Episode 61: Transhumanism, AI, and Mass Surveillance in Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron gives us a lot of bang for the buck: transhumanism, artificial intelligence, illegal human experimentation, mass surveillance, mind control, etc. My episode about transhumanism in Captain America: Civil War & Iron Man 3 can be found here:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14706334

⚠️ Spoilers lie ahead!

Links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/transhumanism

https://consaracytheories.com/f/marvels-project-insight-made-real

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/16/musks-spacex-is-building-spy-satellite-network-for-us-intelligence-agency-sources-told-reuters.html

https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/avengers-age-of-ultron-and-the-risks-of-artificial-intelligence

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Looking for your next great read? Interested in Cold War drama, high stakes diplomacy, and a biography that doesn't suck? Check out Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld on Amazon: https://a.co/d/gQ6LQat

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Transhumanism, artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, Avengers Age of Ultron, Baron Strucker, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Loki's Scepter, Mind Stone, Project Insight, SpaceX spy satellites, Ultron, Vision, human experimentation, mind control.

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about transhumanism, artificial intelligence and mass surveillance in Avengers Age of Ultron, the movie came out in 2015 I think so you've had ample time to watch it if you wanted to. However, I will say spoilers lie ahead. If you stick with me, I will assume that you are fine with spoilers. So if you have not seen the movie and you intend to bookmark this download it come back to it later, I don't want to spoil anything for you if you have not seen it, but we get a lot of bang for our buck with this one, transhumanism, AI, illegal human experimentation, mass surveillance, Mind Control, etc. So Let's saddle up and take this ride. Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, I think it would be good to revisit the Science Direct definition of transhumanism that I referenced in my last episode about Captain America, civil war and Iron Man three. Transhumanism is the position that human beings should be permitted to use technology to modify and enhance human cognition and bodily function, expanding abilities and capabilities beyond current biological constraints. End Quote, so Age of Ultron begins with the Avengers raiding a compound controlled by Baron Strucker, a former Nazi officer who joins Hydra Strucker, like arnam Zola, has been performing experiments on human beings to make them enhanced. And I use air quotes here, enhanced. This includes the twins Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in the comic books, Wanda and Pietro Maximov are the children of Magneto. So it would have been kind of cool, I think, if we had had a cameo by Michael Fassbender or Ian McKellen. But alas, I think there was some kind of contract thing there different studios that own different franchises. Tony Stark finds a variety of weapons that struck her has been manufacturing, and the Scarlet Witch gets inside his head and causes him to see a vision where everyone is dead. Strucker was using loki's Scepter from the first Avengers movie, and stark takes it. So in the first Avengers movie, Loki has this scepter. We don't know it at the time. It contains one of the Infinity Stones, The Mind Stone. So he's able to simply touch somebody with this scepter and gain control of their mind. And it's reminiscent, I think, of the Manchurian Candidate, because all he has to do is touch them. The power of this infinity stone gets inside their body, and they will do things and say things that in their normal character, in their normal code of ethics, they would not do so. Strucker has been using Loki scepter to not only try to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, to try to create artificial intelligence programs, but also to do this illegal human experimentation on these twins. And we learned that the twins had volunteered for struckers experiments, which naturally doesn't make it any better what he's done to them. While Tony has the scepter, he cannot resist the temptation to analyze it and mess around. Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, who was wounded in battle, gets an advanced medical treatment with regenerating cells. The scientist tells Tony that this biotech will one day replace his clunky suits. This is not a throwaway moment. She's printing up cells, creating cellular regeneration in this thing called the regeneration cradle, and saying, one day, this technology will replace the metal and the armor in your suits. Tony compares the interface of loci scepter to his own artificial intelligence program. Jarvis Tony and Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, conclude that Strucker was working on artificial intelligence. Tony believes this alien mind from the scepter is the key to creating Ultron. Ultron and Tony's vision will be a suit of armor around the world. Banner calls Tony out on his own experiment and says, you're going for artificial intelligence, but you don't want to tell the team. He says, that's true because he doesn't have time for a city hall debate. He doesn't want to hear the man was not meant to meddle medley. Tony's idea of putting a suit of armor around the world. Titled made me think immediately of a blog post that I wrote on the conserracy theories blog in March of 2024 titled Marvel's Project Insight made real. I talked about Project Insight. You can find that in the film Captain America, the Winter Soldier, where there's a subplot about this Nazi slash Hydra, slash shield operation called Project Insight, where there would be all of these satellites and helicarriers. And once they get up in the air, they don't ever have to come down. And they'll link together, and they will read people. There's this algorithm that Zola has programmed into it to be able to tell if somebody is going to become a threat now or in the future, as Nick