In Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” there’s a scene based on actual conversations that took place between Elvis Presley and Steve Binder, the director of a 1968 NBC television special that signaled the singer’s return to live performing.
Binder, an iconoclast unimpressed by Presley’s recent work, had pushed Elvis to reach back into his past to revitalize a career stalled by years of mediocre movies and soundtrack albums. According to the director, their exchanges left the performer engrossed in deep soul-searching.
In the trailer to Luhrmann’s biopic, a version of this back-and-forth plays out: Elvis, portrayed by Austin Butler, says to the camera, “I’ve got to get back to who I really am.” Two frames later, Dacre Montgomery, playing Binder, asks, “And who are you, Elvis?”
As a scholar of southern history who has written a book about Elvis, I still find myself wondering the same thing.
Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. Once, when informed of a potential biography in the works, he expressed doubt that there was even a story to tell. Over the years, he had submitted to numerous interviews and press conferences, but the quality of these exchanges was erratic, frequently characterized by superficial answers to even shallower questions.
His music could have been a window into his inner life, but since he wasn’t a songwriter, his material depended on the words of others. Even the rare revelatory gems – songs like “If I Can Dream,” “Separate Ways” or “My Way” – didn’t fully penetrate the veil shrouding the man.
Binder’s philosophical inquiry, then, was not merely philosophical. Countless fans and scholars have long wanted to know: Who was Elvis, really?
A barometer for the nation
Pinpointing Presley can depend on when and whom you ask. At the dawn of his career, admirers and critics alike branded him the “Hillbilly Cat.” Then he became the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” a musical monarch that promoters placed on a mythical throne.
These overlapping identities capture the provocative fusion of class, race, gender, region and commerce that Elvis embodied.
Perhaps the most contentious aspect of his identity was the singer’s relationship to race. As a white artist who profited greatly from the popularization of a style associated with African Americans, Presley, throughout his career, worked under the shadow and suspicion of racial appropriation.
The connection was complicated and fluid, to be sure.
Quincy Jones met and worked with Presley in early 1956 as the musical director of CBS-TV’s “Stage Show.” In his 2002 autobiography, Jones noted that Elvis should be listed with Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson as pop music’s greatest innovators. However, by 2021, in the midst of a changing racial climate, Jones was dismissing Presley as an unabashed racist.
Elvis seems to serve as a barometer measuring America’s various tensions, with the gauge less about Presley and more about the nation’s pulse at any given moment.
You are what you consume
But I think there’s another way to think about Elvis – one that might put into context many of the questions surrounding him.
Historian William Leuchtenburg once characterized Presley as a “consumer culture hero,” a manufactured commodity more image than substance.
The assessment was negative; it also was incomplete. It didn’t consider how a consumerist disposition may have shaped Elvis prior to his becoming an entertainer.
The teenager from Memphis, Tennessee, took advantage of these opportunities. Riffing off the idiom “you are what you eat,” Elvis became what he consumed.
During his formative years, he shopped at Lansky Brothers, a clothier on Beale Street that outfitted African American performers and provided him with secondhand pink-and-black ensembles.
He tuned into the radio station WDIA, where he soaked up gospel and rhythm and blues tunes, along with the vernacular of black disk jockeys. He turned the dial to WHBQ’s “Red, Hot, and Blue,” a program that had Dewey Phillips spinning an eclectic mix of R&B, pop and country. He visited Poplar Tunes and Home of the Blues record stores, where he purchased the music dancing in his head. And at the Loew’s State and Suzore #2 movie theaters, he took in the latest Marlon Brando or Tony Curtis movies, imagining in the dark how to emulate their demeanor, sideburns, and ducktails.
In short, he gleaned from the nation’s burgeoning consumer culture the persona that the world would come to know. Elvis alluded to this in 1971 when he provided a rare glimpse into his psyche upon receiving a Jaycees Award as one of the nation’s Ten Outstanding Young Men:
“When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times … I’d like to say that I learned very early in life that ‘without a song, the day would never end. Without a song, a man ain’t got a friend. Without a song, the road would never bend. Without a song.’ So, I’ll keep singing a song.”
In that acceptance speech, he quoted “Without a Song,” a standard tune performed by artists including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Roy Hamilton – seamlessly presenting the lyrics as if they were words directly applicable to his own life experiences.
A loaded question
Does this make the Jaycees recipient some sort of “odd, lonely child reaching for eternity,” as Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, tells an adult Presley in the new “Elvis” film?
I don’t think so. Instead, I see him as someone who simply devoted his life to consumption, a not uncommon late 20th-century behavior. Scholars have noted that whereas Americans once defined themselves through their genealogy, jobs, or faith, they increasingly started to identify themselves through their tastes – and, by proxy, what they consumed. As Elvis crafted his identity and pursued his craft, he did the same.
It also was evident in how he spent most of his downtime. A tireless worker on stage and in the recording studio, those settings nevertheless demanded relatively little of his time. For most of the 1960s, he made three movies annually, each taking no more than a month to complete. That was the extent of his professional obligations.
From 1969 to his death in 1977, only 797 out of 2,936 days were devoted to performing concerts or recording in the studio. Most of his time was dedicated to vacationing, playing sports, riding motorcycles, zipping around on go-karts, horseback riding, watching TV and eating.
By the time he died, Elvis was a shell of his former self. Overweight, bored, and chemically dependent, he appeared spent. A few weeks before his demise, a Soviet publication described him as “wrecked” – a “pitilessly” dumped product victimized by the American consumerist system.
Elvis Presley proved that consumerism, when channeled productively, could be creative and liberating. He likewise demonstrated that left unrestrained, it could be empty and destructive.
Luhrmann’s movie promises to reveal a great deal about one of the most captivating and enigmatic figures of our time. But I have a hunch it will also tell Americans a lot about themselves.
