Themes (315)

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Find narratives by ethical themes or by technologies.

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Themes
  • Privacy
  • Accountability
  • Transparency and Explainability
  • Human Control of Technology
  • Professional Responsibility
  • Promotion of Human Values
  • Fairness and Non-discrimination
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Technologies
  • AI
  • Big Data
  • Bioinformatics
  • Blockchain
  • Immersive Technology
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  • Year
    • 1916 - 1966
    • 1968 - 2018
    • 2019 - 2069
  • Duration
  • 3 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2014
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Infidelity and Social Networks

Donald and Helen, a married couple, are both dissatisfied with their marriage, particularly in their sexual relationship, and so unwilling to communicate with each other that they both want to cheat on each other. The technology in this clip are the websites on which they both succumb to the temptation of an affair.

  • Kinolab
  • 2014
  • 2 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2014
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Social Networks and Societal Norms

Allison’s unhealthy eating habits are reinforced with comments she receives online to the point where she refuses to eat with her family and follows online advice on how to resist hunger. The technology in this clip is the online forum which has the goal of perpetuating and starting unhealthy eating habits.

  • Kinolab
  • 2014
  • 7 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2017
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Thought Experiment in Technological Environmentalism

Downsizing, the procedure which shrinks people down to only a few inches, is invented to combat environmental harm by producing less waste.

  • Kinolab
  • 2017
  • 9 min
  • Kinolab
  • 1995
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Self-Sustaining Programs

In this world, a human consciousness (“ghost”) can inhabit an artificial body (“shell”), thus at once becoming edited humans in a somewhat robotic body.  The Puppet Master, a notorious villain in this world, is revealed not to be a human hacker, but a computer program which has gained sentience and gone on to hack the captured shell. It challenges the law enforcement officials of Section 6 and Section 9 saying that it is a life-form and not an AI. It argues that its existence as a self-sustaining program which has achieved singularity is not different from human DNA as a “self-sustaining program.” The Puppet Master specifically references reproduction/offspring, not copying, as a distinguishing feature of living things as opposed to nonliving things. Additionally, it developed emotional connection with Major which led it to select her as a candidate for merging. It references how it can die but live on through the merging and, after Major’s death, in the internet.

  • Kinolab
  • 1995
  • 8 min
  • Kinolab
  • 1997
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Technology Versus Religious Fanaticism

Dr. Ellie Arroway is a scientist who has been chosen to make contact with the first confirmed extraterrestrial life. However, as contact with the start system Vega advances, religious fanatics and other extremist groups prepare for the moment of interaction. This moment in the film juxtaposes how Ellie, an atheist scientist, only looks forward to the scientific progress toward extraterrestrial contact while others, including the religious extremists, fear it. In general, this clip explores how technology can have diverse social impact and the hysteria that it can foster as it shatters preconceived notions. Later, one such religious terrorist sabotages the transport of Dr. Drumlin in the new machine through a suicide bombing, killing them both.

  • Kinolab
  • 1997
  • 5 min
  • Kinolab
  • 2013
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Removed from Reality

Actress Robin Wright plays a fictionalized version of herself who traverses through both the real world and the mixed reality of Abrahama city in this narrative. As Miramount Studio animator Dylan explains to her, the rules of the mixed reality allow people to appear as an avatar which they please, editing their human features into more imaginative ones. With this capability, many people choose to remain in the mixed reality permanently, leaving the real world in a grim stupor.

  • Kinolab
  • 2013
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