Fury tells Captain America, it can even read a T words DNA before he ever steps out of his cave. Captain America is appalled by this and says, This is not freedom, it's fear. So when Nick Fury himself starts to have second thoughts and tries to get the project delayed, he's almost murdered shortly thereafter. Now for me, I'm thinking about Project Insight from the Marvel films, and then around the same time that I had been revisiting the Winter Soldier, this article came out on CNBC musk, Space X is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency. Sources told Reuters, I'll read for you now. SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with the US intelligence agency. Five sources familiar with the program said demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company and national security agencies. The network is being built by space X's Star Shield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites. The sources said the plans show the extent of space X's involvement in US intelligence and military projects, and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces, if successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the US, government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe. End quote at the end of my blog, I write, welcome to Project Insight courtesy of Lord Elon and the military intelligence complex. So think about that you have Nick Fury saying, before they ever even step out of the cave, this will read their DNA and eliminate them as a threat. And then we're told, Hey, through this program, that Lord Elon is engineering, but we can spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe. I think back to Captain America, giving the warning anytime somebody tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die every time. So bear that in mind, if you're thinking, well, Ultron a suit of armor around the world. That's science fiction. That's a Marvel movie. This is Hollywood schlock. Is it? Think about that. So Tony promises banner that he will bring peace in our time, Tony and Banner work together, but quite can't quite get the program to work. However, when neither one of them is in the room, the alien mind seems to take over. Ultron comes to life and is voiced by James Spader. I throw that in because I just really love James spader's voice in this role. It's hard for me to imagine anybody else having been Ultron. Jarvis concludes that Ultron is a hostile force, so Ultron destroys him, as in, because Jarvis has figured out that Ultron has hostile intentions. Jarvis wants to shut him down, so Ultron kills Jarvis instead. So you have this weird battle of AI programs going on where one has gained so much sentience that it's able to commit murder. Ultron is Ultron somehow cobbles together a body using pieces from one of Tony's Iron Legion suits, and then Ultron attempts to murder everyone in the room. Ultron escapes by going out through the internet. Tony protests that the world needs something like Ultron, a worldwide peacekeeping technology. Even though Ultron has gone rogue, Tony is still defending his own actions. Ultron tracks down the twins. By now, he has created a robotic body, and they all share this common goal of eliminating the Avengers. Ultron finds Strucker and kills him. So in this movie, Baron Strucker is really just a throwaway villain. It's almost like he exists strictly 10. Get the plot of this film going, and then nothing much else happens with him. The trail leads to an arms dealer named Ulysses claw. Ultron buys Vibranium from him to make an enhanced body for himself. You know, in the Marvel Universe, Ultron, excuse me, Vibranium is like the strongest substance known unto man. So Ultron wants to get this enhanced body for himself with Vibranium. Ultron shows up at a genetics research lab in South Korea. The scientist possesses a regeneration cradle. Remember, we saw the early signs of this where she was trying to 3d print and regenerate cells together. For Clint Barton, when he was injured, the scientist possesses a regeneration cradle to regenerate human skin. Ultron intends to infuse it with Vibranium to make himself a body. Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, warns Tony Stark that every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die, and here we are living in an age of Starlink and spy satellites that are gonna all work together. Maybe these Marvel films are more predictive and more prescient than people want to realize. Oh, it's just Hollywood schlock. It's entertainment for the masses. It's silliness, it's superheroes and super villains. I'm sure, finding some interesting nuggets in re watching these movies. I have to tell you. Tony talks about Ultron, desire to have a body, and how the human form is outmoded. He actually says this in the movie, the human form is outmoded. Ultron keeps coming back to it, the idea of having two eyes and two arms and two legs, but the human form itself is outmoded. He wants to have a body, and he wants to do it better. Ultron is aware that an infinity and infinity stone was housed inside loci scepter, and he implants it in the body he's building with the regeneration cradle. So really, he's trying to make a body for himself that's unstoppable, between the Vibranium, between the Mind Stone to be the most powerful creature that there is. The twins become concerned with ultrons plan to cause the human race to evolve. His process is interrupted and he's not able to invade the body he's created. The Scarlet Witch warns Captain America that Ultron can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. And she asks him, Where do you think he gets that from? So since Ultron is sort of the bastard child of Tony Stark, her reference there is to Tony himself. Tony can't tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. So he's created this peace keeping initiative that has unleashed pure hell on humanity. Tony discovers that Jarvis has survived ultrons attack. Tony thinks if they give Jarvis a body, He will be Ultron Tony tells banner that they are mad scientists monsters, and they need to own it. Banner is like, I'm in a time loop. This is where it all went wrong before, and now you want to come back and do it again, but Tony's like, we're mad