled paper. Motley welcomes letters from readers, emailed to editor@motley.ie. Motley is published by Motley Magazine, The Hub, UCC, Western Road, Cork. Printed by City Print Limited, Victoria Cross, Cork. Copyright 2020 Motley Magazine. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. All efforts have been made to ensure that details and pricing are correct at time of print. Motley magazine does not take responsibility for any errors incurred. This magazine can be recycled either in your green bin kerbside collection or at a local recycling point. Images provided by Unsplash.com Vectors provided by Vecteezy.com and Freepik.com

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from the

Editor's Desk

Matthew Moynihan

Editor In-Chief

“ALEXA, WRITE EDITORIAL”.

T

o say it’s been a consequential few weeks since I last wrote to you would be the understatement of the century, or maybe just 2020, it’s been a long year.

Across the pond, the human manifestation of the tanline has been booted from office, with his rightwing allies continuing their delicate balance of politically fellating him and quietly distancing themselves like they’ve just left a stinker in the elevator to Q+3, but don’t want to take responsibility for the smell left behind. (Cough: Mitch McConnell).

In positive international news (yes, this exists), we now have two effective COVID-19 vaccines which should mitigate the damage of the pandemic and allow some semblance of normality to return in early-to-mid 2021. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have been producing vaccines with clinical trial results showing over 94% efficacy.

There is a sense that the long Orwellian night we’ve all been living through is on the precipice of being quelled by a pharmaceutical sunrise.

Domestically, it has been a mess, particularly politically. The only positive aspect of this mess is that it helps me move onto the theme of this month’s issue: Artificial Intelligence.

The Government could have done with the support of AI this month. Given our politicians already do the “artificial” bit rather well, I reckon the addition of some “intelligence” could have been quite useful. The past month has been a car-crash display of human error litanised in supreme court drama, our Tánaiste caught leaking in public (no, not that kind) and Ministers playing hide-and-seek from both the Dáil and the public (see also: Helen McEntee).

Should we just replace our Ministers with robots? At least the rehearsed delivery of soundbites would make sense, and we could account for their inability to directly answer a question. However, I digress.

With all the societal progress made through advancements in Artificial Intelligence in recent years, we’ve developed a very definite level of dependence on it. Much gets lost in the discourse, and as AI is such an abstract concept to most of us, a certain level of fear tends to take hold when we approach the subject. When you hear “Artificial Intelligence” it’s more likely you’ll remember

some fever dream where the robots were coming to get you than the last time you said “OK Google, give me directions to *insert obscure location*”. Beware though, we have developed dependence on algorithms we ourselves have created, so instead of being dependent on AI, we’re dependent on the human beings who develop, maintain and improve it. Remember, in order to hold AI systems to account, we need to hold the people that created them into account. As such, it’s important to pause, and examine one of the most consequential opportunities and challenges that will take place in the 21st century.

This issue is incredibly ambitious, precisely because it talks about a broad, significant and complex theme. On more than one occasion in the past month, I’m certain my editorial staff have grappled with the desire to roundhouse kick their Editor-in-Chief with the force of a UFC fighter for picking such a specific theme. Admittedly, put in their position I’d probably do the same. As always, however, they have delivered with a nuanced, diverse and comprehensive issue on an incredibly heterogenous topic. I couldn’t be prouder of them and what we’re doing as a team at Motley this year.

In this month’s Motley you’ll find interviews with Google’s Director of Research Peter Norvig and The Umbrella Academy’s Robert Sheehan alongside the wonderful humour of Niamh Browne who attempted to get AI bots to write articles, and Motley’s own Mystic Mc’s horoscopes. All this and so much more, including an illustrated photoshoot and our most comprehensive Entertainment section to date.

The past month has shown me one thing above all else: journalists will never be replaced by Artificial Intelligence. It’s the human touch that makes you read these pages, it’s the flair of our writers that engages you and it’s the hope of one day doing the same that drives you to make your first submission.

Lest I remind you - these are your pages and this is your space. Reach out beyond that nagging fear that’s holding you back and get involved in Ireland’s best student publication. We'll happily walk you through the bewildering maze of your first article, whilst you push us beyond the borders of our prior conceptions. We’re called Motley for a reason.

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ISSUE No3 - NOVEMBER 2020 MOTLEY.IE

CURRENT AFFAIRS

FEATURES

ENTERTAINMENT

FASHION

Neil Deshmukh discusses the ways artificial intelligence is revolutionising farming

Motley's Emer Walsh interviews Robert Sheehan

Musician Banríon discusses Dublin's DIY Scene with Motley's Alana Daly Mulligan

Illustrations by Cork artists Ruth O'Connell (Ruthismessy)

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P. 24

P. 35

P. 10

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THE POWER OF

YOGA S

tressed and sore. Two words which pretty much sum up how my mental and physical state was this time last year. In the depths of winter, juggling final year assignments and working weekends at home, I felt completely zapped of all my energy. Many long nights were spent hunched over my laptop screen, desperately trying to cram the entire semester’s worth of study in before the influx of deadlines. Doubtless, I was experiencing all sorts of neck and shoulder pain from my terrible desk posture. A friend suggested that practicing yoga might remedy the issue, and so I decided to try it out and see for myself.

Before getting into my ‘journey’ let me just level with you and admit that I was skeptical of the efficacy of yoga in general. Meditation was ok, but yoga just looked like a lot of hard work, balancing postures, and awkward stances. I was also wary of perceived pretensions and the Westernization of a five-thousand year-old ancient Indian ritual practice. That said, my back hurt and my mind was a cluttered mess so I decided to give it some merit and have a go.

In order to adapt to the strange times we are currently living in, I am going to go ahead and rule out suggesting yoga classes to attend and instead suggest you head to the Yoga With Adriene channel on YouTube. Presented by actress and yogi, Adriene Mischler (unrelated, but she was in a movie with Nicholas Cage a few years ago), it is

UCC Wellness

GRACE CLARO DISCUSSES THE BENEFITS OF YOGA FOR STRUNG-OUT STUDENTS DURING EXAM SEASON

the most popular yoga channel on the platform and for good reason.

Her chilled out, genuine ethos is welcoming and non-judgemental, not aesthetically superficial like some other channels on YouTube. Watching an instructor practicing on a rooftop in Greece, wind in her hair, casually folding herself into a One Arm Compass pose while you sit breathless in bemusement in front of the television. This is definitely not my preference. With Adriene’s tutorials you can practice in the comfort of your own home without feeling like you are coming last in a virtual flexibility contest.

In January I managed to complete the 30 day yoga challenge.

Anyone thinking of getting into yoga should definitely try doing a daily practice for at least two weeks because it is a great way to immerse in the basics and build up strength. Although my shoulder pain was definitely alleviated, I was dismayed at the lack of flexibility I had initially and felt discouraged by my seeming lack of progress. It was in lockdown in March that the real benefits started to show. Doing some yoga in the evenings gave me a sense of purpose and some mental calm in the midst of the chaos of doing final exams in a global shutdown.

Covid restrictions have meant that all of us are significantly less mobile these days. The body is an energetic force that needs to be moved and used. Yoga practice tones the entire body, and coupled with deep

breathing or pranayama it has huge benefits for mental wellbeing too. It can help increase balance, flexibility, joint stability, and muscle mass. You can also weave in some sit-ups or bicycle reps for a hybrid workout which is arguably more chill and enjoyable than full on HIT sessions. Yoga can also foster a feeling of gratitude and appreciation for your body, which is a great confidence booster.

Even President Michael D. Higgins has his own personal yoga instructor, Michael Ryan. Yoga, believe the hype! This just goes to show that yoga practice is available to everyone, regardless of age, gender, or athletic ability. As Adriene says, if more people did yoga, and “checked in” with themselves more regularly, the world would be a much more peaceful place (and we would all be able to touch our toes!) Namaste.

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Current Affairs

Searching for Good A Conversation with Google’s Peter Norvig “Google started out, and really, Google couldn’t do anything.” Peter Norvig tells me. This was definitely something I wasn’t expecting to hear from the mouth of the Director of Research at Google. He elaborates and says that the last 15 years have been essential in the development of the company from the humble search browser beginnings, to not only a source of answers, but a solution to them. I start by asking Norvig how he would Google himself without using his name. He chuckles. “That would be harder,” he replies. I get it. After all, he’s one of the world’s foremost minds on Artificial Intelligence. Before taking on his current role, he was the director of Google’s core search algorithms group, as well as the co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, one of the leading textbooks in the field. “I guess at heart CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITOR ALANA DALY MULLIGAN TALKS WITH GOOGLE’S DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH PETER NORVIG ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE; THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE MISUNDERSTOOD.

6 |NOVEMBER 2020

I’m just a programmer,” he says, eminently humble, “I think of AI as a way of communicating with machines in a more natural fashion. In traditional programming, you have to be an expert, you need to have these skills, you need to be able to write down instructions that a computer can understand.

In artificial intelligence and machine learning, we try to make that easier by saying rather than having to tell the computer what to do step by step, just tell it what you want and show it some examples and let it learn from that data.”

I wanted to talk to Norvig about how Artificial Intelligence helps us learn, given the fact that many students around the world are operating from a ‘University of Bed” basis for over two months. Norvig is one of the leaders in the field of online-learning–his 100,000 student class at Stanford in Fall 2011 is perhaps one of his more well-known feats among those outside the realms of his research. For Norvig, AI has instantly been connected with the importance of knowing how students learn most effectively with the result of better teaching. While there is most certainly promise there, he thinks the progress we have made in AI and digital learning has been slow for a number of reasons: ”One is I overestimated the value of the content [of the lesson] and

underestimated the value of the personal relations and I think that really the key to learning is a close relationship and a desire to be part of a team.” This is certainly something many students can relate to given the current circumstances. The desire to have a group of friends to learn with or the in-person support of a human. “Motivation is more important than information,” Norvig tells me, “so the online stuff was going in the direction of being less personal, less motivating.”

The second reason Norvig gives for the slow materialisation of online learning success is quite simply the pace at which we can gather data on students learning: “What we sometimes find out in order to be able to predict two years into the future, you have to run students through two years-worth of classes! There are no shortcuts, you can’t do it faster than real-time. And that’s true in education, in other areas we’ve been able to take shortcuts…in education, we don’t have a good model of how a student’s brain works and what helps them learn or not learn. So we can’t create any simulations and we’re left learning from real life, one year at a time.”

With these speedbumps in sight, I ask Norvig what’s the future of AI and education? “One of the things I’m really interested in is at the creation end.”

He elaborates that he wants to create tools for teachers and students that make it easier to create classes and get feedback on them. Imagine an application like Google Docs but instead of opening a word-processing document, it opens a teaching-processing document that allows you to plan lessons, collate interactions with students, get feedback, improve both the online classroom and in-person learning environment. It is an exciting thought. He also sees flaws in the tools that currently exist and says we need to improve on what we have so that expert knowledge is not required to operate: “I like to collect really good examples of learning experiences, and when I see really good ones, it’s from someone who’s an expert in ten different things! Where they have to really understand their subject matter, really have to understand how to be a good teacher and understand this video tool and web programming tool...that’s not really going to scale, we can’t rely on everybody being an expert in ten things.”

The big general question, of course, is what should we be afraid of when it comes to AI? He puts my mind at ease, Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t be going all Terminator on us quite yet, but tells me it’s the less obvious changes we should worry about: “You should be wary of any new powerful technology so I’m glad that people are starting to think about the possible societal effects of AI, it’s not that the robots are going to take over and try to go after us, it’s that we’re going to take over and give [AI] the power the same way we gave automobiles the power, and we should make sure we do that in the right way.”

After the education warm-up round to fuel me with faith in humanity, I ask some more uncomfortable questions. Launching right in, I ask if Google and other tech companies are exploiting people through poorly understood consent requirements online, as well as loopholes in international law, and how should this be dealt with? “I spent a bunch of time recently almost as a grief counselor for somebody on our team who was doing the GDPR compliance because it was just such a mess and it was our fault.” He says, half-joking, but mostly not. We laugh regardless, oh GDPR you old soand-so.

He offers me a four-pronged approach to the solutions in exploitation, citing the self-policing of companies, new industry standards, the influence of governments and the mediation of third-party groups as ways to protect the individual online as the Age of Data continues to spiral outwards: “We should’ve been doing that all along, it's not that we’re trying to get away from that it’s just that all this bookkeeping is hard and we didn’t do it because we didn’t have to in every case, but now we have to. The end result will be a better one.”

From that, clearly feeling in a cheery mood, I ask Norvig about Google’s old slogan “don’t be evil” which was axed as the company line a little under a decade ago. Was the rapid-development of tech meaning that companies were leaving morals on the sidelines? It wasn’t the most original line of questioning, but an important one nonetheless. “I think the world is becoming much more complicated.”

He answers; “When the ‘don’t be evil' slogan came out, the company was 200 people all in the one building and it was good to have an overall message. Everyone had the same understanding of what evil was...But when you’re 100,000 people spread across the world, it’s harder to do that.” The globalisation of the company means there is no copy-and-paste setting to put the nuanced Western idea of ‘evil’ on other countries, procedures and guidelines now light the way. He reiterates that just because the slogan is gone, that doesn’t mean Google is endorsing “be evil”, if anything “Google feels a much stronger responsibility to be a good citizen”, he says.

Good citizenship is something Norvig mentioned a few times throughout the interview, and it seems to be central to the messaging he believes Google is trying to portray. He says it’s important to be informed, even if just as citizens. He points out that AI has crept into our lives in subtle ways, and it will keep doing so. Good is there, as is bad, it’s all about what you want to find, what you search for.

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 7

MACHINATIONS The Effects of AI on the Job Market

IT’S A SIMPLE FACT THAT WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, MANY INDUSTRIES ARE SWAPPING OUT HUMAN WORKERS FOR MACHINE ONES, AND INCREASINGLY FROM SECTORS PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT TO BE SAFE FROM SUCH DEVELOPMENTS. BUT THIS ISN’T NEW INFORMATION...TADHG MACCIONNAITH DISCUSSES. Artificial Intelligence is often seen as a threatening thing largely thanks to the idea that AI will represent something created by humanity with a completely alien outlook. This can be seen in the classics of Sci-fi from I, Robot in how the supposed three laws of robotics come to be interpreted, to the much more sinister and purposeful callousness of the AI displayed in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. More current popular culture will point to the likes of Skynet from the Terminator franchise as some kind of apocalypseinducing inheritor of the earth, or the rampancy of the Halo games exploring the potential for degradation of the AI themselves. But for all the drama and pathos of these approaches to the topic, one of the less glamorous threats posed by AI has always been primarily economic in nature.