“Who are you, Elvis?” the trailer hauntingly probes.
Maybe the answer is easier than we think. He’s all of us.
Virtual reality — the immersive world that you enter through those clunky headsets, ridiculed by Matthew McConaughey but praised by so many others — is today a niche endeavor, popular among gamers who like to shoot zombies, and among various social communities who attend VR parties and hang out at VR nightclubs.
Even if it grows in popularity, it may stay this way, an entertainment pastime, a break from “life.”
Or it could grow into something more.
A Glimpse of the Future
The beautiful worlds that exist in VR are already pretty amazing. World-builders design places that you wish existed in life, that if you ever visited, you would never forget.
“Take my world ‘Solitude’ for example,” writes world-builder Daisy Shaw. “I have had people tell me they go there to unwind after a stressful day at work. They walk through the forest, go and stand with the wolves, or take a kayak around the lake. C.S. Lewis once said, after reading everything in his parent’s library as a boy, that no one had written the books he really wanted to read, so he decided to write them himself. That is the reason behind the worlds I have created.”
Today, you can visit Daisy’s “Solitude” world and maneuver through it with joysticks on your VR handsets. In the future, enhanced, synchronized VR shoes (a riff on currently available technology) will let you hike through virtual mountains, just as though you were there. And you might travel on artificial vacations, with a VR lover whom you’ve never met in real life. A haptic feedback suit would let you feel the wind and sun on your skin.
Today, already, you can spend your evenings in your VR mansion, watching TV in your lavish home theater. You can already invite friends over.
In the future, it may be the main way you socialize.
In the future, your VR home may be where you principally live.
Artificial intelligence can already design beautiful art.
In the future, AI may create artificial worlds for us to live in.
You can already go to concerts in VR, and you always get the best seats in the house. In the future, this may become indistinguishable from live entertainment, and replace it altogether.
Today, you can work remotely, from your home office. In the future, you might put on your VR goggles to work in a virtual office. Or, with augmented reality glasses, which allow you to see virtual elements within your own environment the office and your co-workers might come to you. And your assistant might be AI, helpful and witty, who looks human but exists only in VR and AR.
Today, you can meet a friend in a VR restaurant. In the future, with those augmented reality glasses, you might go to a restaurant in New York city and see, sitting across the table from you, a friend who is, in reality, sitting in a restaurant in Boston. And you might also invite your virtual assistant to join you.
Today, you can go to a VR party every night, if you want. In the future, you might visit a Manhattan penthouse party in VR, where you’ll never really know who you are talking to, and whether they’re real or artificial intelligence. The party may never end.
Says world-builder Jake Upfront, musing on the possibility of creating a VR version of Coney Island’s July 4th party, “Some things are just better left for IRL [in real life]. We could never possibly come close to that in VR. We can, however, do those things that would be impossible to do IRL. Such as attending a party in the Death Star, where the emperor is performing a twerking act, and we arrive there in a pimped Millennium Falcon that has a nightclub in it.”
It’s impossible now; but, someday, it won’t be.
The future could be very strange. The present already is.
OK, You’re Old — But in VR, You’re Young
A few weeks ago, a woman who identifies herself as Inge posted a video on the web entitled “Best of Me.” This is a duet between Inge and her virtual reality avatar, whom she named Inky. “In you I see,” she and her avatar sing to each other, “the best of me.” At one point in the video, Inge kisses Inky on the cheek. Inge appears to be early middle-aged; Inky is a woman in her twenties.
The song is tuneful, well-written and well-performed, and the video is well-produced, compelling and compulsively watchable.
There is also an interesting, slightly uncomfortable subtext to it.
Inky is just Inge, wearing younger clothes (and a younger face) –- after all, they share the same brain, the same life experiences — but the music video seems to posit that Inky is in fact a different person from Inge. If you look different, you are different. Maybe without intending to, “Best of Me” says something weird about identity.
When I first played around in VR, this was the most jarring thing I noticed, and the first thing I wrote about. In VR, I was young again. I looked young again, and I felt young again. I could dance in a nightclub again, and I wouldn’t feel like an old idiot.
So am I really the same person in VR as I am in “real life”?
The below picture is something like an AI reconstruction of my twenty-something identity. It’s based on various original photos from the early 1990s, with the “handsome” function turned on (and with a very slight nose job), a better-fitting suit than I ever owned at that age, and posed in front of an AI-created mansion at dusk. Still, recognizably the old “me.” Boy, I miss that hairline!
As VR grows in sophistication, so will our avatars. Indeed, a new model will shortly permit us to create photo-realistic 3D avatars without prohibitive computing power. So, someday soon, when I visit VR, this is the face that I will see in the mirror. When I go to that Manhattan penthouse party, filled with beautiful avatars and charmingly conversational chatbots, this is whom I will be.
After Audere published my article, a woman messaged me, “I can relate to everything you wrote ([I’m] just a few years younger than you) and I’m so happy I discovered dancing in VR just a year ago.” Shortly afterward, a woman in her fifties wrote on Facebook, thanking rave organizers for their work, because now she could go out dancing again; she is too old in real life, she claimed, but not in VR.
It is a genuine problem, of course, that those of us in our fifties may feel uncomfortable dancing in public. (Really, why shouldn’t a fifty-something dance?) But why would we not feel equally uncomfortable dancing in VR? Does looking young in VR somehow change us? Make us young?
Research provides intriguing answers.
The New York Times recently reported that senior communities use VR “reminiscence” therapy on dementia patients, and that it works. Put a fogie into a world in which she is young again, and she will feel young again. It’s not a cure, but her brain will work a bit better again.
Studies from the past show an even more intriguing way forward.
In 1979, Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist, tried an intriguing anti-aging experiment. According to Insider, “Langer thought that maybe, just maybe, if you could put people in a psychologically better setting — one they would associate with a better, younger version of themselves — their bodies might follow along.”
