Could augmented reality turn us into deathtrippers whose real lives merge with first-person shooters? Will brain-computer interfaces lead to a world where anybody can be turned into a willing sexbot? These questions, lifted from recent pop culture about entertainment, address some of the same fears critics have had about TV, comics, and movies for the past century. These critics wonder whether mass consumption of transgressive stories (mostly about sex and violence) will make us inhuman. In this talk, I’ll use examples from speculative fiction to explore whether this question is still relevant in a future where entertainment can be implanted and advertising works on a molecular level.
Annalee Newitz (techsploitation.com) is the editor of the science and science fiction blog io9. She’s the author of Pretend We’re Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture, and co-editor of She’s Such a Geek.
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