The industrial revolution in the wake of the Enlightenment has played a seismic role in shaping the society we endure today. It is also the point in human history where mechanisation became the prevalent societal force, with the efficiency of machines revolutionising production.

This brings us to the plight of the Luddites.

Starting out as a band of textile artisans, the Luddites (often written-off as anti-progress technophobes) were those craftspeople made redundant by the ongoing implementation of automation. At first, the craftspeople were enthused at the introduction of machines, with their work being assisted by their use. Even some whose jobs were replaced entirely could find work operating the machinery that changed their livelihood. However, the motivation for mechanisation was not their quality of life. Not only would the cramped and unsafe conditions of emergent industry detrimentally impact workers, craftspeople saw less returns for their work. Those textile workers who attempted to operate outside of these early factories found themselves outcompeted by swathes of cheap cloth produced in the exploitative conditions flooding the market. Outraged at these developments, artisans armed themselves and went

8 | NOVEMBER 2020

about destroying the facilitators of their exploitation, the machines.

Robotics and AI are increasingly being funded for use in the workplace, with automated assemblies already visible in the likes of the automotive industry. It pays to be aware that a primary reason for this is the efficiency drive for business. The production model we operate under offers the maxim that humans work to live, not live to work. With this in mind, how are we to reconcile this rationalisation with the very real human cost it will have for those who either lose their jobs or have their pay diminished? AI in particular has the potential to affect jobs traditionally deemed more safe from such things, perhaps even the education sector.

This question is not a new one. 1892 saw the publishing of The Conquest of Bread, an examination of how society is organised with special reference to technology.

Machines and systems, which can do so much for so little, have the rewards of their production concentrated in an owner rather than those who operate them or the wider community. As stated in The Conquest of Bread itself;

Will the gradual introduction of AI to a working environment uphold the status quo or can we make it more

“Truly, we are rich, far richer than we think;[...] richest of all in what we might win from our soil, from our manufactures, from our science, from our technical knowledge, were they, but applied to bringing about the well-being of all.” beneficial for wider society, beyond private interests? No matter the outcome, it’s important to consider lessons from the past and have a vision for the future when talking about AI. Would you like to be educated by an AI? Should the workplace be more democratic? How else will machines affect society going forward? Let us know what you think @ MotleyMagazine on Twitter!

THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT: Why we need to continue researching space amidst global catastrophe THE 21ST CENTURY, WITH ALL ITS PROGRESS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, HAS ENABLED US TO REACH MARS, DEVELOP ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND SO MUCH MORE….YET, A SINGLE VIRUS HAS BROUGHT US TO A COMPLETE STANDSTILL IN A MATTER OF WEEKS. SHIVIKA MARWAHA DISCUSSES IF THERE SHOULD BE CHANGES IN PRIORITIES FOR SCIENCE AND RESEARCH IN FUTURE. “What good is it to conduct microgravity experiments when children are starving? Why smash particles together when Puerto Rico is still without power? And why study the esoteric mating habits of endangered species when nuclear war threatens our planet?” asks Ethan Seigel in his Forbes article. Don’t get me wrong, going to Mars and developing artificial intelligence (AI) are significant leaps made by mankind but why do we endeavour to seek solutions to long term problems? Does this suggest that global problems such as poverty are not significant enough? The answer, in short, is that the world’s greatest issues require long term investments. These investments may not necessarily result in immediate solutions but that should not impede the progress being made by applying such an approach in scientific research and technology.

The fundamental priority of scientific research is not only to invent new technological systems and to discover new particles but also to apply these advancements in an earthly context. For instance, using AI to launch a satellite will allow human civilisation to discover cultivable land which could potentially grow enough food to accommodate the homeless population in rural India. NASA claims that annually, about a thousand of their technical innovations are used to develop more effective medical equipment, more accurate weather

forecasting applications, better kitchen appliances and safer aeroplanes. Thus, the long-term benefits that come out of such expenditures outweigh the costs.

Another important question is, what classifies an issue to be a scientific priority? You would imagine the Coronavirus family to be a priority after the World Health Organisation declared it as one of the eight most threatening viruses requiring more research. Having experienced several viral outbreaks which were caused by different strains of the Coronavirus such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012, why was the world not ready for another similar pandemic in 2020?

There are two reasons.

Firstly, renowned virologists and epidemiologists did not believe that a dangerous mutation such as that found in the COVID-19 strain could ever occur. Edward Kilbourne, an American research scientist discussed the world’s deadliest virus hypothetically at a conference in the USA. He called it the Maximally Malignant (Mutant) Virus.

This hypothetical virus shares the most crucial characteristics of other deadly viruses such as poliovirus, influenza, rabies and HIV. Surprisingly, COVID-19 shares many of these characteristics.

Scientists believed that because such mutations were extremely rare and had already occurred in the past, the likelihood of similar viral mutations was

almost impossible!

Secondly, previous outbreaks were on a smaller scale. According to Robin Henig’s book, A Dancing Matrix, previous outbreaks took place in remote regions. For example, SARS stayed in Asia, MERS stayed within the Middle East and Ebola was restricted within Africa. Although each outbreak resulted in significant deaths, why were adequate measures not taken to mitigate these viruses? The sad truth is, as Henig mentions, it takes the death of one white person to make an epidemic worth looking into.

The leading scientific research and technology companies are located in developed Western countries. The previous viral outbreaks did not reach these countries, with the exception of AIDS. Thus, they did not feel the need to invest in research concerning viruses.

I believe that research into space exploration and AI must remain a priority. It is important to develop a far-sighted mindset to address global problems and not be swayed by investing resources only to issues with a short term perspective. We, the youth of this planet, are only at the beginning of this scientific race. We may not be able to immediately end world hunger or cure cancer, but we will be there to witness the outcomes of these investments being made for the betterment of humanity. Another way of looking at it is that discovering beyond what is already familiar to us only draws us closer to our Earth and its needs, which is the biggest priority, isn’t it?

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 9

DOWN TO EARTH How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionising Farming MIT FRESHMAN AND FOUNDER OF PLANTUMAI NEIL DESHMUKH TALKS WITH MOTLEY’S STEPHEN MOYNIHAN ABOUT HIS COMMUNITY TECH VENTURE TO HELP IDENTIFY CROP DISEASE WITH AI. When most people think of artificial intelligence, they’ll think of our Star-Trek like homes where lights can respond to the sound of our voice, or the ability to arrange our deliveries of essential products on a weekly basis is facilitated by our smartphones, tablets and PCs. These technologies are certainly convenient and would have been nearunimaginable by any average Joe a couple of decades ago, but our privileged lives in the developed world arguably shield us from the extent to which Artificial Intelligence can fundamentally transform and benefit the lives of those in developing countries.

Regardless of how informed you are about Artificial Intelligence, I doubt the first place that comes to mind when you think of it is a farm in Maharashtra, India, but this is exactly the setting that Neil Deshmukh, an 18-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology Freshman has set out to revolutionise.

His “community tech venture”, as he refers to it, PlantumAI, aims to help farmers deal with the issue of crop disease by allowing them to photograph any disease they find on their plants before artificial intelligence determines which pathogens it is most likely to be infected with. This picture is then automatically sent to the nearby Akola Agricultural University to be examined by a trained student who will determine which disease it is precisely so that an effective pesticide can be used to treat it. This gives the app a level of human oversight which improves its trustworthiness and accuracy. A farmer usually gets the result in a matter of hours and can then set about protecting their crops by using an appropriate pesticide.

This software allows farmers not only to protect their livelihood more effectively but also can improve the health of the entire community. Common practice before the farmers started using PlatnumAI was proving problematic, as Neil discovered when visiting his family one summer.

“What had happened in my family's village was that the water supply had been poisoned because it had been polluted by pesticides. The reason why there were so many pesticides in the water supply [was] because the farmers had been having a very annoying pathogen of insects on their crop yield and

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they wanted to get rid of them, so they dumped a bunch of pesticides on their crops, which ran off into the water supply that that entire village depended on”, Neil tells Motley.

By making a precise suggestion as to which pathogen is affecting a crop, PlantumAI can minimise the amount of pesticide that a farmer needs to use in protecting their crop and their food security. This can help eradicate the issue of pesticide pollution in the water supply and it highlights how the interconnected nature of a community can lead to Artificial Intelligence benefiting a broader population than to whom the initial issue arose.

For now, Neil is focussing his PlantumAI efforts on India but harbours hopes of rolling out the software in Zimbabwe and, eventually, worldwide.

From the smart homes of America to the fields of Maharashtra, Neil’s story is proof that a bright idea, the right expertise and a willingness to change the world for the better can allow Artificial Intelligence to improve the lives of an entire community.

For more information on Neil and PlantumAI, you can visit his website: https://www.neildeshmukh.com/plantumai

“MY LONG-TERM VISION FOR PLANTUMAI RIGHT NOW IS THAT EVENTUALLY WE'LL BE ABLE TO DO THIS TYPE OF ANALYSIS ESSENTIALLY AROUND THE WORLD, SO ANY FARMER ANYWHERE THAT DOES NOT KNOW WHAT DISEASE THEY HAVE AND WANTS A PREDICTION OF HOW BEST THEY CAN OPTIMIZE THEIR YIELD TO, YOU KNOW, SUPPORT THEIR FAMILY SUPPORT AND THEIR COMMUNITY. MAKING SURE THAT EVERYONE HAS THAT FOOD AND ECONOMIC SECURITY, THAT'S THE OPTIMAL END GOAL, SO THAT ANYONE, ANYWHERE, ANY FARMER CAN ACCESS TO PLANTUMAI. IT'S DEFINITELY GONNA TAKE A WHILE TO GET TO THAT LEVEL. BUT IN THE END, IF WE CAN GET TO THE POINT WHERE ANYONE CAN GET THAT FEEDBACK AND MAINTAIN AND PROTECT THEIR FOOD AND ECONOMIC SECURITY, THAT WOULD BE TERRIFIC.”

WILL AI BE THE NEXT

RELIGION?

CÉLIO FIORET TI EXPLORES THE IMPLICATIONS OF AI FOR OUR FAITH SYSTEMS.

W

ith 2.2bn and 1.8bn followers, respectively, Christianity and Islam are the two biggest religions in the world. Yet, the number of non-believers continues to grow in the West and now accounts for the third biggest group of the population (1.1 billion) as it pertains to faith. According to the CSO, in 2016, 9.5% of Irish citizens declared themselves atheist, an increase of 73.6 percent on the 2011 census. If traditional religions are decreasing in the western world, can we ask ourselves: will something replace them? Silicon Valley multi-millionaire Anthony Levandowski believes he has an answer.

The brilliant engineer is known for his work on Google’s self-driving car program, Waymo, later co-founding his own program named Otto and more recently, on 4th August, being sentenced to 18 months of jail time for tradesecret theft from Google. Like many people in Silicon Valley, the French-American engineer believes in Singularity, the day when computers will surpass the human mind. “It is inevitable. It is guaranteed to happen”, says Levandowki in an interview with the magazine Wired.

Sure about this future, he decided to create in 2015 the “Way of the Future”, the first church of Artificial Intelligence dedicated to “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence developed through computer hardware and software.” This new religion will even have its own gospel called The Manual. If a machine can usually only be seen as a tool, and not worthy of worship like a god, Anthony Levandowski explains that “It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”. The main objective of such an entity is, according to Levandowski himself, “the betterment of society”, but if it is created by humans, we are right to ask ourselves if any ideologies or bias will be implemented in this superior AI.

Anthony Levandowski says that everything will be open source, so that anyone can look into the code of this god-like AI. But if Levandowski wants the latter to be worshiped, he will need to build it. The church tries to win grants from private foundations to develop its AI and its selfproclaimed Dean, Levandowski, hopes his AI will be operational in the coming years.

If it is possible that AI will

change our societies, economies, and daily life in the near future, the existence of a “strong AI” – an Artificial Intelligence superior to humans and capable of improving itself – through Singularity, remains unclear. Partisans of the Singularity such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk or the late Stephen Hawking, think that strong AI is soon to come, and it might be dangerous for humankind. Lots of debates about it have taken place, and many books sold, but there is, as yet, no evidence that an omnipotent AI will necessarily appear, and we cannot know for sure how it would work.

Academics such as Drew McDermott, Computer Science professor at Yale University, and Theodore Modis, the now-retired researcher at the CERN, have criticized the idea of Singularity for its flawed scientific method and extrapolation. Other critics, such as Kevin Kelly, Wired chiefeditor, highlight the difficulty of measuring what intelligence really is and the limitations our world, with its scarce resources, can bring to the progress of technologies.

Even whilst the possibility of the rise of a god-like AI, through Singularity, remains uncertain, the future of AI promises to be interesting, not only for its technological progress but also for the way in which we fantasise about it.

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 11

AI, ETHICS

&

The European U DEPUTY CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITOR STEPHEN MOYNIHAN TALKS WITH UCC ’S OWN PROFESSOR BARRY O ’SULLIVAN ON HIS RECENT TENURE AS THE CHAIR OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S HIGH-LEVEL EXPERT GROUP ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE “Of course there are risks... you can’t just let any old technology loose on the world because you can. There are protections that you need to put in place when you’re using it, but I think by-and-large, artificial intelligence has a massively positive impact on the world.”

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rofessor Barry O’Sullivan is the Director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at University College Cork. He was also vice-chair of the European Commission High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, made up of 52 European experts from diverse backgrounds, thinking around the theme of “trustworthy AI”.

Experts ranged from industry to academia in fields such as computer science and ethics. It released three publications in total: Policy and Investment Recommendations of Trustworthy AI; an Assessment List for Trustworthy AI; and Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, each of which is set to inform the creation of a robust regulatory framework for AI in Europe.

The Assessment List for Trustworthy AI allows organisations to determine the trustworthiness of their AI by answering a comprehensive list of questions. The Policy and Investment Recommendations of Trustworthy AI puts forward 33 recommendations to ensure that AI fosters sustainability, growth, competitiveness, inclusion and human empowerment.

However, the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI are set to be most impactful on the future of Artificial Intelligence in the European Union.