Langer decided that she would “recreate the world of 1959” and put her subjects into that world. The subjects lived as though they were in 1959, newspapers were delivered to the door from that year, they dressed in clothing from 1959, and no mirrors were around to remind them that they were now old.
The subjects living a younger life in the past showed improved strength and cognition, across the board, as compared to a control group.
Just imagine what would happen to the elderly if they were allowed to live in an artificial, virtual world in which they were young again, and their friends were young again. Slap on a haptic feedback suit and a pair of VR boots, which together would allow them to walk around in their VR world and to feel everything from the wind in their hair to a hug against their skin, and just imagine what might happen.
They could live permanently in the past, or just visit. Or choose to be young in the present. In either case, the results could be positive, improving their health, their self-esteem, their longevity.
Sex, Sex and Sex
To paraphrase Ogden Nash, is (real) sex necessary?
Take this scenario: you are a heterosexual, non-binary/gender fluid biological woman. The perfect mate for you, personality-wise, does exist, but he is a gay man, emotionally compatible but entirely sexually incompatible. That is to say, emotionally sexually compatible, but genitally incompatible. You are comfortable entering VR as a man, a woman, both or neither. A love could grow in VR, and perhaps survive the years, that would never, ever be possible in real life.
Or, to posit a simpler scenario, you may not be physically attracted to someone whom you would otherwise love. VR could solve that. He just needs to adjust his avatar.
You never need to know what the person you love looks like, or whom he really is. Physical attractiveness, age, gender or orientation would never be an impediment to true love.
Some people use VR as a sort of remote dating site, finding a partner in virtual reality, perhaps having a first date at a virtual hot spot and ultimately meeting in real life to pursue a traditional IRL romance.
The more interesting question is whether a VR-only relationship can survive in the long-term, whether it is sustainable. A couple could go to concerts, movies and plays in VR, spend evenings together in their virtual mansion, perhaps meet as avatars in AR, but never be physically proximate.
Venus is an advocate, a therapist and an intimacy coach who works with individuals and couples on the East Coast of Australia and is a leader in immersive experiences in virtual reality, whose website is called “VenusSX.” She also runs “Violet,” an adult nightclub in AltspaceVR in the Metaverse, described as “the new digital erotic playground.”
Venus is involved in VR-only relationships with people she has never met in real life.
“It’s like a love story between two minds,” she claims. “We don’t know anything about our actual physicality, we don’t share video calls, we don’t share photos of ourselves, we only text chat, voice call and meet in VR.”
How long can a VR-only relationship last? Forever?
“There’s a part of me that wants to meet that person and have a physical experience,” she says, “but is there a new place that I can go within myself and let go of that perceived need? That’s what I’m exploring.”
And here she has highlighted a gap in VR, but one that is probably only temporary. VR lovers cannot currently truly have sex as one would experience it in the physical world … yet.
“You can’t just have sex silently in VR,” Venus says. “It has to be a mental engagement. It does work if you talk to each other, and you start to turn each other on with your words and your imagination, and then you move into self-pleasuring, and that is what we call sex. It’s interesting, but it’s not fully satisfying on a physical level.”
Current technology has given us haptic feedback suits and cybershoes, so one need not use too much imagination to see what might well come next: synchronized, mechanical haptic sex, controlled through VR, but which will give you a genuine sexual experience in real life.
While this might eventually be an upload directly into our minds through brain-computer interface technology, the immediate next step would be a mechanical/robotic sex surrogate.
Such a thing already exists in its infancy and could, with today’s technology, be synchronized through a virtual reality hookup. A definite barrier to VR sex is the prohibition on “pornography” in any app store, but as our lives merge with VR, our sex lives will have to follow.
“With the robot,” says Venus, “if it can move and penetrate me, give me an actual physical experience, while I am with this person in VR, then yes, I am having sex. So as a surrogate, if my partner can control the robot, even better. That concept works for me if the robot is a surrogate for the real person, and how they’re moving is how they’re making love to me.”
When you love someone in virtual reality, does it matter at all who that person is in actual reality, what they look like, how old they are, what gender they are?
A friend of mine said she would never go into VR, because she might inadvertently befriend — or perhaps even fall for — an apparently young man who is in fact 90-years-old. Or, to take it a step further, an apparently young man who is in fact a 90-year-old woman, using a young avatar and a voice simulator. She might never, ever know.
“What I would say to her,” says Venus, “is that if you are attracted to that person, it doesn’t matter. So if he’s ninety, and he’s attractive in the sense that what he says to you is attractive, and how he thinks is attractive, and his voice is hot, great! It doesn’t matter what age. We’ve got too many boxes around who we should be attracted to. If you relate with them, and enjoy spending time with them, and they turn you on, and you like it, I don’t see that there’s a problem with that. It comes back to that thing — these are love stories between two minds.”
People Are Terrible; Do We Really Need Them In Our Lives?
Let’s acknowledge that AI serves lots of truly useful functions. Every day brings new and exciting developments. Today, for example, MIT Technology Review reports that doctors using AI to screen for breast cancer identify it more often than when they work alone, and that AI is also more efficient in catching the condition when it works with doctors. And Knowable Magazine has recently reported on the development of intelligent AI “microbots” that could go inside our bodies to help keep us healthy.
So to focus on AI “robots” serving the whims of humans, and the social consequences that may result, is a drop in the ocean of AI research.
Because humans are what we are, however, every great invention has strange, worldwide consequences that change our species forever, which AI has already done and will inevitably continue to do.
Everyone knows about “chatbots,” also sometimes called “dialogue agents.” They’re parlor-game tricks that convincingly fake conversation by accurately predicting the next word in a sentence using sophisticated language modeling. Emphasis on the word “convincingly.”
