You know you live in a crazy age when blockbuster movies look like they might come true. Next month marks the debut of the scifi film Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis and adapted from Robert Vendetti’s comic series of the same name. The movie follows a police officer who lives in a future where everyone (including him) is a remote controlled android called a surrogate. You can feel everything that this robot does, but without any worries about danger. Pretty far-fetched, right?
Will the world of Surrogates come true?
Well, a new micro-documentary on Wired.com is questioning just how much fiction there is in this science. With commentary from the director and some key experts in the field, The Science-Fact Behind Surrogates is out to show that the technology we have today is laying the foundation for the reality of the film. Watch the micro-documentary video after the break.
Surrogates is set in the year 2054, when everyone stays at home and sends beautiful android versions of themselves out into the world. It’s the ultimate form of telepresence, and futurist Dr. James Canton believes it could happen in the next decade or so. Canton isn’t the only expert weighing in during the documentary. Anybots, which the hub covered previously, make robots that operate through telepresence and demonstrate that humans can already interact through their artificial minions.
So we have remote controlled robots, but what about the rest of the technology promised in Surrogates? Singularity Hub has already told you about haptics, feeling what your robot feels, and Braingate, the technology of reading your mind in order to control computers and machines. This stuff is here today. Super good looking and super strong robots obeying our every command? Well, Hanson robotics and Cyberdyne technologies have you covered there as well. We’re so close people, so close.
Question is, do we want to be? The Surrogates comics series isn’t a wholesale endorsement of the telepresence lifestyle. Far from it. Vendetti wrote Surrogates after reading about relationships that failed when someone became obsessed with online gaming and social networking. In the series, the writer lampoons the American obsession with idealized looks, surrogates come with mouth-watering physiques, and our willingness to trade safety with freedom. Or rather, our belief that safety is freedom. The whole comic (and movie, I presume) revolves around a plot by a terrorist to destroy all surrogates everywhere. It’s a technophobe versus technophile conflict that futurists have been worried about for a while. It got brought up at the debut of the Transcendent Man documentary, and it reflects the real doubt some have about whether or not humans are losing their humanity in the technological ether.
Forget the heavy stuff for a while, though, and just enjoy the smash-’em bash-’em romp that I’m sure Surrogates will be. The trailer looks fun and the movie website even has a place where you can design your own virtual stand-in. Heck, we can start taking bets on whether or not Surrogates or AVATAR will be the biggest blockbuster starring remote controlled androids this year. The future may hold impressive decisions about the nature of human interaction but for now the biggest choice you have to make is if you want to go out and see the movie. I might just send someone in my stead.
Comments
Well, the problem with your idea is when that off button got pressed.
This goes way deeper than robots and humans. I hate to sound like another illuminati conspirator because im not, but i think this movie is forshadowing one day of a NWO. The “system” could one day try to control the people through conditioning
This goes way deeper than robots and humans. I hate to sound like another illuminati conspirator because im not, but i think this movie is forshadowing one day of a NWO. The “system” could one day try to control the people through conditioning
Will Google create a Surrogate Reality world?
If we could use the concept of Augmented Reality, mixed with Virtual Reality, in context with a town, city and even the world… we could in effect, be sitting at home and roaming a virtual world, while “interacting” with Real People in the Real World. This would be mixed reality evolving into Surrogate Reality… Could Google be the key to powering this?
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Download and watch the new movie Surrogates (blog-movie.com/Surrogates.html)
Download and watch the new movie Surrogates (blog-movie.com/Surrogates.html)
Sure the technology is there, but why? If Surrogates were to become a reality wouldn’t the users die from obesity eventually? The only reason I can think of for using surrogates is safety.
Sure the technology is there, but why? If Surrogates were to become a reality wouldn’t the users die from obesity eventually? The only reason I can think of for using surrogates is safety.
Just watched , this is great looking sci- fi movie. watch surrogates online
Just watched , this is great looking sci- fi movie. watch surrogates online
I am looking forward to seeing this film as i am a sci-fi geek but its predications of the future are misplaced and inaccurate
Once we have the technology to create a seamless mind , computer feedback interface then why on earth would we use it to create robots which would walk around the real world.