This research aims to promote trustworthy AI by identifying four ethical principles which the implementation of AI must adhere to, these being: respect for human autonomy; prevention of harm; fairness; and explicability. The Expert Group used these principles to inform their identification of seven key requirements for AI to be trustworthy: human agency and oversight; technical robustness and safety;

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privacy and data governance; transparency; diversity, nondiscrimination and fairness; environmental and societal well-being; and accountability. It is this publication that Prof.

O’Sullivan says he is most proud of from his time with the expert group.

“There’s lots of ethics codes for AI around the world, I read somewhere that there are in excess of 100 ethical codes. I think the one we produced is probably one of the best, if not the best”, he tells Motley.

“The reason I think that is because it’s very practical, not only did we come up with the principles, but we also came up with key requirements, and this tool, the assessment list, to help people actually apply them. Most of the ethics codes that you come across are very theoretical, or very philosophical, and not very practical. Our set of guidelines, the total package of work that we did, ends up as something that’s much more practical than other works”, he argues.

The practical nature of these guidelines is not just the lofty opinion of the Vice-Chair of the Expert Group itself.

It is further underlined by the European Commission’s plans to adopt a directive to ensure that the seven key principles outlined in the Ethical Guidelines are adhered to. They will become law if passed by all legislative wings of the European Union.

“That work we did has had quite a profound impact on not only policy making but also on the governance and regulatory framework around AI”, he said.

Without a robust regulatory framework, the use of AI could become very problematic, especially when one considers how far reaching it is becoming in society. AI is used in seemingly innocuous settings such as recommending a film on Netflix or unlocking your phone through facial recognition, but it can also be used to automate reading of medical scans or for decision-making in the public service.

Without a strong focus on the ethics of AI these issues could impact people’s ability to make informed decisions for themselves or lead to privacy violations, and this could

Union have even more severe real-life consequences on individuals should errors be made. According to Prof. O’Sullivan, however, these are being thought about very seriously in the AI community in order to minimise negative outcomes.

“There are things you need to be careful of, you need to be careful of using AI in situations where it makes very impactful decisions about the wellbeing or even life-or-death of human beings, We need to be careful of not creating situations where we have people thinking that they’re talking to real people when they’re in fact talking to really specific chat bots. That’s not happening, but it could technically happen. Like with all very powerful technologies we have to be very careful with how we use it.”

“One of the great things at the moment is that there’s so much focus on ethics in the context of AI: what’s right and wrong? When should you use it? When should you not? What are the kinds of things you should be concerned about?”

“The AI community being so focused on ethics is a very positive thing, it’s being taken very seriously.”

One fear commonly cited regarding AI is lack of human oversight. It is undeniably scary or unnerving to think that a machine alone could be making life-or-death decisions about us or our loved ones, or even deciding whether one should be entitled to a social welfare payment or a tax credit. By enshrining human oversight as a fundamental aspect of trustworthy AI, one’s fears can be at least partially allayed.

“The human oversight issue is very important.

It would be highly unethical to allow AI systems to make life-or-death decisions over human lives, or even before we get to death. Very impactful decisions about the wellbeing of human beings should ultimately be the responsibility of fellow humans”, he said.

“Regarding the kinds of things about automating government decision making with regards to social welfare or that sort of thing, we don’t want to be told that a person is not getting something they’re entitled to just because some

AI said it’s the right thing to do", he continued.

Separately to the High-Level Expert Group on AI, Prof.

O’Sullivan is also an expert adviser to AI Watch, a group which monitors how AI is being used, examines what’s working and what isn’t, and gives advice to member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament regarding policy making.

“One thing AI Watch does that’s great is that it demystifies AI. There’s lots of people out there who think that AI is this sort of magic that is being used in all sorts of places. What AI Watch does is that it really tries to get to the facts of the matter, to understand where AI is being used, where it’s not being used, what kind of impact it is having on the public sector, on private citizens, all of these sorts of issues. That is very nice to be involved in because it allows us to really see what’s real and what’s isn’t. It also supports evidence-based policy making in Europe, which is obviously extremely important”, he said.

This demystification is important because as artificial intelligence comes to play an increasingly prominent role in our lives it is imperative that the wider public gains an understanding of it. Prof. O’Sullivan hopes to achieve this through a free Elements of AI Course which leads to a certificate of completion from UCC. It is clear that the powers-that-be must ensure that use of AI is ethical and responsible in both the private and public sphere. For the uptake of AI to be supported by the wider public and for humanity to put our trust in it, we will need to have confidence that AI practitioners will respect our privacy, our autonomy, and that it won’t exacerbate the pre-existing inequalities in society or negatively impact vulnerable groups.

This is why a robust regulatory framework is so important. It can ensure that the use of AI in industry, public service and research is compliant with ethical norms and does not infringe on our fundamental rights as human beings. Without such regulation we could never develop a fundamental trust in AI’s boundless opportunities.

CURRENT AFFAIRS | 13

CAN A COMPUTER STOP A BULLET? A.I. and the Battle to Prevent Mass Shootings MOTLEY STAFF WRITER JOHN HUNTER TALKS TO THE FOUNDER OF NEVERAGAINTECH, SHREYA NALLAPTI ABOUT HER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INVENTION TO PREDICT AND PREVENT MASS SHOOTINGS.

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hreya Nallapati tells Motley she is part of “the massshooting generation”. Born in Denver, Colorado in 2000, Nallapati grew up in the shadow of the state’s infamous mass-shootings: the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, the Aurora Movie Theatre shooting in 2012 and the Arapahoe High School shooting in 2013. Understandably, these events troubled her as she was “TIRED OF HEARING FRIENDS AND FAMILY BEING IMPACTED, WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT”.

But it was nearly 19 years after the tragedy at Columbine, that another tragedy would cause her to act.

On the afternoon of the 14th February 2018, a student, armed with an AR-15 style semi-automatic assault rifle, committed a mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and injuring 17 more. The news of the attack went around the world, most famously the words of survivor-turned-activist Emma González who called out the relationship between politicians and the infamous National Rifle Association (NRA) and their inaction towards gun-control. Nallapati’s personal connection to the landscape of Colorado’s mass-shootings coupled with the pain that she saw in Parkland, and the bravery of the survivors, led her to pair her newly-found activism with her background in technology and A.I. to create NeverAgainTech.

The project is mainly concerned with the analysis of text-based posts on the internet, to determine if the poster is a credible threat and whether a violent incident will occur. They look for very specific phrases and ideas within the text that have often come up before mass shootings, such as expressing hatred for specific minority groups and planning on doing something about it. When they find a credible threat, they will then forward the information onto law enforcement officials who would then investigate it and potentially take action.

Nallapati explained that A.I. is basically teaching computers to do what humans would do and that usually it “takes the form of pattern detection”. This means that instead

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Shreya Nallapati

of a person manually sifting through the lists of potential threats from a specific page, the A.I. can be taught to look for the key things that humans looked for in the posts and then be able to flag ones that meet the requirements. A human researcher will then validate the post the A.I. flagged because “no A.I. is perfect”. A.I. benefits this venture greatly as it reduces the amount of time the analysis would take.

Nallapati claims that they can crawl (download and analyse) through “a million posts in less than 30 seconds”, while the classification process takes “around an hour or so”. The organisation has grown substantially since its inception in 2018, and now has over 200 people working on the project.

While COVID-19 has reduced the number of mass gatherings in the United States, and therefore reduced the number of mass shootings, gun sales skyrocketed throughout 2020 with nearly 17 million firearms sold, likely due to fear caused by the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the renewal of racial justice protests. Nallapati is not optimistic about a post-COVID-19 America, citing the large spike in gun buying, anti-Asian-American sentiment becoming more commonplace and the threat posed by extremist groups on both sides of the political spectrum.

Political steps are being taken to address these issues, such as the Biden campaign planning to “create a task force focusing on the connection between online threats and stalking, and real-world consequences like extremism and violence” when he takes office in January. But hope that the United States won’t return to regular mass gun-violence following COVID-19 seems to be in short supply.

For more information on the work of #NeverAgainTech, visit their website: https://neveragaintech.org

ZOMBIES BEWARE TRUMP’S BIZARRE YOUTUBE CAMPAIGN

BY KANE GEARY O'KEEFE ith the American presidential Welection still fresh in our minds, it seems impossible to escape the worldwide discourse surrounding Donald Trump and Joe Biden in these recent weeks. social media remains alight with articles and snippets pertaining to both presidential candidates. As online media plays an ever more important role in swaying the masses with each subsequent election, it becomes ever more apparent when media appears to convey a particularly radical or controversial message. However, were one to take a peek President Donald Trump's official YouTube page, it would seem that his recent videos are going one (or five) steps beyond this in hopes of swaying voters, delving as far as the realms of hyperbolic clickbait styled videos and Zombie uprising preparation guides.

Undermining a political opponent is nothing new in a presidential race. However, given the worldwide exposure that YouTube as a viewing platform has, it has never been easier to spot falsified and constructed narratives on phone screens and laptops.

Trump’s recent campaign videos appear strikingly odd in comparison to his earlier newscast style material in regards to both presentation and content. Taking on the stylings of a typical ‘clickbait’ video, these videos feature bright thumbnails with exaggerated facial imagery, an abundance of emojis, and a shocking title. These are features commonly used by social media influencers to attract the attention of younger viewers with an abundance of video content at their fingertips. In fact, most social media influencers using this type of content stylisation are doing so to appeal to those ages eighteen and younger. This raises the question of why the American president was using this very style despite the fact that its target demographic is too young to vote?

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While the styling of this content is definitely an odd choice, it is the content of these videos that has sparked the question of Trump’s intentions with these YouTube videos. Uploaded on October 26th, a video entitled ‘Prevent a Zombie Uprising’ stood out to me in particular amongst the bunch. The thumbnail features a green-tinted Joe Biden accompanied by zombie emojis. Upon inspection, the video features a tensecond guide on how to “spot a zombie” which includes the advice to look out for someone with “a corpse-like appearance”, “aggressive behaviour”, and “a taste for human flesh” (all overlaid with various clips of Joe Biden). The video concludes with a call to “keep a zombie out of the white house”, before looping the same clip for half an hour. Not only does this video come across as juvenile in its attempts at defamation, but it also stretches the idea of a false narrative to its absolute limit. Are we to believe that this video constitutes a genuine guide to preventing a zombie uprising?

Are we to believe that Joe Biden craves human flesh as a zombie would? A simple ten-second analysis of the video boils it down to comical levels of questionability as a piece of campaign sponsored advertisement material.

Trump's zombie uprising video suggests a severe lowering of standards in regards to constructing false narratives through the use of new media. His use of stylised presentations and childish content raises many questions over the current president’s target audience with these YouTube videos. Were Trump’s voters twelve years of age with an inherent fear of a hostile zombie takeover, you just might be able to convince me that the president wasn’t grossly mishandling influential media avenues. However, the fact remains that the outgoing president was not quite sure who he was trying to appeal to by the end of his four-year term as U.S president. Perhaps Rick Grimes?

ENTERTAINMENT | 15

VIRTUAL MUSIC ACTS: (Blur)ring Reality & Fiction

BY JACK COLEMAN

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any of us become invested in musical artists not only for the music itself but also for the people behind the music. The faces, the personalities.

These are real people with real stories. However, there is another type of musical act out there. A type without real personalities or stories. And the most surprising thing is, it’s still just as easy to become personally attached to them despite their nihilistic nature.

Virtual music acts are a global phenomenon, they aren’t limited to a specific culture or location. From the Gorillaz in the United Kingdom to Hatsune Miku in Japan, virtual music acts aren’t exceedingly common but the few that do exist have gained significant popularity. The aforementioned Gorillaz is a project that began in 1998 headed by musician Damon Albarn of Blur fame. He, and the band’s co-founder, the comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, felt that boy bands of the time appeared very manufactured which gave them the inspiration to create a virtual music group which was literally manufactured to “make things interesting”. The band consists of four fictional characters: Russel Hobbs, Murdoc Niccals, 2-D and Noodle. Since their creation, the Gorillaz have gone on five large tours and have even received a Grammy for their song “Feel Good Inc.” in 2006.

The production aspect of these groups is very interesting. Gorillaz live performances feature screens with the fictional band members performing while reallife musicians perform on stage. Many musicians have participated in the Gorillaz project, so the band members don’t have literal counterparts. However, each character has a fictional background and personality which acts as inspiration for their music.

Riot Games, creator of the incredibly popular online multiplayer game League of Legends, have created several virtual music groups to market their title. K/DA is a parody of a typical Korean pop (K-pop) girl group based on the in-game skin line (cosmetic modifications for the characters) of the same name. The group released their debut single “POP/STARS” in 2018, the music video for which has amassed almost 400 million views on YouTube. The band members were represented in the song by American musicians Madison Beer (as Evelynn) and Jaira Burns (as Kai’Sa) and also by Miyeon (as Ahri) and Soyeon (as Akali)

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from the Kpop group (G)I-DLE. K/DA then released an EP in 2020, expanding their cast of musicians to include Wolftyla, Bea Miller, Lexie Liu, Kim Petras, Bekuh Boom, Aluna, Anikka Wells and the K-pop girl group TWICE. K/DA appears to be a very profitable venture for Riot, with the skins being among the most purchased in the game. The members have also become very popular muses for the online cosplay and art communities.

In the same vein, Riot has also created a hip-hop group called True Damage (Soyeon, Becky G, Keke Palmer, DUCKWRTH & Thutmose) and a heavy metal group called Pentakill (Jørn Lande) for similar purposes. Both K/DA and True Damage have held live performances (as opening ceremonies for League of Legends esports events) using advanced holographic technology in combination with performances from the real-life musicians featured on their tracks.

While the bands mentioned previously have real musicians providing vocals, our next virtual act doesn’t even need that personal touch. Hatsune Miku is a Japanese Vocaloid software created by Crypton Future Media. When they were creating the software, the company decided to enlist manga artist Kei Garo to create a physical manifestation of the Vocaloid. Garo came up with the iconic imagery of a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise pigtails to be Hatsune Miku. Since her inception, people have recorded over 100,000 songs for Miku. “Exit Tunes Presents Vocalogenesis feat. Hatsune Miku” which released in 2010 topped the Japanese Oricon album charts, making Miku the first Vocaloid to ever reach number one. She is the star of a manga series, several rhythm games and numerous video games to various extents. Miku has held well-attended live concerts which use holographic technology to bring her to life.