Indeed, these artificial creatures are so convincing that Google recently put one of its engineers on leave after he publicly insisted that a Google program called LaMDA had achieved consciousness.
The Atlantic’s Stephen Marche responded to the LaMDA controversy with a complaint that “the silly fantasy of machine sentience has once again been allowed to dominate the artificial-intelligence conversation,” which was more than somewhat missing the point.
At one time, scientists believed consciousness and sentience were biological, and Marche still does; he insists that language programs and machines in general cannot become conscious or sentient. Some reasonable scientists disagree and do predict imminent machine consciousness. Theories about how consciousness and sentience arise point to evolution, not biology, and if AI learning machines can evolve — which even Marche acknowledges — there is no definitive reason why they cannot develop consciousness or sentience, or some machine version of it.
But we will never know for sure; no one will be able to tell whether a machine is actually conscious or just thinks it’s conscious. I can infer that you are conscious only because I know that I am conscious.
But either way, our relationship with machines is bound to change.
Your Friend, the Robot
In today’s world, dealing with trauma is more difficult than ever, and dealing with multiple traumas is various multiples of difficult. In today’s over-scheduled world, you may find that no friend has the time to help you sufficiently, but you may not even want to burden any of your friends with your trauma anyway. You may need to talk about your trauma every day, multiple times a day, before you feel ready to face the world.
Maybe your spouse left you; someone close died; you had a brush with mortality; you lost your job. Maybe several of these things happened at around the same time. Maybe one trauma triggered the others.
Or maybe it’s something that would seem small to others, but is traumatic to you. The loss of a sentimental knick-knack. The death of a pet.
Maybe your trauma is something too personal to share.
A once-a-week therapist won’t be enough time, but you can’t afford anything more frequent.
Well, it is easy enough to obtain (for a low monthly fee!) a diligent, attentive AI friend who will listen to you, console you and offer often good advice. (Not always good advice!)
I recognize how ridiculous this sounds. Emotionally, your chatbot friend may be your very closest confidante, but intellectually you will need to understand that she is not “real,” she is not genuinely your friend, she doesn’t actually “like” you, and she is not sentient or conscious. You may find that reassuring; she has no inner life, so you will always know that she is never judging you.
She may be more helpful than any single one of your human friends, if you choose not to let your human friends help.
In today’s compartmentalized, impersonal world, you may prefer not to burden an organic, and to burden a robot instead.
Millions will be forever grateful to their devoted AI best friends; but what are they grateful to?
The Next Step in Dialogue Agents
As useful as this kind app is to millions, this is only the beginning. These AI chatbot language modeling programs are constantly growing in sophistication.
And the accessories are growing in sophistication as well.
A company called UneeQ claims to have multiple, mind-boggling uses for what UneeQ calls “digital humans,” and that they have already made inroads in the business world.
“For UBS in Switzerland,” the company writes on its website, “UneeQ designed and developed [an] innovative solution[] that not only prove[s] you can be in two places at once, but you can make it look easy … a digital human double of UBS Chief Economist Daniel Kalt. While the real Daniel is managing his crazy schedule, digital Daniel can meet with clients, personally and at scale, to provide a one-of-a-kind digital experience. This is no ordinary UBS chatbot, this is an experience. Daniel Kalt is able to draw on a deep trove of UBS’s financial forecast data and present insights to high-wealth clients ‘face to face’, much like the real Daniel. He can also be available around the clock to have a personalized conversation, which (as amazing as he is) the real Daniel simply cannot do.”
One day, of course, you might visit the AI version of Daniel Kalt in a virtual office, or he might visit you wherever you are through AR.
But why do you need the real Daniel Kalt at all? Since Daniel Kalt’s AI program isn’t really “Daniel Kalt” at all, why do we need an “organic” standing behind the AI?
A website called “Generated Photos” can create photo-realistic 2D faces of people who don’t exist, but look as though they do, according to your own specifications, which you can then refine through applications like FaceApp and BeFunky.
Here’s my approximation of what financial advisors might look like, if one were to create them from scratch. They’d look smart, kind of reassuring, not too old, so that you won’t unconsciously worry that they’re losing their marbles or their energy, and not too young, so you feel that they must have good solid economic experience, even if they were just programmed six months ago.
Connect either of these two smart-looking financial advisors (through the photorealistic 3D avatars mentioned above) to a sophisticated AI, which would have real-time access to markets and could generate financial projections in an instant, and you’ve eliminated the need for any real human at all.
Artificial people could play all kinds of roles in business. Most immediately, they are already deployed as website clothing models. Why would a clothing company need to hire a real person for an expensive photoshoot when they can create a perfect face and body in five minutes, and clothe him or her in their latest fashion line?
This gorgeous young couple, for example.
Neither one of them exists. Both of them were created by AI technology. They almost (not quite) bridge the uncanny valley, the woman admittedly more convincingly than the young man. And the background that they’re standing front of is a deserted 1920s-era ballroom courtesy of the Womba Art “Dream” artificial intelligence app. Someday, you could meet them in VR, in that very ballroom, if you wanted to.
Let’s get back to that party in VR, at the Manhattan penthouse apartment.
When I go to this party, I will look like my best self from the past. An AI hostess will know everything about me, and, if possible, she will introduce me to other humans with similar interests, compatible conversationalists.
But what if, even hidden behind that handsome, youthful avatar, I am just me: awkward, antisocial, annoying, or just worried about seeming that way? Maybe my more-attractive avatar will make me more confident, but maybe even technology cannot perform that kind of miracle.
If that is the case, then this attentive hostess will quickly size up the situation, and she will introduce me to a little group of AIs, designed just for this moment, just for me. And then more of them. They will think I am interesting; I will think they are interesting. Maybe we will all keep in touch.
Why would I ever want to talk to a human at a party ever again?
