Ray Bradbury and E. Lily Yu both dive into a futuristic world where technology is different from the one we have today. Both, \u201cThe Pedestrian\u201d and \u201cIn the Forests of Memory,\u201d are set in a somewhat sad, slightly dystopian kind of future. There isn\u2019t anything threatening the existence of mankind like killer robots or spaceships but the soul of humanity seems to be dim.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In \u201cThe Pedestrian\u201d, Bradbury walks us through a world where absolutely every family and individual is glued to a television screen inside their home. The police force is greatly reduced which is proportional to the amount of crime there is in the world. Is a world with almost non-existent crime a better one at the cost of people losing their will to be outside?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
E Lily Yu gives us \u201cIn the Forests of Memory,\u201d where the essence of people seem to be recorded in a 3D version at their tombstones with realistic features and responses. Their voices and faces are all pre-recorded but there are still graves which are visited. There\u2019s still forgotten digital memories with no one to talk to even if their next of kin are still living. One might think that the ability to see a loved one who passed away might fill a cemetery more than before but that\u2019s not true.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In both of these stories technology and AI was supposed to bring us closer together and give us free time to do what we wanted. In \u201cThe Pedestrian\u201d, the families are all cooped up in their little house with the glare of a screen reflected on their face but it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they\u2019re spending quality meaningful time. Yu\u2019s character is almost a ghost in the modern world due to the empty echoes and interactions it\u2019s filled with.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today we see ourselves constantly updating technology and giving away \u201cbusy\u201d work to computers. We\u2019re behind screens more and more per day and there doesn\u2019t seem to be an end to it. AI and technology do solve many problems and help us advance but there is always a cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ray Bradbury and E. Lily Yu both dive into a futuristic world where technology is different from the one we have today. Both, \u201cThe Pedestrian\u201d and \u201cIn the Forests of Memory,\u201d are set in a somewhat sad, slightly dystopian kind of future. There isn\u2019t anything threatening the existence of mankind like killer robots or spaceships […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sb_is_suggestion_mode":false,"_sb_show_suggestion_boards":false,"_sb_show_comment_boards":false,"_sb_suggestion_history":"","_sb_update_block_changes":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-4548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ai-fiction","post-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4549,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4548\/revisions\/4549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iris.siue.edu\/hum230sp26\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}