Virtual music acts have existed for a while and the technology is finally catching up as convincing and atmospheric hologram technology has been invented. With the success of groups like K/DA and Gorillaz, I wouldn’t be surprised if more music producers took the virtual route as a way to express themselves through music while using a more marketable fictional likeness instead of their own. It could provide a very interesting route to success in the music industry without the need for a likeable and marketable personality.

DEAD SPACE BRUTAL & BLOODY BRILLIANCE

BY RONAN WAT TERS

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have always wondered what it is about horror games that keep making me come back to their glorious offerings. Is it the brutal guts and gore that is present in many of the games? Or is it the tense, creepy atmosphere that can render one frozen in an unforgiving grasp? That question was answered on the 14th November 2020 when I rebooted the 2008 classic Dead Space. The objective of the game is to find out the horrific truth behind a massacre on a deep space mining ship, a task which involves dismembering the limbs of mutilated, reanimated corpses. It had been nearly six, possibly seven years since I last played it, and damn is it still a bloody good time.

The main franchise has been dormant since its last instalment in 2013, Dead Space 3. While by no means a bad game, its identity as a mostly actionoriented co-op game with only a few slim offerings on the horror side, in thanks to the “brilliant & creative minds” over at Electronic Arts (EA), contributed to the financial failure of the game, leaving the franchise in limbo ever since. After going onto YouTube to watch some old playthroughs, I suddenly got the itch to go back and revisit the horrific, isolated halls of the USG Ishimura. Luckily for myself, I own Xbox Game Pass, a service which has been recently supplemented by the EA pass. It features mostly EA sports franchises like Madden, NHL, UFC and, of course, FIFA. The Battlefield franchise was also present along with a few nice little indie titles, but of course,

the one I was interested in was Dead Space. All three games are present, so it was only right to boot up the first game and satisfy my hunger for a horror game that existed in a time when AAA game publishers weren’t afraid to take risks and try something new.

Upon starting the game back up, I realized what made me fall in love with it in the first place- atmosphere. In my own humble opinion, the atmosphere is the most important factor when it comes to a horror game. Take the 2013 game Outlast. It may not have the most inventive gameplay or objectives for the player to complete, but the tone is set from the first minute into the game.

This is also the case with Dead Space.

The crew of the USG Ishimura are not responding to your call, you must investigate and then out of nowhere, the mutilated alien corpses begin attacking, a perfect introduction. The gameplay of Dead Space is timeless in my opinion. Instead of enemies being bullet sponges, you’re encouraged to shoot off their limbs to take them out more efficiently, thereby conserving ammo and increasing your chances of making it out alive. All the while, you begin seeing strange visions of your girlfriend that do not make sense as you go deeper and deeper into the ship to learn the horrifying truth of what transpired.

Playing through the game, however, made me melancholic. How EA managed to screw up this franchise is beyond human understanding. Only EA could catch lightning in a bottle and yet still somehow manage to make a total

mess of it. Horror games have always worked within a niche genre, but EA was hell-bent on making it a sort of trans-media franchise, with books, films and mobile games. Making Dead Space 3 more of an action game did not help either. Unfortunately, Dead Space also serves as an early example of the egregious microtransactions that would poison gaming in the years to come.

Even traditional games media were shocked at the sort of “packs” EA had put into the game.

Electronic Arts shut down Dead Space developers Visceral Games in October 2017. Here’s hoping the franchise makes a return under a new studio, though this seems unlikely. Here’s also hoping that EA’s corporate machine does not claim any more victims, I’m rooting for you BioWare.

ENTERTAINMENT | 17

MORE THAN HUMANITY

& EVOLUTION

BY JOHN FINBARR MCGARR

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tanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely considered as one of the greatest films ever made. The film has been largely praised for its technical prowess, its grand statements on humanity and its abstract, cerebral concepts.

Needless to say, watching the film for the first time can be an alienating, even intimidating, experience. Many people I know (myself included) were left cold by the film after an initial viewing, often feeling critical of the film’s widespread praise. There are many artistic choices made in the film that feel strange. The unconventional narrative structure, the slow pacing and the weirdly subdued performances were all obstacles I and many others encountered. However, despite its seemingly impenetrable surface, each and every one of these decisions were made with an ultimate purpose.

In order to understand 2001: A Space Odyssey, I feel that you must understand that the film is about humanity itself, to the extent that humanity is the main character, with its own character arc. On a more acute level, the film is about humanity and

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its relationship with technology. The film begins with the “Dawn of Man”, where a tribe of prehistoric ape-men use a femur bone to fend off a rival tribe from a water source. This femur bone – a basic, blunt and crude instrument – is significant because it is the first instance of humanity using a tool.

This is the beginning of humanity’s development and evolution, eventually bringing us to the year 2001 (which would have been the not-too-distant future in 1968), where humanity has created spaceships, nuclear bombs and artificially intelligent computers.

With the ape-men being the ancestors of modern humans, that femur bone could be seen as the ancestor of modern technology. Technology can’t exist without humans, and humans can’t exist without technology.

What I feel is the tent-pole that holds the entire film up is HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent computer onboard a spaceship that is destined for Jupiter. Up until HAL’s introduction, none of the characters behaved normally; they all acted reserved, stiff, and almost robotic. There’s nothing human about them at all. The decision to have actors perform in such a manner is unusual until one starts to

compare the human characters to HAL. In dire contrast, HAL is the character that seems to have the most expressive personality, most notable with how boastful he is about his intelligence.

HAL doesn’t even have a face, and yet Kubrick was able to give him leagues of expression, pushing the Kuleshov effect to its extreme. After learning that he is to be shut down, HAL begins to sabotage the mission, killing off his human comrades in a violent act of self-preservation. This act of violence

by HAL is frighteningly reminiscent of the ape-men conflict. After all, the first thing humanity ever did was a violent act of self-preservation. Even when HAL pleads for his “life” as David is shutting him down, it is difficult to imagine him as nothing more than a computer program. There is something unsettling in the way he tells David how he is afraid; the fact that he is resisting his own termination shows that he possesses some sort of survival instinct.

With the human characters’ unnatural performances, and the fact that I have been referring to HAL 9000 as “he/him” shows that the film is set in a world where humanity’s tools have evolved to be more human than the humans themselves.

THE BLUE PILL

We're probably still in The Matrix

BY KANE GEARY O'KEEFE

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f you’ve been breathing at all since 1999, you may have heard of the philosophical science fiction action classic The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves. With its top-notch action and mind-bending sense of originality, it can be hard to believe that the film was released just over twenty years ago. In 1999, the idea of the internet stretching over every corner of modern life was still far from reach, and the notion that we as humans lived inside an advanced computer simulation was the stuff of hard action science fiction that nobody could possibly take seriously, right?

Well, the small philosophical debate that stemmed from The Matrix has matured in the twenty years since the film’s release. According to recent reports from Scientific American, we may all be in need of a red pill to escape from the simulation we are currently inhabiting.

Based on a report from popular mechanics published through Scientific American, the odds that we live inside a computer simulation now sit at 50.2222%, that’s not far off a coin toss. Popular mechanics makes numerous references to philosopher Nick Bostrom, who published some of the earliest critical simulation theories, including “Are we living in a computer simulation?” (2003), published four

years after the idea sprouted from Morpheus’s mouth.

Bostrom’s Theories focus on computing power and the question of whether or not a computer powerful enough to simulate our entire existence could really exist. Bostrom also raises the point that if such a computer did exist, we would not be able to recognise it from within its simulation anyway.

Columbia University astronomer David Kipping built on Bostrom’s work to arrive at almost 50/50 odds. Boiled down to the basics, Kipping makes the point that simulations cannot spawn further simulations. Kipping theorizes that if simulations continually spawned further simulations, the computer resources available to each subsequent simulation would dwindle substantially until eventually, the majority of realities would not possess the computing power necessary to spawn a further offspring reality. Popular mechanics likens the idea to the image of Russian Dolls shrinking in scale until no further dolls can fit within the doll that came before it.

Based on Kipping’s theory.

If we as humans ever manage to create a simulation using conscious beings, the chances that we are in a simulation ourselves tip towards ‘no’ because if we were in a simulation

ourselves we wouldn’t be able to create one. However, if we never manage to create a simulation using conscious beings, the chances that we ourselves live inside a computer simulation shift towards ‘yes’.

The Matrix stands not only as an example of a fantastically cerebral action flick twenty years on but as a testament to film’s ability to sprout important philosophical thinking and discussion. It can be argued that no mainstream blockbuster since the release of The Matrix has spawned as much substantial critical debate as to the very state of our human existence.

Twenty years on from the film’s release, a niche idea that we live inside a simulation, the stuff of mainstream entertainment, has developed into a serious and highly plausible school of philosophical thought. The question remains; if the chances that we are living in a computer simulation continue to grow, are you taking the red pill or the blue pill?

THE QUESTION REMAINS; IF THE CHANCES THAT WE ARE LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION CONTINUE TO GROW, ARE YOU TAKING THE RED PILL OR THE BLUE PILL?

ENTERTAINMENT | 19

Photography by Caoimhe Coleman

MUSIC IN THE AN INTERVIEW TIME OF COVID WITH JJ LEE DEPUTY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, MOLLY KAVANAGH, TALKS TO CORK-BASED MUSICIAN AND PRODUCER, JJ LEE, ABOUT THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS ON THE LIVE MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.

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s the COVID-19 pandemic continues to worsen, with no identifiable end in sight, many of us have been forced to place our lives and careers on hold as we rapidly adjust and adapt to this ‘new normal.’ In a uniquely frustrating position are local musicians and live entertainers - I spoke to Kerry-born and Cork-based producer, JJ Lee, on how the pandemic is impacting the way Cork bands create music, and how you can support local artists while we anxiously await the return to precedented times.

Formerly, JJ Lee was the bassist for Cork indie rock band Dry Roasted Peanuts, and he now plays for Ghostkind is Dead, Laura Duff, Messyng, and Deadbog in addition to his solo work. He’s also the co-founder of Teletext Records, an independent label focusing on ‘left-of-field acts that provide an amazing live experience.’

Initially, he says, the pandemic was “a blessing in disguise,” because lockdown left many musicians with an extended period of free time with no distractions that they could use to make music. Now, however, the novelty has long worn off. “Especially like a lot of the stuff I do would be collabs and things- and it’s fine just sending files back and forth online, but it would be nice to actually meet up with

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people… physically in a room, just lashing out ideas.”

The Irish government has given little guidance or insight as to when live music and entertainment will be allowed to return. “They’ve tried to get a few recording grants going for people and stuff like that, but at the end of the day that’s just recording, and there’s the vast majority of people who would make their money from music through gigging.” And even with many venues offering to hold gigs with reduced capacity, that’s still not enough for many local musicians. “For places like the Keno, an awful lot of the money that they make through gigs would go to the bartenders, and obviously when you have reduced capacity, there’s less money going to the bar.”

He also adds, “I think trying to get yourself out there now is very, very difficult.” Prior to COVID-19, one of the best ways to discover new local music was to pop along to random gigs around Cork with your friends- but that’s no longer possible, so an effort must be made to intentionally seek out new music. “Even from the way we used to run Teletext gigs, our lineups would have three, four bands… and like two of them would probably be from out of town, like they’d be from Limerick or Dublin or Galway. And people were coming to Teletext gigs and they wouldn’t really know who was playing, and it was common to see something different… You’d have a metal band first, and then an indie band and then you could have someone rapping or like a singer-songwriter or something. And it was a very important social hub as well.” With COVID-19, discovering new music

and meeting other musicians from across Ireland is no longer that easy.

One way that musicians have been adapting to the changing circumstances is through online, live-streamed gigs on platforms like Discord, similar to the ones we saw during UCC’s virtual Fresher’s Fest. Messyng, a North Kerry based ‘bedroom policotronica’ band that Lee shares with friends, Danny O’Shea and Donagh Sugrue, was one of the bands featured in the virtual Fresher’s Week lineup. In the case of Messyng, which was once described to me by a friend as “the physical embodiment of a shitpost if it were a band,” the online format actually helped to enhance the experience.

“I think Messyng is the kind of thing that naturally lends itself to being fun and enjoyable in a live stream setting because it’s just so stupid. And you can get people in the audience involved through live chats… I think there’s a very certain type of music, and kind of band, that would work well in that format. But I think it’s very difficult to have a good three, four-piece punk or rock band do a live stream because a lot of the energy is kind of lost behind a screen.

It can be kind of alienating, for me anyway… There’s no crowd to feed back off of, and it’s very weird- it’s like you’re rehearsing.” He mentions how difficult it was to have to stay

seated at Pretty Happy’s reduced capacity gig in the Keno in September: “I think it does prove a point that like, if there were no restrictions on gigs and stuff we’d all be up on top of eachother.”

When asked how to best support local musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lee suggests using the music streaming service Bandcamp over Spotify. “There was a band I was in a couple of years ago and one of the songs has like, a good 20,000 or 30,000 streams, and I think in total that made us a tenner. But I made one hundred quid off one single in one day on Bandcamp. So if you want to support someone’s music, Bandcamp is the best thing. And it doesn’t even have to be on a Bandcamp Friday,” which is an initiative that Bandcamp started earlier this year where they waive their revenue share on all sales on the first Friday of each month so that the musicians can be paid more. “Their fee is so minimal.”

JJ Lee can be found at @yungjage on Instagram, @ JJLeeNKY on Twitter, and his music can be found on YouTube, Bandcamp, and Spotify (but use Bandcamp though x).

JOKER & EDI:

The Greatest Love Story in Gaming?

BY JACK COLEMAN eff “Joker” Moreau, voiced by the ever-sarcastic Seth Green, acts as Commander Shepard’s trusty pilot for the entirety of the Mass Effect trilogy. At the beginning of the story, Joker claims he’s the best pilot in the entire Systems Alliance and he proves that time and time again throughout the course of the trilogy, helping Shepard and their crew escape dire situations in space. Unfortunately for Jeff, he suffers from brittle bone disease, making it impossible for him to do much more than flying the Normandy. How is a young military go-getter like him supposed to find love if he can barely walk? Enter EDI.

Joker makes it clear very early on that he is completely opposed to the idea of having onboard artificial or virtual intelligence in Normandy. The man likes to have direct control over everything on the ship. However, in the second game, the decision is taken out of his hands. The Enhanced Defense Intelligence, or EDI, an artificial intelligence designed to protect the ship during combat is installed. EDI appears as a holographic blue sphere and uses a feminine voice to communicate. Joker is, at first, disgusted to have EDI on board, only begrudgingly asking her for assistance on certain matters. The two argue a lot as EDI asks Joker many questions to better understand human behaviour, and Joker literally can’t escape her barrage.