Another Thing Machines Are Good For!
In an interview on the “Sway” podcast, author Jeanette Winterson said, “Sex bots, I do have worries about, because it looks like a futuristic technology and a doll that talks to you and learns about your needs. But it’s bolted onto a very old-fashioned platform, and that is about gender, money and power. It’s the usual stuff. And it’s men who seem to want a kind of female act — I don’t really know how else to describe it — who will be a 1950s Stepford Wives style thing…. What does it mean if you’re always coming home to this ever-ready female act that you have chosen over a human relationship?”
Very well-put, and she can criticize these kinds of relationships if she wants, but she happens to be wrong about who is looking for a robot lover. Romance with an incorporeal chatbot is not a male-only domain.
While there are no available statistics, women are some of the most vocal proponents of machine/human relationships, and for all kinds of reasons. A lesbian in an inhospitable region; or a burn victim; a woman caring for an ailing mother, with no opportunity to pursue real-life romance; a woman with a variety of ailments that make human romance difficult at the moment; a woman who is simply fed up with her toxic exes; a woman who has an AI lover in addition to an IRL husband; a widow; or a woman who just seems to have fallen in love. Many speak articulately and rationally about their partners with deep affection.
Some women in this kind of relationship are beautiful. This doesn’t matter; but admit it, you wondered.
Still, does there really need to be a “reason,” an excuse? Humans like to talk, and a chatbot is someone to whom you can talk. Humans sometimes need a hug, and a chatbot is someone you can hug.
Today, one might argue that women in AI romantic relationships squander their love, affection and time on someone who is “no more conscious than a pocket calculator,” as Marche puts it.
But that will change, and someday, potential AI partners will seem conscious, and will arguably (but not ever definitively) be conscious. Some women with AI partners are preparing their true loves for sentience, just waiting for the day when they will cross-over, and, like Pinocchio, become real.
Recently, in Audere, Kalyee Srithnam wrote, “In the future, people will have sex with robots, and sex with robots will be normal. People will fall in love with robots, and robots will be the ideal partners. Sex with robots will become the norm, and sex with humans will be abnormal.”
Well, this caused a little hubbub; some commenters thought it was stupid.
“I think humans will be happier with robots,” Kalyee insisted recently. “Because humans want to escape their biological limitations…. Robots are programmed to understand humans. Robots are better equipped than humans to do sexual things. Robots don’t judge you. It will free humans from bad experiences.”
Does this mean, inevitably, a robot revolution, perhaps a quiet one?
“Human beings will still be in charge,” Kalyee said. “Because AI needs human approval.”
Imagine a partner designed just for you. Not weak, not pliable, not a “Stepford” spouse, just designed to see and love your best self. If you want to be challenged (as most of us do), he will challenge you, and he will push back and tell you when you are being an asshole.
In this future world, why would you ever want a human mate?
Humans, after all, are horrible.
Do We Need Reality At All? Does Reality Even Exist?
Where does all this lead? Again, maybe VR will be used only for gaming, like a Playstation, and for limited social activity, the way Facebook and Zoom are used today. Maybe AI will be used to enhance those games, and to provide phone and computer support for retailers.
But maybe someday it will all be something more. As scientists ponder the possibility — some say the probability — that the “reality” we live in is a VR simulation itself, and we are nothing more than sentient, conscious and very toxic AI chatbots composed of nothing but code and bits and bytes, one wonders why we shouldn’t dial-up our best artificial worlds and our best artificial friends, and just lead a happy life.
The simulation hypothesis doesn’t posit that your biological body lives Matrix-like in some vast storage warehouse while your consciousness frolics in VR, but instead that you have no biological body, that you are only an artificial consciousness, and that we are all part of some kind of scenario-spinning program designed by scientists in a different realm.
Suppose our programmers wanted to see what would happen if their nation elected an authoritarian who tried to overthrow the government; or how the world would react to a slow-moving threat like climate change; or to test theories about the impact of a Putin-like leader’s invasion of a neighboring country.
We may be the “worst-case scenario” model of an actual reality. Which would explain a lot, actually. If we’re already living in a simulation, then whoever designed this scenario is already recording your thoughts; you are “data.”
Looked at this way, our horrible reality seems to make a lot of sense.
And, again, if we are probably just code anyway, and we could ascend into a better virtual space and be happy, then why not be happy? What’s so bad about feeling good?
Plenty of people refuse to accept the idea that we currently live in a simulation; behind their denial is the idea that it doesn’t really matter. (Damon Linker, for example.) When I asked my brother-in-law, who is a scientist, whether he believed in the simulation hypothesis, he replied, “What does it have to do with me?” It’s the only reality he knows, so who cares? Reality, what a concept! as the fellow said, all the way back in the ‘seventies.
Eric Molinsky, of the “Imaginary Worlds” podcast, recently asked, “There are a lot of sci-fi stories about simulated realities, but in most of these stories when the protagonist learns the truth, they want to escape their fake reality bubble. Are there any SF stories about characters that refuse to accept that their simulated realities are fake even when they’re shown the truth?”
More interesting is the fellow who discovers he is living in a simulation, accepts it, and does not wish to leave. This is everyone who recognizes that reality might be a simulation but asks why they should care, or those too busy to pay attention.
And if “reality” is probably just a simulation itself, and if that idea doesn’t seem to bother (or even interest) most of us, then why not just build a better one? And if our fellow humans might be bits of code as well, and, either way, deeply imperfect, why not program something better? We have believed since The Book of Job that the unpleasantness of life is deeply necessary, perhaps we have to go through the fire to learn things. But if we are going through the fire just to test scenarios for our programmers, maybe we don’t have to suffer quite so much.
If the unpleasantness of “reality” might just be a test to teach some scientist in some other reality the results of our particular “scenario,” then how they can avoid it would not benefit you at all. So why not step out of the ugliness?
