On the air (by David Lynch) - part 2

Some time ago I wrote about a short TV series by Lynch that I had started watching. Now finally I've seen it all, and I can say that my first impression of it was correct. The mixture of absurdity introduced by Lynch and   more prosaic humour (by Mark Frost?) and the plot in whole is perfectly balanced and makes the TV series both charming and funny. There is a peculiar atmosphere of the made-up studio that forces you to watch episodes one by one non-stop. I think that if you loved "Twin Peaks", you would most likely love "On the air" as well.

Me and languages

In case if you want to know something about me.
The list of languages that I have ever started to learn is rather vast. Unfortunately, in most cases the initiative ended in nothing. I think that's because I couldn't find application for this knowledge in real life and so I lost the motivation gradually.
It all started with French which was expected to become my third language, after Russian and English. But it didn't work. I can hardly put two words together, despite having spent about 10 years learning this one.
Then there were several attempts to learn German, but every time I quit in a couple of months, for I didn't just like the sound of it.
After that came two years of Latin at school. That was great, and I still remember some poetry and sayings that we learned there. And we also translated a bit of Cicero speeches, which was a real challenge.
The next step was trying to learn Sindarin and Quenya, the languages created by Tolkien. But I was clever enough not to go deeply into these, because it would definitely have no use in real life.

Artificial intelligence

Yesterday I watched the movie "I, robot". I wouldn't say it's full of innovative ideas, but it resulted in my husband and I discussing the advantages and disadvantages of an artificial intelligence.

As for me, I would have switched all the machines off after such an accident as described in the movie. I can't say I'm a robot-hater, but the idea of an allmighty and omniscient computer does frighten me. If the machine obtains consciousness, humanity would be no rival to it.

There are two possible alternatives of what comes next, I suppose. On the one hand, the machine may try to find out the purport of life, discover its uselessness and commit a suicide. On the other hand, it may soon realize that carbon forms of life are inefficient, have low potential and therefore are destined to destruction.

My husband said it looks like a phobia, but I can't agree with him. The machines exist in our life for quite a short period of time, and we still don't know where the scientific progress can lead us. I think we should regard futuristic movies and books more as a caution than just as fiction.