However, EDI proves to be very useful to Shepard, providing the party with invaluable data and assistance during their various adventures. At one point, the Normandy is disabled by a Collector (antagonist aliens) attack while the party is off-ship on a mission. With their best soldiers away, Joker and the crew are left to fend for themselves. In order to escape the situation, Joker does the unthinkable. He allows EDI to access all of the Normandy’s systems, unshackling her. Despite his scepticism, EDI successfully guides the pilot to safety and repels the Collector attack. Following this traumatic experience, the pair grow closer and Joker begins to refer to the AI as “her” and “she” rather than “it”. When a bemused Shepard questions this change, EDI dryly clarifies that their relationship is purely platonic and is nothing like

J

22 | NOVEMBER 2020

“hormonally-induced courtship behaviour”.

During the early stages of Mass Effect 3, Shepard discovers a synthetic infiltration unit created by the rogue organisation Cerberus. Upon defeating the unit, EDI makes the decision to transfer some of her functionality into the body, taking control. EDI now has a feminine synthetic body to match her voice, something which doesn’t evade the notice of Joker. When Shepard asks why she chooses to inhabit the body at all times, rather than only during missions, EDI responds by saying it’s important to Joker’s morale that she be in visual range. She also asserts that she’s gained more free will since Joker unshackled her, as she is now able to reprogram her core systems. She decides to prioritise love, altruism and other positive characteristics within herself.

With some gentle pushing from the Commander, EDI and Joker officially enter an organic-synthetic relationship. They have dates in the Citadel and enjoy one another’s company immensely. She even manages to convince him to get on the dancefloor despite his extreme reluctance. Throughout the rest of the game, EDI questions the nature of synthetic life and if she is truly “alive”.

Depending on the player’s decisions, EDI can become more confident in herself until she considers herself as an equal to the rest of the party. EDI’s presence in the game serves as a commentary on the nature of artificial intelligence. As the player grows attached to EDI, she makes them question whether manufactured life deserves the same status as natural life.

At the conclusion of the plot, Shepard makes a decision which decides the fate of the galaxy. It can shake out several different ways, but one of the endings involves the merging of synthetic and organic life across the galaxy.

If this ending is chosen, EDI and Joker will emerge together from the wreckage of the Normandy as equals, the barriers between them removed forever. She embraces Joker, cementing one of the greatest love stories in gaming.

HER & EX MACHINA AI, WOMEN & REALIT Y

BY DEIRDRE HEFFERNAN

I

t’s 2020 now and as the years roll on by, it seems technology (on and off film-sets) is developing at an almost exponential rate. Each year more-so than the last. In the last few years, it’s come to be increasingly common to see a flurry of new quasi-futuristic releases exploring the zeitgeist relationship between humans and our burgeoning ideas of artificial intelligence. The reality though, is that the conundrum of our AI fears says much more about the present than the future.

In 2015, Alex Garland, writer and director of Ex Machina (2014) wrote about the danger of AI research, saying that in the time between the writing stage and post-production of his film, the warnings coming from science and tech experts went from “distant thunder” to “a full-blown lightning storm.”

Garland’s Ex Machina and Spike Jonze’s “Her” are examples of some real recent conversation starters. Ex Machina tells the tale of a coder who is carefully chosen to assist the company’s mogul (and film’s antagonist) in assessing his AI, Ava’s level of consciousness.

Her “focuses on Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore, an average person of good moral character but lonely and deeply emotional.” Ex Machina meets our fears head-on with its antagonist being an apathetic, far-gone rich isolated type from reality and also from normality. An affliction which is all too significant in this day and age. Domhnall Gleeson's

character in Ex Machina is quite similar to Her’s Theo in the sense that they both make the mistake of falling in love, or rather, in allowing themselves to see a future with their significant “other” despite them being inhuman. Though, perhaps giving the AI a face in Ex Machina is what makes it all the more sinister.

There is a very interesting point raised by both films in their utilizing of female-presenting AIs. Her being a tried and true love story; perhaps one of the best of all time, set against a gorgeously indulgent raspberry-red and ecru background. Ex Machina is a more haunting mirror to our own reality. As enjoyable and at times heart-warming the films can be, there is without a doubt, a strong critique to be made, about the strange fascination our protagonists have with the gatekeeping and idolisation of Samantha (Ex Machina) and Ava (Her). The realness and conventional beauty of both characters, inside and out, is an embedded fact in both characters. Their beauty though comes with an intense childlike quality that simply cannot be ignored. The specific curation and adaptation of women, of whom must learn and grow in the world. Women created by men. In Her’s case, a heartbreakingly human tale of growing without being able to grow together. In Ex Machina’s, a darker story of manipulation, sexual gratification and disposability.

The truth is that these AI are made in the likeliness of real women, following the standards men hold toward them.

They will look and sound just like us, interesting but quirky, placid, thin, hairless, short, soft-spoken. Will not be kept if they evolve too much.

Both films are aware of this and deal with it very well. In Ex Machina, the boys get what’s coming to them and in Her, Theo evolves in a different way. He changes forever but is moving forward in the right direction. The protagonists aren’t evil, in fact, quite the contrary.

It is, however, how they’ve been conditioned by society.

As Ex Machina’s Ava makes her way free into the world, there’s a dual sense of righteousness but fear for the inevitable destruction and possibility that there are Ava’s already all around us, their existence concealed from our knowledge. It’s what makes the film so entertaining.

The aforementioned thunderous fear of AI takeover as a result of man’s greed for power and capital gain in our overlyrapid pursuit of creating tech may be the first on our mind in this debate.

Understandably so. But an equally valid, though less talked about issue is this: Until we learn to curb man's fragility, misogyny and tendency toward the infantilization of women, AI should perhaps be bypassed on the to-do list.

ENTERTAINMENT | 23

NO ROOM FOR SECRETS: Banríon Reigns Supreme on Dublin’s DIY Scene

BY ALANA DALY MULLIGAN

J

ust over two years ago, Róisín Ní Haicéid entered the world of music, meeting her Banríon bandmates Michael Nagle (drummer), John Harding (bassist), and Ivan Rakhmainin (lead guitar) through the college music ecosystem at Trinity (something we shall forgive them for).

“Practically everyone and their mother was in a band...” she tells me, “...I was like ‘hold on a second, all these lads are doing it, I want to give it a go. I write some terrible music, I can play about four chords, let’s give it a whirl’”.

Ní Haicéid’s music is in fact, not terrible, with Hot Press calling the band “a captivating new presence on [Dublin’s] thriving rock scene”. COVID-19 put a damper in their plans as Ní Haicéid explains the distance between the members was a struggle which brought a change to the material: “The three songs on the EP were all written in the couple of months we were together. I’d write a song the night before a practice, then we’d practice it and then play it at a gig that week. We had no real time to sit with it.” Despite the break-neck artistic-turnaround Ní Haicéid says this style suits her: “I go off my songs really quickly, if I don’t show it to someone else...I’ll sit with it for too long and think ‘this is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life!’”

An admitted-oversharer, at the heart of Haicéid’s music beats her personal story- one she is proud to tell. From loving her mates, to heartbreak, to disability, her lyrics are unapologetic, honest, and certainly not written to make you comfortable. They have agency. “I feel like my body and my life are public things...I don’t really have any room for secrets.

Having a visible disability, people ask me literally every single day what happened to me and I have to tell people again and again and again… ‘this happened, this happened, it was really traumatic, see ya, stranger!’ So I’m desensitised to things I should maybe keep to myself, which is maybe a strength, for songwriting anyways.” She tells me she feels a responsibility to be raw about all her experiences, especially to do with disability: “I don’t need to be fixed but also to write songs and say ‘this fucking sucks sometimes’ is important.”

A few times throughout our conversation, Ní Haicéid brings up the clique-nature of Dublin’s indie scene and the boy’s club vibes. Being the dirty feminist I am, I had to ask about this. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that not all men are complete trash. “Once they know you exist, people are really on board for welcoming someone new and

24 | NOVEMBER 2020

trying to help them get a leg up...I think it’s really important to stress it’s definitely not a conscious thing where guys are saying ‘girls suck, so let’s actively exclude them from music, let’s not ask them to be in our band because we hate women!’

It’s more of a structural thing.”

The five-year plan has been a slow realisation, with the EP Airport Dads taking off (pun entirely intended) to great reviews in June, Róisín sees pursuing a serious career in music as simultaneously terrifying and exciting: “Oh no, I’m going to be a struggling musician forever!” she jokes. But of Banríon’s future? Gigs are coming-up, potential recording opportunities are in the works, there’s a re-hashing of old music and creation of new material. But the band is slowly shifting into Ní Haicéid’s solo project, with her release of two solo-singles “Pull the Sails In” and “Country Music” over the summer. Think love-child of Girl in Red, Sorcha Richardson, and a touch of an 80’s love-uncle thrown into the mix. I ask who in the Irish scene she’d like to emulate in terms of art and success; “I’d like to be on Pillow Queens level,” she tells me.

But when it comes down to it, it’s about the music. The buzz of a live audience. Having fun with bandmates. Festivals. Gigs.

A tour. That’s enough.

ENTERTAINMENT | 25

Features & Opinions

Motley's Monthly

HOROSCOPE MOTLEY’S MYSTIC MC ’S MAGICAL PREDICTIONS ARE BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER. LET’S READ THE LAST HOROSCOPE OF 2020, THANK GOD. IT’S ALMOST OVER. PLEASE END NOW. CIAN MCDONNELL - ASTROPHYSICIST TURNED ASTROLOGIST IS TELLING ALL.

@

Gemini:

Related to the constellation of twins, mirrors were once thought to be gateways into a “twin world”. One morning you’ll wake up and think you look weird in the mirror. And you’ll be right– you do look weird! Of course, everyone else will claim not to notice anything when you ask them, but that’s how politeness works.

@

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SAGITTARIUS

Cancer:

Virgo:

Your constellation contains a massive galaxy cluster, densely packed, with lots of gravity.

Similarly, this month you will have a grave decision to make.

Whatever you decide, know that there are lots of people who want you to succeed. And many more who will laugh behind your back if you fail.

26 |NOVEMBER 2020

@

Scorpio:

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Leo:

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Taurus:

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Pisces:

Mercury swings rapidly around the Sun, completing its orbit once every 88 days. As you’re more of a “slow” person, you could find that things pass you by quickly this month, before you even know they’re there. Like that assignment that you were supposed to hand in last week.

Aries:

You will receive unwanted advice from someone. You might tell them that you can handle things yourself, but it’s painfully obvious that this isn’t the case. After all, you seem to be perfectly happy to take advice from a horoscope column, which is a (star)sign that something is wrong with you.

Aquarius:

You will gain thirty new followers on Instagram – a cause for celebration! Take a moment to revel in your victory.

But are they real people? With AI these days, it may be hard to tell. Think about it. After all, why would any real person want to follow your Instagram?

Jupiter and Saturn get close together this month, before drifting apart. You may notice some of your friends doing the same to you. Don’t worry - it’s not that you did anything to offend them. In the nicest way possible, you’re just too uninteresting for it to be worth staying in contact.

@

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Your constellation is shaped like a teapot. This month someone will serve you a terrible cup of tea. You’ll only know after you take the first sip, so this is unavoidable. On another note, why do you bother reading horoscopes if you can’t change the predictions they make?

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Libra:

Venus, bringer of love, is a bright morning star this month. Since you usually don’t make it out of bed before noon, though, you may find your romantic life taking a dive. Call it what you want - “on a break”, or whatever… but beware that the break may never end.

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Capricorn:

You are in the sun’s sphere of influence this month. Around winter solstice, on the 21 st of December, it is extremely weak, causing dark, cold, and short days that spiral everyone into misery. Except for you, clearly, because you love to make people miserable.

On Twitter, almost half of the users are bots. With improving artificial intelligence, it’s getting harder to tell who’s a real person and who isn’t, but it’s something to think about. Especially before you decide to start arguing with that random online person over Trump’s border policy.

You will forget to buy a Christmas present for someone close to you. You’ll pretend that you were trying to make a stand against commercialisation and consumerism and blah, blah, blah. But let’s face it - we all know you just. Don’t. Care.

Red Mars shines brightly in your sphere this month, leading to an increase in frustration. And yes – December can be stressful, but you need to relax for the sake of your family! After all, you’re the reason that none of your siblings enjoy coming home for the holidays.

Questioning

Artificial Intelligence

...Intelligently

Tomás Buckley takes a cold hard look at how AI mirrors human flaws and how if we are not careful, it may propagate more systemic oppression.

I

n writing about AI, I am in good company. Just like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Sam Harris before me, I will try to inform you about something of which I know little.

We often mistakenly believe that algorithms are objective viewers of our chaotic world. This is untrue, these machines are biased too.

Bias pops up in our world and is always there. Like the red quality streets, it is something that nobody wants but will always exist anyway. We can, however, take some measures against bias. You will find plenty of examples of unintentionally misogynist or racist AIs online but this normally isn’t due to malicious intent on anyone’s part.

Take the prison population of Ireland as an example. There are roughly 3,550 men in prison in Ireland and 130 women. Let’s say that our judges get it right 95% of the time. Meaning 5% of convictions are false positives, a term I’d normally explain but I think covid has explained for me already.

This means that there would be about 6 innocent women in jail and 177 innocent men in jail. Taken out of context, we would be shocked to hear that 97% of innocent people in jail are men. We can see here that this is obviously just a result of there being more men in court, not because of any bias against men.

But what happens if we were to apply this in a place where systemic discrimination puts minority groups in the courtroom more often? In this case, we would see more innocent people of that minority put into jail not because of a bias on the part of the judges, but because of statistics and systemic oppression.

So if the fault is in society and not the judge or the AI algorithm then how can we reverse this discrimination?

One solution is to actively create bias which pushes against what society has created. But how? How strongly should we push against this tendency, how many guilty people are we going to allow to walk free to save the innocent people who need to be saved? How long will we need to apply such measures for?

Even if we say, for the moment, that we have an algorithm that fairly balances society’s oppression. The existence of this algorithm will eventually become public knowledge if it is being used often in courtrooms.