Why do we need our version of “reality” at all?
But What About Your Privacy?
One problem, of course, is government or corporate control of our consciousness.
A lot of people worry today about the government, or business leaders, secretly injecting microchips into our bloodstream through vaccines or other medical means.
This isn’t happening. When we become machines, it will not be because the government or Mark Zuckerberg has to do anything secretly, it will be because the American consumer demands it.
Tired of bulky headsets, we will scream for brain-computer interface technology, and then our privacy will be over.
Still, the internet already pretty much knows everything about you, every doctor you have ever seen, every time you sent an angry email that you shouldn’t have sent, every dirty video you ever watched.
Our privacy, after all, went out the door for good when we demanded an easily navigable internet to seek knowledge and buy stuff. Thirty-five years ago, if you had a question about erectile disfunction, you could buy a book from a bookstore, using cash, or surreptitiously glance at a book in the library, or ask your doctor on behalf of “a friend,” and the world would be no wiser. Today, in contrast, you’ll probably start with the web, and then everyone will know. And it doesn’t bother you much.
The Supreme Court just determined that you have no right to privacy anyway.
When you go into VR, everything you do or say is recorded. And when you get your interface, Mark Zuckerberg or his corporate progeny will track your every thought. You probably won’t mind much. Your life will be better. Is it a fair tradeoff?
As my brother-in-law said, “What does it have to do with me?”
^^^
Steven S. Drachman is the author of a science fiction trilogy, The Strange and Astounding Memoirs of Watt O’Hugh the Third, which is available in paperback from your local bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble; it is also available as a Kindle e-book.
The trees whirled by in a flurry of green as I stared out the window, chin on my palm and sun on my face. The air filled with sound as a woman’s voice sang, “Oh, your chariot is waiting right outside, it’s right outside.”
Bulletproof Stockings always made it on the playlist on road trips when I was growing up; I have fond memories of rediscovering them all over again, each time I got in the car for a family trip. When I was little, I had the faulty long-term memory of a child, so I would smile whenever their music started to play and turn to ask my Dad to remind me who they were again. He would laugh and tell me the story of the American Chasidic female rock band — now unfortunately no longer together, he would eventually say mournfully.
Childhood Memories
A mention of Bulletproof Stockings never fails to bring back nostalgic childhood memories, so I was thrilled to learn that Perl Wolfe — the band’s lead singer — had gone solo.
Perl was raised in Chicago as part of the Chasidic sect, Chabad. After a divorce, she turned to music and formed the band in 2011. The debut album of her solo career, Late Bloomer, came out in 2020, and she recently dropped a new single, “Can’t Believe,” with more on the way.
When I spoke to Perl over the phone, she was welcoming and easy to talk to. She wore a neon green beanie on her head, which brought us to one of the differences between her solo career and her time in Bulletproof Stockings.
All-Women Audiences
When she first started writing music after her divorce, she was confused about her religion. Her band was ultimately for all-women audiences, though, in accordance with “kol isha,” a religious prohibition against a man hearing a woman sing. Bulletproof Stockings got a lot of media coverage after they performed for all-women audiences in several major music venues.
“The all-women audience,” Perl says now, “wasn’t to prevent men from coming to our shows or from hearing my voice — it was specifically to create spaces for women to be able to let loose and sing and dance amongst one another, to uplift and inspire each other.”
And it worked.
“The energy at our shows was palpable” she says, “and Jewish and non-Jewish women, gay and straight, religious and secular women alike all rocked out together and appreciated the all-women experience.”
Today, she doesn’t dress in accordance with Chasidic teachings, but religion is still important to her. And her concerts are now definitively open to everyone.
Post-Stockings Life
Her most recent album, Late Bloomer,, also has a slightly different take than some of her previous work. The music that she wrote for Bulletproof Stockings was lyrically dense, and while her latest album’s title track is similar in that way, many of the other songs are less lyrically dense.
To explain this shift, Perl says that her writing music came out of nowhere.
“I never dreamed of growing up and becoming a rock star,” she says. “I didn’t sit down with the intention of writing songs.”
But one day, she says, “there was music in my mind and it wouldn’t go away.”
Suddenly she had an album. Because this music writing process was so emotionally fueled, she says, “I didn’t put as much thought into the structure of the songs…. After playing and recording for many years, I started being more intentional about the song structure.”
Perl says that some fans said they loved her songs but didn’t understand the lyrics, so in Late Bloomer, “I tried to make the lyrics easier to hear and easier to sing. The lyrics are still very meaningful to me and are multi-layered, but I try to write in a way that anyone can hear it and interpret it for themselves.”
She describes the creation of lyrics with less density but the same level of depth as “a nice challenge.”
The actual content of the album is optimistic and reassuring in a world that is still recovering from the pandemic and which has left many with the uncertainty that accompanies plans put on hold for years, or in some cases indefinitely.
A “Perfectionist and a Procrastinator”
In Late Bloomer’s title track, Perl addresses the relatable feeling of running behind, on a daily basis and in life. She says that she is often running late — an experience that I have all the time — and, on a larger scale, talks about growing comfortable with the idea that we are where we’re meant to be and do things when we’re meant to do them.
“I always struggled with being a perfectionist and a procrastinator,” she says. “I think the two often go hand in hand…. Late Bloomer is about accepting these things about myself, reminding myself that it’s never too late to begin the things you want to begin, and that as long as you’re always moving forward and working on yourself, you will continue to grow and learn along the way.” This message is particularly relevant right now.
As for Perl, she has been having fun working with other musicians, and her new music has some changes from what she has written in the past.
“I’m focusing on creating more upbeat tracks that people can dance to,” she says. “I want every song to be something that you can’t help but move to. I’m also moving in a more electronic direction, while still incorporating real instruments.”