scientists, man, we're monsters. We need to just own it. That made me think of things like paper clip and Nuremberg, where it's like, there's no there's no code of ethics, there's no stopping point. It's like we're supposed to be doing this. We're supposed to be conducting these experiments. We're not going to worry about the ramifications. We're not going to worry about if it's ethical. I don't want to have a city hall debate, damn it. I want to just do what I want to do with no consequences. That's a scary thought. Then we think about the pandemic trust. I'm not going to ask what's in it. I'm just going to do it. Don't ask any questions. Just do what you're told. If we tell you to wear a face diaper, do it. If we tell you to stand six feet apart, do it. Do whatever you're freaking told. Panic when you're supposed to panic and then calm down when you're supposed to calm down. Do what you're told. Little peon, don't question anything that's really scary. Ultron talks about meteors and the beauty of the world getting to start over clean I've written in my notes. He seems to have a death cult type of impulse. Steve Rogers and the twins try to destroy Tony's creation. Thor appears and super charges the creation, which is not what we would expect. Thor has already been against Tony's experimentation that created Ultron. So when he comes back and instead of destroying this thing, this being, you. This creature that's inside the regeneration cradle, he supercharges it, which is quite a surprise. A new superhero comes flying out of the cradle. Vision, Ultron has a showdown with vision. Vision has a positive view of humanity where Ultron does not and vision is able to destroy him using the Mind Stone. So in a way, we get a convenient happy ending where it's like, okay, Tony screwed up and he made Ultron, and Ultron turned out to be evil and wanted the human race to evolve, which really meant creating mass genocide. People either evolve according to Ultron definition of the word, or they're just mass murdered. But then ultimately it's okay, because he creates vision. He gets it right the second time around, he puts Jarvis inside this body, along with the Mind Stone. And this creation is better. This creation is like, I don't want to murder anybody. Ultron is unique, and he's in pain, but unfortunately, because he wants to commit mass murder, he has to be done away with I don't want to do this, but I feel like I have to do this. So you get this sense of like, well, maybe the science wasn't so bad. Maybe Tony's attempt to play God and create this artificial intelligence creature. Maybe it wasn't so bad. There were some bumps and some bruises. There were some major cock ups on the front end of it. But hey, he created vision, and vision is really awesome. So maybe this is all All right, maybe we should go along with it. As I said in the introduction, we get a lot of bang for our buck here. We've got transhumanism. We have Baron struckers experiments to turn Wanda and Pietro Maximov into Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Quicksilver is incredibly fast, like he can just dash around before somebody is even aware of his presence. And then the Scarlet Witch has these enhanced abilities to manipulate energy, telekinesis, get inside someone's head and do like MK Ultra type stuff, brainwash them, cause them to see visions, cause them to act in a different way than they normally would. We also get some of the transhumanism, I think, with Ultron and vision, certainly with Ultron and with vision, we get these themes about artificial intelligence, even though Tony is talking about how Baron Strucker was doing artificial intelligence experimentations using Loki scepter, and he says it like, Hey, I gotta think he was knocking on a very particular door. I think he was going for artificial intelligence. It's like, it's bad when Strucker was doing it, but then in Tony's mind, it's completely fine to do secret experimentations, to go for artificial intelligence and to play God, and to make some sort of humanoid creature vision is made through the regeneration cradle, some combination, I Guess, of human flesh, along with Vibranium, along with the Mind Stone, he has a corporeal form, as I said, two eyes, two ears and legs and arms, and then later on in some of the other movies, instead of being like red skinned with a cape and robotic type features, it's just Paul Bettany with the Mind Stone makeup on or special effects, illegal human experimentation. Mean, even though we're told that Wanda and Pietro volunteered for the experiments, what he's doing is still illegal. However, he got into their wiring to alter their DNA. It's still illegal human experimentation. Then we also get mass surveillance, because Tony wants to put this suit of armor around the world, which sounds a lot like Project Insight. We're going to get these satellites up in the air. We're going to use this algorithm like Minority Report that can predict future crime. If you're going to be a problem to us now or in the future, 10 years from now, you decide that you don't like the system, we'll just take you out and you'll just have to stop before you start. We also get mind control. Mean that is one of the scarlet witches abilities is to get inside someone's head and fiddle around to make them see visions, to make them go crazy, to make them act the way that they normally would not. Loci scepter, we see the same thing. You just tap somebody, and through the power of the Mind Stone, you can brainwash them into doing what. You want. In Discover Magazine, there's an article titled Avengers, Age of Ultron and the risks of artificial intelligence. And this was originally published in 2015 and last updated in 2019 technology enhanced with artificial intelligence is all around us. You might have a robot vacuum cleaner ready to leap into action to clean up your kitchen floor. Maybe you asked Siri or Google two apps using decent examples of artificial intelligence technology for some help already today, the continual enhancement of AI and its increased presence in our world speak to achievements in science and engineering that have tremendous potential to improve our lives or destroy us at least. That's the central theme in the New Avengers Age of Ultron