Acquitted minorities may find themselves the subject of further discrimination from people who think that they deserve to be in jail. Real criminals may also increase criminal activity, knowing that their probability of conviction has decreased. Chaos would ensue and hatred would be amplified. We need to find a way to influence society without it knowing that it’s being influenced. Like giving that friend who stinks shower gel for Christmas, we need a subtle way of solving the problem. I believe that we need to have an algorithm that doesn’t act on every case, one that has its say on enough cases to make a difference but not enough to draw attention to it. As for the contents of the algorithm being discovered, that would normally be protected as the intellectual property of the company that made it.

As we have seen, the algorithms mentioned here are a system of power like any other but they still need a mammy to hold their hand; someone to tell them when they’re being bold and when they shouldn’t eat something.

We need to help them to recognise bad men and tell them not to bully the little kid. We should all be informed of what they can and can’t do because it influences the lives of all of us. We should all ask for algorithms that fix us.

FEATURES & OPINIONS | 27

THE RISE OF

THE MACHINES YOU’RE AFRAID OF AI? BAD NEWS, IT’S ALREADY HERE, WRITES MARTEN KAAS. GOOD NEWS, IT’S NOT ALL SCIENCE FICTION TYPE MANIACAL MURDERING MACHINES. THE PHILOSOPHER OF AI TELLS MOTLEY WHAT WE CAN DO WITH INTELLIGENT MACHINES AND WHAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM OUR MACHINE OVERLORDS.

W

hen you mention artificial intelligence, most people invariably imagine glowing red eyes peering out of a mechanical skull. But science fiction doesn’t always paint an accurate picture of the future.

While it’s more exciting to imagine that a military defence system gains self-awareness and immediately begins waging war against humanity, the rise of the machines is probably better thought of in terms of a rising tide. Or, as Hans Moravec put it in 1998, a “Great Flood.”

Such a description also, admittedly, sounds horrifying, but artificially intelligent machines have as much potential to help humanity as much as they do to harm it. One prescient example was the use of artificial intelligence to predict the outbreak of COVID-19. That’s right, on December 31st 2019, alarms were raised by a company called BlueDot that a pneumonia of unknown cause was detected in Wuhan, China that had the potential for international spread via commercial air travel.

On the lighter side of things, artificially intelligent systems can be put to use to amaze and entertain people. AIVA (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) for example is a music composition system that is able to generate musical compositions in a number of different styles according to different configurable parameters. Did

28 | NOVEMBER 2020

you have difficulty coming up with a Halloween costume this year? Unsure what that perfect name for your new kitten is? Never fear, AI is here! Janelle Shane uses neural networks to do all sorts of things including generating costume ideas (why not dress up as a gothy giraffe or a sexy flying dutchman?) as well as names for cats (personally I’m a fan of Jexley Pickle).

As impressive as these feats are however, it is important to remember that we are a long way away from true general artificial intelligence.

While machine learning techniques have allowed certain systems to attain superhuman chess-playing abilities, for example, machines are still a long way from achieving human-like intelligence.

Some humans, after all, can do more than just play board games. We can use language coherently, sensibly navigate our environment, invent and play sports, paint and sculpt and do appreciably more. True, machines are getting better and better at doing these sorts of things as well, but the catch is that a single machine cannot yet do all of these things.

But progress on flexible and generally intelligent machines is being made every day. That’s one major advantage that artificial entities have over biological entities: they evolve much faster. Consider that it took approximately twenty years for chess-playing machines to evolve from

Deep Blue, the machine created by IBM that beat Garry Kasparov in 1997, to DeepMind’s AlphaZero. It’s not that the abilities of these systems evolved (both systems can beat a human in a game of chess), it’s how these systems acquired their chess-playing abilities that has evolved. AlphaZero, in contrast to a system like Deep Blue, is a learning machine. By playing millions of games of chess against itself, a system like AlphaZero can examine and remember far more game states than any human ever could.

As Turing suggested more than half a century ago, the path towards AI is not through mere imitation but through the education of a child-like mind. This is precisely the change that has swept the field of AI over the last two decades and facilitated the rise of artificially intelligent systems.

And make no mistake, intelligent machines are everywhere.

Learning algorithms manipulate your social media feed to retain your engagement, decide if a credit card purchase is fraudulent or not, read CT scans and diagnose disease, create personalized advertisements, recognize your vocal patterns, and so much more.

The Great Flood of AI is here and it is no longer a matter of whether they will displace humans but when they will displace humans, and whether we will be ready for a future shaped, for better or for worse, by intelligent machines.

EVEN THE POPE USES AI. Really.

COLM MAYE TELLS US WHY THE DIGITISATION OF THE VATICAN’S LIBRARY COULD MEAN A FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN THE PRACTICES OF 1.2 BILLION CATHOLICS AROUND THE WORLD.

A

musty labyrinth lies under the Vatican. The Vatican Apostolic Library, established in 1451, comprises 85 kilometres of shelves ladenwith treasures; the Papal Bull that excommunicated Martin Luther, the court proceedings against Galileo Galilei and one of the oldest bibles in the world (I mean they would, wouldn’t they?). It also contains priceless primary sources for active theological and moral questions, for over a billion people globally.

What does all of this have to do with AI? Rather a lot, actually.

Only 60 scholars per day are permitted to access the archives, which means that the collection has until recently been quite, as stated by Sam Kean of The Atlantic, ‘useless’. However, 2018 marked the kickoff of ‘In Codice Ratio’, an ambitious project that aims to digitise the collection using the combined powers of artificial intelligence, optical-characterrecognition (OCR) software and (nerdy) highschoolers. Ancient manuscript transcription is not an easy thing to teach an AI; challenges to be surmounted include calligraphic and spacing inconsistencies and the innate similarities between certain letters.

Traditional OCR identifies individual letters by recognising gaps in between them, comparing them with characters in a database, and inputting the best

match into the new document. How to tackle irregular gaps between letters (cheekily called ‘dirty spacing’) or s(h) nakey cursive script?

Letters are chopped into a series of vertical and horizontal lines. The software recognises ‘local minimums’ in this mishmash as the points on the page with the least ink, and therefore likely spaces between letters. What results is a series of chunky jigsaw pieces which the computer must assemble into letters.

An excellent starting point, but how to teach the computer to correctly assemble the jigsaws? Over 500 highschoolers were recruited to judge the AI’s attempts to recreate letters, checking them against a selection of acceptable characters chosen by paleographers (ancient calligraphy specialists) to guide the AI towards autonomy. In 2018 the AI was achieving 96% accuracy on handwritten letters, making the documents far easier to read. The work is ongoing. Secondary school teachers wait with bated breath.

As Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future”. The Apostolic Library is a funny kind of past though. It dictates the practices of hundreds of millions of people in the present. It’s a trove of information relating to cultures from the Romans to the Incas, a vast repository of physical information about the past which can be used to uncover new narratives and challenge received wisdom.

This draws attention. The library faces around 100 cybersecurity threats every month to its digitised collection, which comprises 25% of the total documentation in scanned form.

There’s a digital arms race against hackers who could compromise the archive, whether by editing its contents to manipulate information or by using ‘ransomware’, which takes targeted databases hostage by locking the files and threatening deletion unless a steep ransom is paid promptly. While the Catholic church is not known to be poor, a successful attack of this nature could sap funding for the project and set it back by years.

In order to spurn these attacks as you would a rabid dog, the Vatican has employed pioneering cybersecurity firm Darktrace, which fights fire with fire by neutralising AI cyber threats using its own AI modelled on the human immune system. The system observes normal cyber-activity within an organisation and becomes familiar with its patterns, in much the same way that the immune system monitors normal biological activity. A cyberattack could be compared with a hostile viral receptor antigen, which the system recognises as alien. AI being used to protect AI digitising the archive to protect the faith.

For more information, visit the archive’s website.

FEATURES & OPINIONS | 29

I TRIED TO GET A ROBOT TO WRITE FOR MOTLEY...

IT WAS TERRIBLE

The Noun Project

FOR MANY YEARS NOW - WE HAVE BEEN HOUNDED BY REPORTS THAT NO JOB IS SAFE AND THAT EVEN, YES EVEN, THE CREATIVE ARTS DO NOT PROVIDE A REFUGE FROM THE INEVITABLE RISE OF MASS AUTOMATION. MOTLEY’S NIAMH BROWNE INVESTIGATES TO SEE IF MOTLEY CAN SOURCE ITS WRITERS FROM ELSEWHERE.

M

y first port of call was aiwriter.com. An online platform which generates content based on a headline you feed them. The first line I gave them was ‘Motley Magazine Will Win lots of Smedia Awards’. (I mean if you don’t believe in yourself who will?) Headline submitted I only had to wait a mere three minutes for a completed article. Great turnaround it must be said.

The article appeared and I was impressed, not impressed good nor impressed bad. It was a complete, whole article and they had done their research. The AI knew we were students based in Ireland but they seemed a bit confused as to what we do (much like my parents); “The best-animated film created by Irish students in Ireland on 2 March 2017 will be awarded in the Animation of the Year category, produced in collaboration with the Irish Academy of Film and Television Arts (IAFTA) and the National Film Institute of Ireland (NFI).” I realised as well there was no point in prescribing an AI to write a journalistic article in the future tense. How many articles have you read in the last year with firm convictions of what will happen? So that had to go. As well as that, there was further bewilderment on behalf of the AI, since it seemed to flit between North America and Ireland, and honestly, as a writer lacked the ‘oomph’ we look for in our Motley contributors. I thought I would give it another chance.

This time I fed it a typical clickbait-style article, easy to write, formulaic (Buzzfeed I am looking at YOU). ‘How to Have the Best College Experience UCC Can Offer’, this article was slightly more promising. It opened with “In the fall of 2013 I fell in love with all things Irish and studied at St. Patrick's College in Dublin, Ireland”. Ok, not so great. The AI continues “University College Cork was founded in 1845 and

30 |NOVEMBER 2020

is home to some of the world's most prestigious universities, including the University of Cork, Cork University and the Cork Institute of Technology.” A bit confused there bud.

“There is no better place in the world than college in Cork”.

However, most unfortunately the AI then later seems to think we’re in Dublin

“ALL THESE OPTIONS MAKE UCC DUBLIN A GREAT CHOICE FOR STUDENTS FROM ALL BACKGROUNDS AND BACKGROUNDS” AND THIS GEM“DON'T FORGET TO LEARN SO MUCH ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW TO WORK WITH OTHER PEOPLE”.

It wrecked my head as an editor. It made no sense and it had no punch. It’s a no from me I’m afraid.

I tried a few other AI content generators, and perhaps because I was using free ones - got absolutely dismal results. I tried another website articlegenerator.org.

This time I assigned an op-ed, “Snorting Lines and Shagging Nines - Behind the Scenes of Motley Magazine''. This task was challenging as we on the Motley team keep our line snorting and orgy operations very much covert but the article which was generated was as follows: “Whether you are looking to admire the neighbor’s decor, watch some scary movies, join a virtual film festival or create your own candy chute, we have got you covered with things to do this Halloween.” They even spelt ‘neighbour’ wrong.

Perhaps what I should be fretting over is not the quality of the articles but the mere fact that these can be written, even poorly. From here on out it’s probably just a game of catch up. If we give an infinite amount of AIs an infinite amount of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, they will probably write Ulysses. For now though, I miss my human contributors.

Send an email to features@motley.ie

NO,

Immigrants are not stealing jobs.

ROBOTS ARE.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION BEGAN IN 1760 AND IS WIDELY REGARDED AS THE TECHNOLOGICAL FEAT OF MODERN HISTORY. THE IMPLEMENTATION OF MACHINES TO MAKE AGRICULTURE AND FACTORY WORK MORE EFFICIENTLY WAS A HUGE BLOW TO AN ALREADY EXPLOITED AND UNDERAPPRECIATED WORKFORCE (PRE-UNIONIZATION). AS WITH ANY MA JOR TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE THOUGH; THE IDEA IS ALWAYS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE REALITY. BILLY O ’CONNOR TELLS US WHY WE SHOULDN’T WORRY.

J

ohn Oliver did a segment on automation in 2018 on his show ‘Last Week Tonight’. He spoke indepth about the reality of automation and its many forms throughout history.

He discusses the fact that automation and AI are not new concepts and have taken various forms over the past three centuries. According to the Metropolitan Political Program, the U.S manufacturing sector produces two-times as much today as in 1984 with one-third fewer workers. The declining income share accrued by labour has famously been blamed on cheap and migrant labour. Statistically speaking however, the likely cause for a majority of job losses, specifically in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, are due to advances in technology despite what xenophobic political sentiment may have you believe.

ATMs were once seen as an existential threat to the livelihoods of bank tellers in the 1980s. However, as was proven through the introduction of machines like ATMs, automation tends to replace tasks not jobs as it allowed bank tellers to have more free time to focus on other aspects of their

job. In fact, the Journal of Economic Prospects reported that U.S bank teller employment increased from 1980-2010.

Another example of the benign evolution of AI is that of the Chinese corporation, Foxconn. The Economist reports that Foxconn employs more than 1.5 million people from across China yet it has become a symbol of the ever-increasing threat posed by cheap and automated labour.

While it is true that certain parts of the labour force are being replaced by automated workers instead, it is worth noting that Foxconn has not stopped hiring human beings but instead they are honing in on desirable skills necessary for future employees such as circuitry and other tech-savvy skills that would be needed in any tech adjacent workplace in this day and age.

The OECD reports that labour captured only 62% of all income at the beginning of the new millennium, down 3% from the early 90s. It would be unlike me to not turn this into an anti-capitalistic rant renouncing the immoral nature of capitalism and the way in which it exploits and discards low skilled workers so, thankfully this piece calls

for such an observation.

Due to the decreasing percentage of income going to the labour sector, owners of capital are reaping all the benefits accrued from output. The share of income earned by the top 1% of earners has increased since the 1990s despite overall labour share falling significantly. The OECD reports that automated labour is to blame for roughly 80% of the drop in the labour share among its members. Since the beginning of modern economic history, economists have regarded the shares of labour and capital as fixed, but with the introduction of AI, labour share is increasingly looking like more of a variable factor than a fixed one.