It would make much more sense to populate a matrix like virtual world as you could literally do anything you liked such as flying around as you can in the game second-life.
populating the physical world with physical robots would be a senseless consumption of resources , would make a crowded planet even more so and the extra abilities it would give us would still be very basic as robots are grounded by physics like everything else in the real world.
Being able to jump high in reality would be cool but id much rather be able to fly through a vivid psychedelic landscape in the virtual world!
I believe films like the matrix are far more accurate than this. The game second life , where users control an avatar that navigates a virtual world seem to be a much more accurate prediction of future technological and social trends.
The game is still very basic as it has poor graphics and is slow.
though as computer graphics get more and more photoreal and procesor and broadband speeds increase i am sure that the possibility of entering a vrtual space that is indistinguisable from reality is very near on the horizon.
I am looking forward to seeing this film as i am a sci-fi geek but its predications of the future are misplaced and inaccurate
Once we have the technology to create a seamless mind , computer feedback interface then why on earth would we use it to create robots which would walk around the real world.
It would make much more sense to populate a matrix like virtual world as you could literally do anything you liked such as flying around as you can in the game second-life.
populating the physical world with physical robots would be a senseless consumption of resources , would make a crowded planet even more so and the extra abilities it would give us would still be very basic as robots are grounded by physics like everything else in the real world.
Being able to jump high in reality would be cool but id much rather be able to fly through a vivid psychedelic landscape in the virtual world!
I believe films like the matrix are far more accurate than this. The game second life , where users control an avatar that navigates a virtual world seem to be a much more accurate prediction of future technological and social trends.
The game is still very basic as it has poor graphics and is slow.
though as computer graphics get more and more photoreal and procesor and broadband speeds increase i am sure that the possibility of entering a vrtual space that is indistinguisable from reality is very near on the horizon.
Wow…this movie looks awesome. Between this and Avatar, we’ve got some great looking sci fi movies coming out that touch on issues of consciousness, AI, and mind transcendence. Awesome!
Wow…this movie looks awesome. Between this and Avatar, we’ve got some great looking sci fi movies coming out that touch on issues of consciousness, AI, and mind transcendence. Awesome!
I just watched the trailer and without having any knowledge of the graphic novel, I can only ask, why? I don’t understand the point of creating a second physical “you” (perfect or otherwise) to inhabit in the “real” world. To me it would make much more sense to create virtual worlds that are perceptually indistinguishable and inhabit that space where the laws of physics wont necessarily apply. I can even imagine some people giving up their “real” world bodies and living entirely as a virtual presence.
Well, the problem with your idea is when that off button got pressed.
I just watched the trailer and without having any knowledge of the graphic novel, I can only ask, why? I don’t understand the point of creating a second physical “you” (perfect or otherwise) to inhabit in the “real” world. To me it would make much more sense to create virtual worlds that are perceptually indistinguishable and inhabit that space where the laws of physics wont necessarily apply. I can even imagine some people giving up their “real” world bodies and living entirely as a virtual presence.
@Raelifin…and if you believe in Kurzweil’s timetables, the whole issue of surrogates would likely be supplanted by the Singularity so quickly that we wouldn’t care much about meat space anyway.
@Krunkster…Bruce Willis was also involved in the whole Deep Impact, Armageddon mash up. It keeps getting weirder…=)
@Raelifin…and if you believe in Kurzweil’s timetables, the whole issue of surrogates would likely be supplanted by the Singularity so quickly that we wouldn’t care much about meat space anyway.
@Krunkster…Bruce Willis was also involved in the whole Deep Impact, Armageddon mash up. It keeps getting weirder…=)
Hollywood movie ideas always seem to come in twos… but I never would have thought the “avatar” concept would be one of those. That’s just wierd…
Hollywood movie ideas always seem to come in twos… but I never would have thought the “avatar” concept would be one of those. That’s just wierd…
The problem with surrogates is that once you have a good mind-machine interface, why in hell would you want to stay in meatspace?! Sure, when it comes to work, not play, you might want a tele-operated robot, but why pick a human body for that? The whole thing seems to sadly miss the more obvious virtual-reality route.
The problem with surrogates is that once you have a good mind-machine interface, why in hell would you want to stay in meatspace?! Sure, when it comes to work, not play, you might want a tele-operated robot, but why pick a human body for that? The whole thing seems to sadly miss the more obvious virtual-reality route.