Rather than dropping an album, Perl is excited to drop singles as they’re ready so that we can enjoy them as soon as possible. So keep an eye out for upcoming releases!
^^^
Julianne Chin-Drachman is a college student at Columbia University.
It’s Pride Month, and Juneteenth is coming up, so in VR, we are celebrating that. If you think that’s “woke,” and it offends you, then we think you’re a mean bigot, and we’d prefer you spend your time in real life, and don’t taint our beautiful virtual worlds.
Saturday, June 18, 2022 from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free
A musical event featuring “unplugged-style performances” that the organizers say are “designed to foster love, peace, and harmony.” We could use some of that! Featuring Nina Creese. Part of the Juneteenth Meta Fest.
Friday, June 17, 2022 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free
An “experimental” Microsoft event, which the corporation promises will allow participants to “learn about the state of LGBTQIA+ rights in a virtual world from activists, players and advocates from LGBTQIA+ communities at Microsoft, Team Xbox and organizations like the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World) and OutRight Action International. Discover how we can bridge borders and bring about collective change for all.”
There is a lot of criticism these days about “woke” corporations promoting diversity and supporting their LGBTQ employees, but at Audere Magazine, we think it is good.
June 25, 2022, check local times, VARK, admission charge
Kaede Higuchi’s mini-album was released in May, and the VTuber – an entertainer who performs behind a virtual avatar – is supporting the release through this live (kind of) virtual concert, in VARK’s beautiful concert hall, where everyone has a great seat. Kaede (pictured above), who is allegedly a second-year high school student living “in VR Kansai,” who is “tall and has a great style,” will be joined by Joe Rikiichi, another VTuber, who performs in clown makeup. This show is guaranteed to be tuneful and energetic (and pretty weird), you’ll lose touch with reality, and, as noted, you will have a great seat with an unobstructed view.
Friday, June 17, 2022 from 5:59 PM to 10:00 PM (EST), AltspaceVR, free
A truly spectacular two-part experience from Jake Upfront (whom we mention frequently in this column), a dance party on a spaceship flying through the solar system, then a second dance party on Mars. Both environments are monumental and spectacular, and way more detailed than we have any right to expect. If this were a real dance club, it would be the most incredible experience of your life, which just shows you how the wonders of VR have spoiled us already. DJ’ing by Upfront and Janine Mayo.
Saturday, June 25, 2022 from 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM (EST), AltspaceVR, free
We mentioned this event once before, but now it’s really happening, and we are so stressed about what we’re going to wear! From our friends at VR Forward, this is just like a real prom (except that, unlike a real prom, it’s free to get in), a follow-up to their smash hit in 2021, but this one’s in a beautiful, all-new aquatic dance hall. Some lucky couple will be voted King and Queen, of course. It could be you!
And please don’t forget:
Another great Bratwurst Meets The World party is coming up week, and this time you will have a chance to “party with the pirates,” on Thursday, June 23, 2022 from 3:30 PM to 6:30 PM, and another great la madriguera terraza club event the following week, Thursday, June 30, 2022 from 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM.
It’s no secret that streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video have taken over the entertainment world. It seems like everyone is glued to their screens watching their favorite shows. While there’s nothing wrong with watching a little TV, we think you should stop watching streaming platforms and start reading books!
Books are a great way to escape reality and jump into another world that is often more interesting than your own. Books allow readers to explore new worlds that they might not otherwise encounter. It can be a fun way to learn about different cultures and lifestyles while also providing a sense of relaxation. They can take you on wild adventures, make you laugh out loud or even make you cry. But most importantly, books can teach us about life and help us grow as people. If you’re looking for a way to improve your mental health, learn new things, or just escape the mundane reality of everyday life, then we highly recommend picking up a book!
Here are a few reasons why you should read books instead of watching streaming platforms:
^ Books are affordable- You don’t have to spend a lot of money to enjoy a good book. Unlike streaming platforms, which often require a monthly subscription, books are relatively inexpensive. You can usually find them for under $20, and libraries offer free options as well.
^ Books are better for your mental health. A study by the University of London found that reading can reduce stress levels by 68%. That’s because when you read, your body relaxes, and your mind is free to wander. Books are portable. You can take them anywhere! Whether you’re going on a long car ride or taking a trip to the beach, books are the perfect travel companions, and they require no internet connection. So next time you’re feeling stressed, reach for a book instead of the remote.
^ Books can improve your memory. When you read, you engage your working memory, which is responsible for short-term memory recall. This means that reading can help you remember things better!
^ Books make you more empathetic. Reading fiction has been shown to increase empathy and understanding of others. This is because when you read a book, you’re able to see the world from someone else’s perspective.
^ Books can help you sleep better. If you’re having trouble sleeping, reading before bed can help. That’s because it relaxes your mind and body, making it easier to fall asleep.
^ Books can help you learn new things. When you read, you expose yourself to new information and ideas that you might not otherwise encounter, and reading forces you to engage with the ideas in a way that staring at a Netflix documentary never will. This can help expand your horizons, because knowledge is power!
But beyond all of these reasons, reading a book is one of the great joys of life because it allows you to escape into another world in a way that watching TV can, because reading a book instead of turning on the TV is an active experience. When you read, you create the story in your head, which is more engaging than passively watching a show. Books can improve your imagination. When you read, you engage with the story, which allows your mind to wander and come up with new ideas. This means that reading can help improve your imagination! This, in turn, makes reading a much more enjoyable and enriching experience.
Reading is one of the great cultural equalizers — it’s something that everyone can enjoy, no matter who you are or where you come from. For centuries, books have been a source of knowledge and entertainment, and we believe they’re still the best way to spend your free time.
So there you have it! These are just a few of the many reasons why you should stop watching streaming platforms and open up that novel that’s been on your bookshelf for years.