It’s easy to find a scapegoat for redundancies in any sector, whether it be cheap migrant labour or a tumultuous economy; but it is important to remember that corporations are profit maximisers and will apply the cheapest and most efficient labour for production, whether it be human beings or machines. With that being said, AI and automation is not something we should fear. It is introduced every few decades with our convenience in mind. We must instead find a way to be able to have kitschy new technology while allowing people to continue in the workforce, whether it be through retraining programs or upskilling initiatives. Technology isn’t going anywhere, like a washed-up celebrity after several stints in rehab, it keeps coming back and reinventing itself.

FEATURES & OPINIONS | 31

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INTERVIEW WITH

Robert Sheehan AMIDST HIS BUSY SCHEDULE ENLIGHTENING VIEWERS OF THE EARTH LOCKER PODCAST, PREPARING FOR THE THIRD SEASON OF THE SPECTACULAR UMBRELLA ACADEMY, BEFRIENDING A FERRET, AND ENRICHING HIS INNER-CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH A JOURNEY OF MEDITATION, THE WONDERFUL ROBERT SHEEHAN AND MOTLEY’S EMER WALSH DISCUSS MORALITY, THEIR IDEAL DINNER-PARTY GUESTS, AND HOW TRULY CLASS CORK IS

I

t was as recent as September that Mr Sheehan got to spend some quality time in the real capital. He took himself and his mother (a fellow Corkonian) to a trendy cafe in the city for her birthday, (later deduced to be Lab 82 Coffee) where they were “descended on by half the student body of Cork,” - classic mistake having lunch near the train station as the dawn of a new academic year begins, “but it was lovely nonetheless.”

“I’d love to have a little place down there one day, in Cork, somewhere between civilisation and west West Cork.” (Don’t be surprised if house prices in Clonakilty double in the next few weeks).

Since leaving Tír na nÓg, however, Robert is back in London where he currently resides, living life to the fullest within the constraints of a second UK lockdown, working hard with fellow Umbrella Academy star Tom Hopper and producer Byron Knight to deliver the weird, wonderful and vastly entertaining Earth Locker Podcast.

Regardless of this busy schedule of his, Robert was able to take some time to chat with a very grateful Motley magazine last week. As I was put through to him on the phone, I was greeted by Robert himself, a fan of his that spotted him as he sat in his neighbourhood park, and a ferret, (yes, a ferret) who also approached Sheehan, obviously quite eager to befriend their

favourite actor and podcast host!

As one of the most recent guests of the Earth Locker podcast, Frankie Boyle, discusses the intricacies of Simulation Theory, an aligning of the stars would also have it that this month’s issue of Motley concerns Artificial Intelligence, which nicely leads into one of my first questions for Mr Sheehan.

But if you sit down and meditate, it’s very revealing of what reality truly is. You can sit there long enough and normalise and rationalise everything in your external world.”

DO YOU BELIEVE IN SIMULATION THEORY?

“No I don’t believe in simulation theory, I understand where it came from, I understand the rationalism that has brought us back to a theory of virtual reality, but this theory has been around for over 5,000 years. It can be traced back to old Hindu scripts, they just didn’t have the scientific language to rationalise what we now refer to as simulation theory.

It’s true in one way, that the reality we experience is virtual, but it isn’t true that it is in a computer. Our conscious attention is conditioned based on our mind and our culture, all the beliefs that human beings inherit when they’re born, this all combines to create the virtual reality embedded in us when we’re young. So it’s really not surprising that we have come up with something like simulation theory, because it really is just a modern language for knowledge that has been around for thousands of years, you know?

HAVE YOU SEEN CHANGES IN YOUR MENTAL OR PHYSICAL SELF AS A RESULT OF MEDITATION?

“Unrecognizably. It’s a very interesting transformation. Your beingness is encompassed by what you identify about yourself and most people identify with the stream of narratives and activity around them, they don’t feel separate from them, and this governs most behaviour. They call meditation ‘waking up’ because it is a spiritual waking to the forces within oneself.

Let’s say I hang up this phone now and decide to get a pack of beers and get drunk. There is a reason for that. And obviously, I am going to do that, but there’s a reason for that impulse. The reasoning for your desires come from somewhere. It likely comes from an unease in one’s self, and mediation is just the act of sitting down and witnessing and accepting those things you experience.

When I was your age in

I WANTED TO ASK YOU, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PRACTISING MEDITATION?

“Almost four years.”

FEATURES & OPINIONS | 33

college though, I would have never wanted to meditate. It’s something that some people encounter and some don’t, it isn’t right or wrong.

YOU SAID IN ONE OF YOUR PODCASTS THAT IN RECENT YEARS, YOU’VE BECOME A LOT MORE DECISIVE AS A PERSON AND SURE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, IS THAT A RESULT OF MEDITATION?

“I would definitely say so. It’s a way of removing the many voices from the cacophony of the echo chamber. You can distract yourself all day long with this, that and the other, but it makes it very hard to understand what you really want.

But when there is quietness, there’s no question.

But there is so much noise, and if you narrow down where the noise comes from, it is inside people, in their minds and in their being. And when you’re aware of your mind, things like decision-making and your wants and your rationality become much clearer.

YOU SPOKE ON THE EARTH LOCKER ABOUT COMPASSIONATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WHICH IS PREVALENT TODAY AS IT OFTEN FEELS INCREASINGLY HARDER TO PRACTISE ETHICAL ASSUMPTION, HAVE YOU ALSO EXPERIENCED THIS PROBLEM?

“Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s hard to maintain an ethical approach to consumption but I still think there are things we can do to make sure we’re doing our best. I think it was on Buzzfeed I watched people live with or at least try to live with zero waste for a day, and there are some wonderful people out there trying to bring morality and entrepreneurship back together.

There are of course the likes of the big pharma that really have no interest in morality we’ve seen that time and time again, but that’s why there's a need for compassion and I think that is why Naveen Jain (the Podcast’s first guest) and people like him are so necessary in solving this problem.

YOU HAVE SPOKEN TO SOME INCREDIBLE PEOPLE ON THE PODCAST, WHO WOULD BE YOUR DREAM GUESTS TO INTERVIEW?

“Hmm. Greta Thunberg definitely, she really is the

34 | NOVEMBER 2020

emblem of change that needs to happen to our civilisation.

I’m also a big fan of Panti Bliss and would love to sit down and have a chat with her. I saw her perform in Vancouver a couple years ago and we went on the piss with her after, she’s great craic.

I also think Jesus Christ would be an interesting person to talk to, he probably holds a lot of the answers to the earth’s important questions. Buddha as well for the same reason.

Elvis Presley I think would also be a great person to talk to, and Malala Yousafzai, she’s also incredible.

But I would love to have a conversation with Eckhart Tolle, who’s hopefully one of our future guests on the podcast. He wrote books that really corral the language of spirituality and put it in a way that you can understand and he has really opened up my head in extraordinary ways. And it’s nice, you know when you read a book and or even just a sentence and there’s this profound knowing when you’re reading, you meet the words and a lightbulb turns on in your mind.”

LIKE A EUREKA MOMENT?

“Yes, exactly! Another person I would love to talk to is a man named Steven Greer. He was on the Joe Rogan podcast a few years ago, and he’s on a mission to disclose the secret information about UFOs and extraterrestrial sightings that the U.S. government refuses to show us. I think he would have a lot to say.”

SO WHAT IS NEXT FOR ROBERT SHEEHAN?

Well, the third season of the fabulous Umbrella Academy has been recently confirmed, meaning the Hargreeves siblings will be returning to our screen’s once again in the hopefully not-so-distant future.

In the meantime, we can also expect to see some more eccentric, educational and above all, entertaining guests as Robert, Tom and Byron continue on their Earth Locker adventure to uncover all of the world's secrets. And you can join them on their mission here: A massive thank you Robert Sheehan for speaking with Motley for this issue.

Fashion

Don't lose your head.

Illustrations by Cork based artist Ruth O'Connell Instagram: @ruthismessy

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Should We Care About What We Wear for Online College?

Fashion Staff Writer Emma Treacy muses on the important role that fashion can play in boosting our mood and keeping us motivated as we endure the slog of rolling lockdowns and online college.

That piercing sound of the alarm going off each morning welcomes yet another day of lectures on Microsoft Teams and straining our eyes on blurry Zoom calls. This is the universal college experience this semester. One thing I deeply miss about on-campus college, is getting dressed in the morning.

Yes, you heard me. The simple act of choosing an outfit and putting it on. And somehow, I don’t believe I’m the only one.

For those who see clothes as more than just a practicality, who relish spending time putting together outfits in the morning, the university campus is our haven. There is no place that feels safer or as free to express yourself through appearance than university campus. Fashion is a means of expression, an artform which allows us to pick and choose colours and styles just as one would with paints from a palette. The blank canvases of our bodies become masterpieces that brighten up the gallery of day to day life. The thrill of putting on an outfit in the morning and truly loving it, that sensation of feeling one hundred times better just because you love what you are wearing. This wondrous portion of our lives has too been stolen from us by the pandemic.

Ok, so what options do we have? Sweatpants, a messy bun, bare face, oversized hoodie and a pair of fluffy socks from Penneys can only go so far. For the first week, I was enjoying the novelty of rolling out of bed and into a mismatched concoction of loungewear. I tried to convince myself that it was good for me not to care about my appearance. However, I soon realized that this was not a healthy mindset for me. Controversially, I believe that a passion

for fashion is in fact healthy. Dressing for yourself is both enjoyable and therapeutic, it can boost confidence and add a sense of purpose to our daily routine.

Perched before our laptops from one day to the next, minimal face-to-face social interaction is depriving us of the beauty that lies in meeting people. Taking ideas and inspiration from other people’s style and simply just enjoying the clothes everyone around us wears, are just some of the facets of normality that we never knew we could miss. While online shopping has become too regular a habit for many of us, fashion beamed at us from our screens doesn’t provide us with the same enriching experience. Absent is the joy of being able to explore the colourful variation of style provided by a day on campus.

Memories of grabbing coffees on campus with classmates between lectures and planning outfits for the upcoming night out in town, still linger in our minds.The nightmare scenario of being on the receiving end of a boy-racer hurtling through a large puddle during torrential downpour and absolutely destroying your coat and jeans. However, if this meant we could go back to normality, and the chatter of study breaks at the door of the library, I would take the hit.

While we are all grateful for Canvas and Microsoft Teams for keeping our third-level education afloat during COVID, there is no comparison to college life as we used to know it. So, whether it’s an essential journey to the supermarket or simply a walk and a takeaway coffee, go to your wardrobe and pick out what makes you feel like a million dollars. Whether it be bootcut jeans and a jumper or most extravagant and eccentric piece of clothing you own, wear it with pride. The world needs your creativity and vibrant (even questionable) style choices now more than ever.

We're Probably still in The Matrix

40 | NOVEMBER 2020

HARRY STYLES' VOGUE COVER:

A-Dressing TOXIC Masculinity

“IF WEARING A DRESS MEANS THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER MASCULINE, THEN MASCULINITY - AS AN INSTITUTION - IS TOO FRAGILE AND RIGID IN THE FIRST PLACE.” JACK VAN LANG DISCUSSES THE CONTENTIOUS VOGUE COVER STORY FEATURING HARRY STYLES.

I

saw a tweet recently that called my attention. It was Vogue sharing a recent photoshoot with Harry Styles, where he’s wearing a dress except that’s not what caught my eye.

What shocked me about this tweet were the replies. The horror, disgust, and hatred that people apparently experienced after seeing that picture of Harry in a dress was alarming and deeply troubling. A lot of these replies were from women too, most notably Candace Owens, an American conservative author and political activist. She was abhorred to see such a sight, as a man in a dress. As she tweeted “there is no society that can survive without strong men...bring back manly men”.

I believe that with the growing acceptance of people who identify outside of normal gender expectations, men should feel less pressure to be “manly”. Although there still is pressure for men to be hard, resilient, and strong, it’s not realistic to expect this from men all the time. These expectations can have serious negative effects on men’s mental health and self-esteem.

However, this is a recurring topic that gets debated every year. How the times are changing for the worse and it was better in the “old days”, when men were men and didn’t cry like they do now and certainly didn’t wear

dresses! Perceptions of masculinity and femininity have ebbed and flowed throughout human history. As such, I believe men feeling more comfortable with typically feminine values is a good thing. Women feeling like they can belong in the workplace, in scientific fields or in positions of power (which are seen as stereotypically masculine roles) is also a good thing. I would ask Candace Owens when she wears a suit to work, is that not a masculine look?

Does that not destroy her femininity?

If wearing a dress means that you are no longer masculine, then masculinity - as an institution - is too fragile and rigid in the first place. To clarify, it’s completely paradoxical to say that a manly man is strong, resilient, tough, confident and brave and in the same breath say that Harry Styles is no longer manly because of an item of clothing he was wearing in a photoshoot. That this piece of cloth has brought the very fabric (pun intended) of masculinity to its knees. I would argue that Harry is in fact incredibly manly in this picture.

Despite knowing the media onslaught he would face, the comments shaming him, and just the general rhetoric that would ensue, he did it anyway. Because he’s comfortable with himself and doesn’t need a suit and tie to confirm his masculinity. That to me, is what it means to be a man.

I’m not going to go out tomorrow, inspired by the latest Vogue issue, wearing a dress and earrings though.

I don’t believe that would be a good look for me personally. But I would like to think that my masculinity is not defined solely by my choice not to wear a dress. That people see me for more than what I wear or how I look. That I am judged on the culmination of my character, my actions, and my beliefs. I don’t think we’ve even begun to scratch the surface of these male issues and the Harry Styles example is something to learn from. Women have done tremendous amounts to break free of oppressive gender norms and it’s truly exceptional but as we know there’s still more to be done. It’s not a fight against some-one, nor is it a battle against a certain gender. It is a war against the suppression of expression in all forms, for everyone.

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HOW THE FASHION WORLD WENT VIRTUAL IN 2020 “IRONICALLY, THE PANDEMIC MAY HAVE BEEN JUST WHAT THE FASHION WORLD NEEDED. THE INDUSTRY NEVER MOVES BACKWARDS AND SO HAS WOKEN UP AND ADAPTED TO A NEW DIGITAL ERA.” FASHION STAFF WRITER EMMA TREACY TAKES A LOOK AT HOW FASHION WENT VIRTUAL THIS YEAR.

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he fashion industry is being vigorously challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic, with clothing outlets repeatedly having to reopen and then shut their doors again for long periods. The world's leading fashion weeks have seen their most turbulent year yet. However, the industry has certainly not forfeited the battle against the pandemic by any means. The ways in which it has used technology to adjust and adapt have revolutionized the way we as ordinary consumers interact with the world of haute couture. We are anticipating a transformation of the fashion world as we know it.

