Kill All Humans: Data in Pop Culture
Tim, a Data Product Owner, and Matthew, a Data Scientist, talk about data in pop culture - Movies with killer robots, TV shows with A.I. gone berzerk, and whatever we find that brings out our inner data nerds. A bit of philosophy, a bit of data science, and a whole lot of fearing for our lives and the future of humanity.
Episodes
We're back and better than ever! Welcome to season 2 of Kill All Humans, Data in Pop Culture.
It seems like so much has happened between the end of last season and today - Generative AI, Elon buying Twitter, TikTok under scrutiny.... So what better to start off our second season with than one of our favourite films, Hackers!
In this episode, Tim and Matthew discuss the real and fantastical elements of this mid-90s masterpiece, incl...
Tim and Matthew are BACK with a brand new episode! Today, we talk about the classic problem of AI and the law - how would one put a collection of algorithms on trial, or even find them legally liable for their own actions? We explored this idea through the classic Star Trek Voyager episode "Author Author". Remember to like, subscribe, share, or leave a review!
On today's episode, Matthew and Tim rewatched the 2011 movie Contagion, and dig into how scarily precedent this movie was for today's pandemic. We look at the pandemic in not only terms of hard numbers for health care, but also in terms of roads, consumer goods (like toilet paper!), and even go into why it's never a good idea for governments to underinvest in data infrastructure. We did this all while trying to maintain a sense of ...
On today's episode, Tim and Matthew talk about the 2002 classic "Minority Report", and what lessons and parallels in data we can take away for today's society. We discuss the surveillance state and data, and the idea of perfect information creating imperfect outcomes. Enjoy the show! Make sure you're subscribing, liking, and rating us - otherwise we have to have our bots do it.
On this week's episode of Kill All Humans, Tim and Matthew talk about Ron's Gone Wrong, a movie about boy and his...let's just say quirky robot. The movie explores the themes around what it means to make friends in the age of social media, so Matthew and Tim decided to try their best to explain how exactly Facebook and all those algorithms you keep hearing about work. Chances are Facebook isn't going to sponsor this podcast any tim...
Tim and Matthew discuss the wild and sometimes scary world of I, Robot by Issac Asimov - both the book and the 2004 movie starring Will Smith. The conversation goes very quickly from how the 3 laws apply to our use of robotics today, and instead talks about the economic impact of a potential post-scarcity society. Enjoy!
Is there any more iconic scifi movie out there than the classic 1981 Blade Runner? Tim and Matthew talk about Blade Runner from a modern data perspective, including the moral implications of creating an AI that feels pain and dies, what it means to really be alive, and what exactly that weird "Voight-Kampff" test was supposed to do. We even touch on one of the most important aspects of the movie - what was up with Edward James Olmo...
On this episode, Tim and Matthew dive into the 1995 "So bad it's good" classic Johnny Mnemonic. Based on a short story of the same name by William Gibson, it explores the cyberpunk world of a data courier (basically a human thumbdrive) as he navigates his way through dealing with corporate drama, the Yakuza, and murderous preachers jacked up on cybernetic implants. The poor guy just wants a computer and room service. Enjoy!
Does analytics suck the romance out of baseball? Is Moneyball the perfect data engineering movie? As much as 2011's Moneyball was about data analytics changing the sport forever, it was also about something Matthew and Tim face all the time as data professionals - how do we change the culture around data? We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.
On this episode, Matthew and Tim get to review one of their favourite movies about AI gone amok - War Games. For an 80s movie about computers, this one got an incredible amount of stuff right, and was shockingly close in portraying how wrong decisions about data and computer errors almost brought us to nuclear armageddon. We also reintroduce our "Turing Score", in which we rate a movie/TV show out of 5 for realism. Enjoy!
On today's episode, Tim and Matt talk about Free Guy, the movie where an NPC (Non-Playable Character) played by Ryan Reynolds suddenly becomes aware that he is part of a video game and just maybe be alive. We marvel at how well done this film is - lack of cappuccinos and psaltry server rooms not withstanding - and ask the important question of what exactly does it mean to be alive?
Matthew and Tim talk about everyone's favourite killer AI, HAL 9000. What he sentient? Could we build a HAL today?
With audio from 2001: A Space Odyssey (film). Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C Clark. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 1968
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