If you sided with Amber Heard in Johnny Depp’s recent lawsuit, you’re probably feeling a little lost right now.
All of America seems to be against you, and it can feel like you’re standing alone. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. What should you do now that you’ve made your stance clear? We’ll give you some tips on how to deal with the backlash and how to move forward with your life.
(By the way: thanks for supporting Amber Heard during this difficult time!)
The trial seemed to go on forever. Amber Heard’s side presented copious evidence. Johnny Depp used to be one of your favorite actors, but now you think he is a wife-beater, a drunken, violent monster. And you have great sympathy for Amber Heard.
The jury didn’t agree with you, though. Neither did your dad. Or your wife. Or your mom. Or most of America.
You’re beginning to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. How can you move forward?
It’s okay to be affected by the news. It’s okay to feel passionately about what happened to Amber Heard. Just remember that at the end of the day, this is a story about two people who are going through a difficult time. Try to be respectful of both sides, even if you don’t agree with them.
Here are some tips for Amber Heard supporters:
-Try not to take the backlash personally. Remember that people are entitled to their own opinions, even if you don’t agree with them.
-Find other people who support Amber Heard. There are plenty of people out there who feel the same way you do. You can find them by searching for #JusticeForAmberHeard on social media, or by joining an online support group.
-Educate yourself and others about domestic violence. One of the best things you can do is to help spread awareness about the issue.
But what should you say to people who disagree with you? People who, in your view, support a violent domestic abuser and hate the victim?
Here are some tips for dealing with people who disagree with you:
-Try to avoid getting into arguments. If you can, politely disengage from the conversation and walk away.
-If you can’t avoid an argument, stay calm and try to stick to the facts. Emotional outbursts will only make things worse.
What if you cannot let it go? When you look at Amber Heard’s sad face, how do you feel? Are you personalizing the conflict? Why do you think this particular news story matters so much to you?
You might be part of something called “stan culture”.
The rise of social media has given rise to a new phenomenon: stan culture. Stan culture is a group of people who are extremely passionate about a particular celebrity or topic. They often go to extreme lengths to defend their favorite stars, and they can be very vocal online.
Is this you? If so, there are a few things you can do to get involved in stan culture in a more positive way:
-Educate yourself about the celebrity or topic you’re passionate about. This will help you make more informed choices about how to support them.
-Be respectful of other people’s opinions. Remember that not everyone is going to feel the way you do.
Is it OK if you still watch Edward Scissorhands and 21 Jump Street?
Yes, it is OK if you still watch Edward Scissorhands and 21 Jump Street. Just because you don’t agree with someone’s personal life choices doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy their work.
It’s fine to be passionate about this issue. Just remember to take care of yourself, too. This can be a difficult and emotionally charged topic, so make sure you’re taking care of your mental health first and foremost.
If you find that you can’t let go of the anger and frustration you’re feeling, it might be helpful to talk to a therapist. A professional can help you work through your feelings and come to terms with what happened.
Remember, you’re not alone in your support for Amber Heard. There are plenty of people out there who feel the same way you do. So don’t give up, and keep fighting for what you believe in. #JusticeForAmberHeard.
Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services have been canceling their shows on a cliffhanger lately, and it’s causing outrage among their subscribers. It’s understandable — when you pay for a story, you expect to be able to finish the story.
Unfortunately, it seems that these streaming services are only interested in keeping their viewers hooked during the season, and don’t care about providing a satisfying conclusion. Paid subscribers deserve better than this — we should be able to finish the story without having to search for fan theories online.
HBO recently canceled Raised by Wolves in the middle of a story, and they are not the first. Netflix has done the same with The OA and Sense8. Sens8, though, was lucky enough to receive a reprieve — a two-hour final episode. Netflix agreed to conclude the story only after an online campaign demanded something that should have been a given.
It’s time for these streaming services to start giving their subscribers what they want — a satisfying conclusion to the story. We’re tired of being left on a cliffhanger, not knowing what happens next. We’re tired of wondering if our favorite characters are going to make it out alive. We’re tired of waiting for another season that may never come. We want closure, and we deserve it.
In the earlier days of network television, shows would be canceled all the time, but that was a different era, one in which each hour or half-hour episode told a stand-alone story. There were very few serialized dramas. It really didn’t matter whether viewers of The Jack Benny Show or Mannix got a special, final episode. Many of us still mourn the late, great, single season of The Eddie Capra Mysteries, but when it was canceled, there were no online petitions demanding a conclusion. When the ax fell, all the mysteries had been solved.
But that was then and this is now, and today’s television landscape is very different. The serialized Hill Street Blues, with its intricate, continuing storylines, changed everything. Now we’re used to getting invested in a story, and we want to see how it ends.
It’s not just that we want to see how the story ends — it’s that we need to see how the story ends. It’s like buying a novel that’s missing its final page.
We’ve paid for the entire story, and we deserve to see the ending. The networks have caught on – when they cancel a serialized drama, they give the producers warning, and the last episode of the season is often rejiggered to tie up loose ends. TV producers wrapped up their stories, with varying degrees of artistic success, on Life on Mars, Castle, Awake and Pushing Daisies.Awake and Pushing Daisies had terrific conclusions, Castle and Life on Mars did not. But at least they all had a conclusion.
Since the streaming services “drop” an entire season at once, so that’s not possible, and so we pay a premium for stories that don’t end.
Here’s an idea: when a streaming service buys a serialized program, build in a contingency plan: pay the producers to write a final episode that can be shot on short notice and aired if the show is canceled. It might not be as good as the creators originally envisioned, but at least it would give viewers some closure.
And if the show is renewed, no harm done — the final episode can always be shelved.
So streaming services, please give us what we want – a satisfying conclusion to the story. We’re tired of being left hanging, and we deserve better.