From London to Paris, New York and beyond, 2020 fashion weeks faced a daunting reality. How were they to go ahead within the government restrictions?

In unprecedented circumstances, models, designers, swarms of press reporters and photographers, as well as eager audience members were unable to experience the runway shows in person. Instead, designers like JW Anderson launched their collections virtually.

In Paris, for some fashion houses, there was a ‘business as usual’ attitude. Just over half of womenswear fashion houses opted for live events, while the remainder utilized digital technology as their runways.

There were smaller scale in-person shows with restricted audience size and socially distanced models. This obviously dampened the atmosphere. Other designers took a more creative approach and attempted to make their displays as akin to the norm as they could. Balmain invited absentee A-listers such as Jennifer Lopez and Cindy Crawford dressed in their couture to the stage by means of large screens alongside their runway display. Zoom calls with designers replaced backstage gossip while other virtual alternatives included livestreams of fashion shows on the brands’ social

media accounts, pre-recorded videos and look books.

Many concluded that these large-scale virtual fashion weeks in 2020 were substantially underwhelming.

If the situation weren’t so unprecedented, offering very little time for preparation or planning, I believe this year's fashion weeks may have had the potential to blow us away. This year may have been a trial run for what could be a revolutionary 2021 for the fashion industry.

Artificial intelligence along with digital and social media are rapidly becoming more and more prevalent within the fashion industry. Tommy Hilfiger has recently declared the brand will have switched to 100% digital design by the year 2022. This increases the tempo of both manufacturing and marketing while minimizing waste levels. I expect many other high-scale brands to follow suit in coming years. The pandemic of 2020 has compelled designers, manufacturers and marketing teams to think digitally and that indeed, they have done.

A Japanese company has this year perfected the creation of the ‘Zozo suit’. This snake-skin-like one-piece suit tightly fits onto your body. The customer stands in front of a smartphone camera while wearing the suit. The Zozo suit allows for an accurate reading of your body to be measured in order to purchase clothing items that fit perfectly, minimizing returns and increasing the efficiency of online fashion retail.

Creative director and multimedia artist, Tupac Martir, is amongst those leading the way for virtual fashion.

Having worked with the likes of Alexander McQueen and Beyonce, Martir is creating what is likely to be the future of fashion. Mixed reality displays and events consisting of both virtual models and virtual environments are Martir’s forté and his ideas are feeding the industry’s current appetite for technological advancement.

Ironically, the pandemic may have been just what the fashion world needed. The industry never moves backwards and so has woken up and adapted to a new digital era. 2020’s fashion advances are just certainly the beginning of what will be fashion’s vision of the future.

TOP 5 APPS FOR FASHION LOVERS DEPUTY FASHION EDITOR KAIA PURCELL BRINGS YOU HER TOP FIVE APP RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THOSE TECH-SAVVY FASHIONISTAS OUT THERE.

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n a world where we feel comfortable (and frankly, glad) to delegate even the most menial of tasks to technology, we are experiencing the many ways in which technology is bringing the world closer within our reach.

The fashion world is no exception to this. From virtual fashion shows promoting accessibility, sustainability, and safety in a socially distanced world, to the ability to sell your clothes online.

Increasingly, our interaction with the fashion world happens through our smartphones. Here are my top five apps which you may find yourself turning to (if you haven’t already) to simplify different aspects of your fashion life. And they’re all totally free - yay!

STYLEBOOK

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If you ever wondered why our wardrobes never progressed technologically as predicted in 90s movie Clueless, then take a look at apps like Stylebook. Allowing you to photograph the contents of your wardrobe including clothing, accessories and footwear, this app provides you with the space to categorise, organise and outfit plan using everything you already own. However, this app may be in need of a reboot considering that information on this app still needs to be manually inputted (ie. you need to take pictures of everything.

EVERYTHING). Not an easy or quick task for most, but definitely a step in the right direction to living your best Cher Horowitz life.

GOOD ON YOU

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When it comes to making conscious decisions while shopping Good On You, favoured by many including Emma Watson, helps you make more ethical choices.

While browsing, you can easily type any brand into the search feature which will in turn generate a rating based on factors like planet, people and animals in their production process.

Paired with a summary of the brands practices and an advisory based on them, this is an app that any conscious shopper should definitely take a look at.

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DEPOP

This one is definitely not news to you. The clothing resale app was launched in 2011 and has grown tremendously over the last nine years as more people choose to steer away from fast fashion and invest in vintage and preloved garments. Uploading images and descriptions is but the work of minutes with this super user friendly application. With over 21 million users on Depop, this online alternative provides an accessible virtual marketplace, allowing you to turn a profit without dealing with issues such as store overheads or staffing (or getting up early on a Sunday to go to a vintage market).

PINTEREST

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This app 100% deserves a space on this list for the simple fact that it offers so much more than just fashion. If you can relate to a childhood of cutting out magazine pictures to create physical mood boards/wishlists/ lookbooks, then Pinterest is totally essential. With the ability to add your own images or “Pins” in addition to accessing a whole variety of others including webpages, this is the perfect space to get creative with your style by taking inspiration from others and from exposure to fashion houses and designers the world over. It’s also a great resource for ideas on upcycling clothes, mending garments or for getting some cute and free patterns for the craft of your choice, if you’re so inclined.

BEZZU

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One of the greatest upsides to technological advances in the fashion world is definitely the increased accessibility and exposure to homegrown fashion brands. Apps like Bezzu work to showcase independent Irish retailers, providing them with a platform to share their wares in an easily accessible and user friendly app. With functions like shopping by location to allow you to shop stores in your area and the ability to filter results according to price and size, this app is the perfect one to use to support Irish businesses this Christmas season.

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The Professor's Pen Dr. Miranda Corcoran

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n one of his novels, the American author Kurt Vonnegut observes that science fiction writers generally know very little about science. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that statement, I can tell you that, as someone who researches and teaches science fiction, I know almost nothing about science, beyond what I covered for my Junior Cert. Nevertheless, I enjoy sci-fi, largely because it provides a language, a set of icons and images, through which we can explore the world around us. While science fiction often engages with ideas about technology, particularly the relationship between humanity and scientific advancement, it just as often employs scientific tropes to explore broader questions about society. A well-known twentiethcentury critic of the genre, Darko Suvin, famously described science fiction as the literature of “cognitive estrangement”. For him, science fiction is a genre that transforms the world we know, making it appear strange through the addition of some novel form of technology. For as long as the genre has existed (some people date it to the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1818, while others claim it began with the utopian fiction of the sixteenth century), sci-fi has used images of technological estrangement to question our basic assumptions about the world around us.

Artificial intelligence has long been a recurrent feature of this kind of imaginative estrangement.

The notion that machines, computers or other entities could be endowed with an intellect akin to our own often serves to undermine our belief

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in human uniqueness. The first literary text to use the word “robot” to describe artificially intelligent machines was Czech playwright Karel Capek’s 1921 production RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots).

Capek employed the motif of intelligent machines to critique the dehumanising aspects of early twentieth-century factory labour. In the 1982 film Bladerunner (based on Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), artificially intelligent replicants challenge what it means to be human. Before his death, one such replicant, Roy Batty, suggests that to be human is simply to be the sum of one’s memories and experiences.

Lamenting that once he is destroyed, his remembered experiences “will be lost in time, like tears in rain,” Batty indicates that machines capable of learning and remembering are practically indistinguishable from their human counterparts. Another especially creative use of AI appears in Ira Levin’s 1972 novel The Stepford Wives. Written at the height of second-wave feminist activism, the novel condemns patriarchal resistance to gender equality by portraying a nightmarish scenario in which headstrong women are replaced by accommodating, domesticated and sexually acquiescent robots.

Unlike other popular elements of science fiction (time travel, teleportation, intergalactic voyages), AI is, of course, something that exists in our world. As in fiction, real-world AI also challenges what it means to be fully human. If machines can take on certain jobs, what does that do to the humanity of the people

who originally held those positions?

To what degree do our smart phones serve as extensions of both our bodies and our identities? What does the feminisation of virtual assistants say about how our society views women?

The last of these questions is, to me, particularly interesting. The majority of popular virtual assistants – Alexa, Siri, Cortana – have pleasant, softspoken female voices and appear to be gendered female. Like the obliging, eager-to-please Stepford Wives described in Levin’s novel, these AI assistants exist only to help and serve.

As a recent UNESCO report observes, Because the speech of most voice assistants is female, it sends a signal that women are... docile helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like “hey” or “OK”. The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it. It honours commands and responds to queries regardless of their tone or hostility […]

Here in the real word, then, AI seems to reflect and even amplify existing social problems, particularly those related to class, gender and race. AI facial recognition technologies used in law enforcement and industry have even been criticised for reproducing troubling racial biases. In fiction, as in reality, AI encompasses an intriguing set of technological possibilities that simultaneously challenge what it means to be human and, sadly, echo some of our worst prejudices and assumptions.

THE HELPING

HAND OF AI Mature Student Office

BY MIKE RYAN

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rtificial Intelligence was once a very scary prospect.

Long before 1984’s The Terminator and it’s apocalyptic premonitions of “Skynet” going live, researchers and sciencefiction writers alike were theorising the potential repercussions of a computer making decisions for itself.

Thankfully for us, the reality of AI has turned out to be far more benign (so far), and an argument could be made that the people who stand to gain the most from these advancements might just be adult learners.

One of the biggest obstacles for mature students that we see year on year is the adoption of new technologies.

Mature students come from a diverse range of backgrounds. Some may

have been out of education for years, possible decades.

Coming to grips with the various platforms used across the university can sometimes be a bigger task for these students. This can be a debilitating obstruction at a pivotal stage of a mature student’s journey. The impact can be two-fold in some cases, as it can result in students losing sight of the unique and diverse skills and learning histories that mature students typically bring to third level education. This is why for mature students, and other adult learners, AI has been hailed by some as the great leveller.

In recent years AI has been slowly implemented across some of the planet’s most ubiquitous apps and platforms such as Microsoft Office, and

Google’s ever-expanding suite of applications.

Predictive recommendation algorithms have streamlined processes as simple as answering emails or as complicated as planning out your month in advance.

Gmail now predicts the sentence you’re typing as you are typing it and can suggest adding meetings you mention to your calendar. Microsoft’s Cortana, for example, will remind users to complete tasks mentioned in passing in emails, and suggest blocks of time to focus on tasks. All this just 23 years after Microsoft Word introduced the world to its anthropomorphic paperclip Office Assistant who would (usually incorrectly) prompt you with formatting suggestions. Clippy ran so that Cortana could fly.

The net result of these technologies is a bridging of the gap between native users and new converts. It vastly reduces the micro-frustrations often caused by unfamiliarity with new systems and lets mature students more efficiently apply and translate the knowledge they gain on their student journey. Mature students can now say hello to university life, and hasta la vista to tech-induced stress.

Students looking to find out more about technological supports can do so through the UCC Student IT web page https://www.ucc.ie/en/ sit/

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Societies Spotlight Irina Fernandes, Societies Executive PRO

In the past couple weeks....

Transgender Healthcare Conference: LGBTQ, GovPol, GP, Failte Refugees, Fianna Fáil, Surgical, Translational Medicine, Philosophy, Pharmacy, Scribbles, Sinn Féin, young Fianna Gael and Medicine Societies held an important conference in collaboration with Gender Rebels Cork where medical professionals from Ireland and the USA discussed trans related healthcare as well as a political discussion of the Irish healthcare System and the important personal stories from Trans people.

Can U Help: Biomed, MRT, Science, WiStem, Pharmacy, Maths, Chemical and Engineering societies have come

Diwali:

together in November to raise money for CUH through

celebration

running a series of events like "5k in your 5k" and "Go Blue for C.U.H" which saw the support from multiple other societies!

Movember: Movember is an annual event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men's suicide. This year numerous societies have supported the cause by having members grow their mustaches but we have also had our

Indian

Society

virtually

in

held

their

collaboration

annual with

Diwali Scribble

society and Asian Foods Cork. Diwali is a festival of lights and one of the major festivals celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs. The festival usually lasts five days and is celebrated during the Hindu lunisolar month Kartika.

Future events to keep an eye on: Socs and Scones is back and will be happening biweekly starting on Friday the 27th!

own President, Adam, going head to head with the Clubs

LGBTQ & Law socs: The LGBTQ+ community and the

President Daniel in a contest on who can grow the best

Law:

beard and raise the most money!

experiences in the development of LGBTQ+ Rights in

exploring

different

cases

and

personal

Ireland. (10th December) SVP: SVP Social Justice Week week (30th November 4th December)

Name: Mary O’Donnell Pronouns: she/her Position: Vice-President, Events & Education Officer What do you do in college? I did a BA in Music and Geography, as well as a Bachelor of Music, and I’m currently studying an MA in Arts Management and Creative Producing.

What Societies were/are you involved with? I was Chairperson, Secretary and Vice-Finance Officer of the Irish Traditional Music Society (UCC TradSoc) during my undergraduate, and I was also the Secretary and Alumni Officer on the Societies Executive last year, so this is my second year on the Exec!

Favourite memory of Societies? There are a few, but a standout was definitely travelling to Vietnam for St Patrick’s Day 2019 with TradSoc! I’ve also loved the festivals we’ve organised with TradSoc and the Alumni Event from last year with the Exec.

What’s your number one tip for staying sane while working/studying from home? Stay connected and take lots of breaks from the screen! I love any excuse for a socially distanced coffee/walk or just a tea break. I’m also blessed to have really great housemates to spend time with on my breaks, but if you’re not in that boat then call your friends or join a society to make new ones!!

Meet the Executive

It’s fast-paced, rewarding

and so much more than I imagined.

Graduate Area Manager Programme • €61,000 starting salary rising to €102,850 • Pension • Healthcare • BMW 3 series The Area Manager programme is fast paced. Not many employers would ask you to run a €multi-million business after 15 weeks.

But we trust you’ve got what it takes – confidence, humility and determination. And we trust that you want more, just like us. It’s how you’ll get the best out of yourself, and your teams. But you’ll have plenty of support along the way. With helpful colleagues and your own mentor, you’ll quickly learn everything there is to know and become a great leader. So with ongoing development from day one, a career with Aldi really can take you anywhere.

aldirecruitment.ie

#TeamAldi

AWARDS 2020

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