movie with headliner, Ultron serving as an exemplar for AI gone bad. It's a timely theme, given some high profile AI concerns lately, but is it something we should be worried about? How bad is Ultron? The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, lists his occupation as would be conqueror and slaver of men with genius, intelligence, superhuman speed, stamina, reflexes and strength, subsonic flight, speed and demigod like durability. The good news is that Ultron has normal agility with average hand to hand skills, meaning, if, meaning, if you can get in close to an autonomous robot with superhuman speed, you should be good to go at least briefly, but perhaps more importantly, Ultron represents the ultimate example of artificial intelligence applications gone wrong, intelligence that seeks to overthrow the humans who created it. Subsequent iterations of Ultron were self created, each one getting stronger, smarter and more bent on fulfilling two main desires, survival and bringing peace and order to the universe. I'm gonna butt in here and say he brings up a really good point in this article, because Ultron continues to evolve himself. He's not just like Tony and how he's relentlessly making suits. He wants to always be upgrading his technology, always upgrading Jarvis, always upgrading his lab at the house, always upgrading the suits. We have Ultron doing similar behavior and like playing God with himself in a way, each iteration that he makes of himself is better and faster and stronger. The unfortunate part for us humans is that Ultron would like to bring peace and order by eliminating all other intelligent life in the universe. The main theme in Age of Ultron is this fictional conflict between biological beings and artificial intelligence with a mean streak. But how fictional is it? The answers are found in scientific research related to the fields of machine learning, artificial intelligence and artificial life. These are fields that continue to expand at a ridiculous, if not superhuman, pace. One of the most recent breakthroughs was a study in which Volodymyr min and colleagues at Google DeepMind Challenge a neural network to learn how to play video games. The point was to see if the software rather ominously called a deep Q network agent. Could apply lessons learned in one game to master another game. For more than half of the games examined, the deep Q network agent was better than human level. This list included boxing, video pinball, Robo tank and two ton common or two tutankham. I guess I'm not familiar with these video games, sorry. And though arcade games may seem trivial, the takeaway here really had nothing to do with games per se. The relevance is that an AI system could adapt its skills to situations for which its programmer had never prepared it. The AI was effectively learning how to apply skills in a new way, basically thinking on its own, which is relevant in considering the possibility of an AI going rogue. So is this a problem? Coverage in popular media often seems to give the spin that machine learning and artificial intelligence are things to fear. There is a boundary that separates helpful applications of AI. Imagine a scenario of robot conducted surgery performed in a remote community and overseen by a physician in a distant location from truly frightening scenarios of near future military applications. Imagine the combination of current combat drone technology with artificial intelligence computers giving independence to machine warfare. I'm going to butt in and say, you know, this is a point that pepper makes in Iron Man three, when Aldrich Killian comes to her with the extremist program, she's like, unfortunately, this sounds highly weaponizable, but as I said in that episode, it's always the positives that are given to the public. As he says in this article, imagine the scenario of a robot controlled surgery. It's in a remote community. It's overseen by a physician in a distant location. Are you really going to tell these impoverished people in this village that they can't have surgery that they need? But then we're also going to sweep under the rug drone technology that could give independence to machine warfare. I. It, I feel like that's a scary thought. I'm going to scroll down and read just a little bit more in the tradition of sci fi futurists, Jules Verne H G Wells and Isaac Asimov, the future is supposed to be a fully automated, atomic power, germ free utopia. Daniel H Wilson wrote some years back a collaborative view of AI, on the other hand, equates to thinking about robots as tools, sometimes very smart ones, that humans can employ and work with, rather than a replacement for humans. Altogether, this view, though, is at odds with the imperative to instruct and mechanize operations of all sorts wherever they are found. The end game, as Ultron creators discover, has disastrous ramifications. We all get to enjoy watching this dystopian future play out on the big screen this week, luckily for our future selves in the real world, these conversations are still happening as we continue to progress towards smarter and smarter machines. End quote, so what do you think? Do you think a peacekeeping Initiative, a suit of armor around the world would work. Do you think it would actually keep the peace, or do you think that it would make the military industrial slash, military intelligence complexes even richer? Do you think it would cause more conflicts than it actually solved? Do you think that if we had some artificial intelligence that came out like vision that it would be a superhero, it would help bring utopia and solve everyone's problems. Do you think that human experimentation and allowing yourself to become enhanced would have a happy ending? Points to Ponder again, I will say I feel like even though these Marvel movies get attacked as being Hollywood schlock and bread and circus for the masses, there's some really interesting points that they make. And I have to wonder how much of it is predictive programming, how much of it involves getting the pump primed for people to accept these things later on.  I think it's a point to ponder. Stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

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