Gabriel Almonte

The Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” was interesting, I felt like the episode had a lot of characteristics of today’s society while adding a futuristic part to it. The episode had a rating system, people were graded on their interactions with others and everyone could see other’s ratings. It led to a lot of issues in the episode because people didn’t want to associate with people with lower ratings because they were worried it would be frowned upon. I connected this to my experiences in social media because I see a lot of the same things on social media. People with a higher ratio of followers to following are referred to as “Instagram Famous”. These people often will not follow the people they speak to everyday in school or work on Instagram just because they aren’t “Instagram Famous”. I also noticed in the episode the main character wanted to raise her score and was told high ratings from people with high ratings will boost your score. That’s very common in the real world as well, people hold celebrities and people with authority opinions to a higher standard than others just because of their position. That’s why a lot of companies use familiar faces to brand their products because they know people will listen to them. Recently there has been a lot of controversy with this because celebrities need to get money to feed their family but often are advertising products that can be harmful. I was disappointed with the thought process of the episode, but I wasn’t surprised at all because these ideas are very common in the world today. Personally, I find myself stuck in the middle. I don’t want to pretend to be someone else, but I also don’t want others to look down on me. I will always be myself, but at times I must bring out parts of my personality that are better suited for the situation I’m in. For example, in job interviews people must bring out qualities that will show they are a good candidate for the job while wearing formal attire. On a regular day most people wouldn’t speak like they were in an interview and they wouldn’t dress like it either. I thought the rating system had flaws because some people may be a 5 to me and 1 to another person. People should just always have an open mind because there are a lot of good people and opportunities that are missed out on because of preconceived ideas.  

Gabriel Almonte 

The main point of this episode was to challenge the ethical beliefs of technological fields. Data is a robot created by the company. He then creates another robotic being like him, has feelings, and many other human-like characteristics but wasn’t conceived the same ways as humans. Data considered it as his offspring, he wanted the offspring to pick a gender it had four options and chose to be a human female, he named her Lai. Tensions grew as people had disagreements with what to do with Lai. Data already viewed it as a child, so he grew strong loving feelings for it already People in the company were mad that he created Lai without informing anyone, he then argued that it wouldn’t be a problem if a human created an offspring in private. Other people in the company believed that Lai should be taken to a scientific lab to be tested on to see what the possible outcomes are after she is evaluated. Lai is interviewed where she gains a sense of fear because she thinks something bad may happen to her. To me that is enough to not test her and let her live as a human. However, the company still believes she belongs in a scientific facility. Then everyone finds out that Lai left but later comes back because she malfunctioned and is programmed to come back to Data when she does malfunction. They find out that they must work fast, or she will die, then others start to help out data but, in the end, they had no success and Lai died. Data forgave everyone who disagreed because people who didn’t think of her as human helped another parent when he needed help. If a technological being is behaving similar to a human it should be protected as such.  

Gabriel Almonte 

The main point of this episode was to discuss ethics in technology. The episode featured a futuristic robot that had many similar characteristics and functions as humans, the robot could think and had feelings as well. From my understanding it seemed like everyone involved was in the same company but people from different positions of power and different branches were all disagreeing with what was fair to the robot and the future of technology. One branch was fighting for the robot to be left alone because he thought of the robot as a person, the robot developed into what it was in front of him, he grew sentimental love for it. A developer from another branch viewed it as a piece of technology. Therefore, he had no problem with the risks that working on the robot caused. He was only worried about the future of technology. I agree with both sides because if developers can’t work on new technology it ill be hard to make the same technological advances that are occurring right now. I also agree with the other side because seeing people develop these new advances, they can feel n attachment to the product that spent so much time on. I also agree that on some point some technology will be considered human because of how similar it is to normal people. There was one character who compared the unethical beliefs of the other branch to racism. I agree because at a certain point these robots can become almost identical to humans the only difference being the way each group is made. The only thing that must be solved is at what point do these robots are considered humans.  

Gabriel Almonte

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/business/tesla-factory-musk.html 

In “Inside Tesla’s Audacious Push to Reinvent the Way Cars are Made” it uses many visual elements. The article starts off by stating the company’s agenda to speed up the production process as they were 17,000 cars behind their expected production by December 2018. The article then showed a picture of the exterior of the new assembly line in California. It didn’t look very modern, the assembly line looked cheaply made and seemed like it was made with a very small budget. The article was trying to show how them being behind in production made their budget tight. The next picture was of a Tesla worker that looked like he was shining the leather on a seat. They used this picture because it was stated that the robots that were being used to put the seats into the cars were having trouble fulfilling all their tasks. They said the robots were too slow and were very inconsistent, after a while they decided to use the robots to place all the seats in the car and have the workers handle bolts and the handle the electronic connectors. They then used a picture of their robots in the assembly line to show the difference in Tesla’s production compared to other car companies. Usually car companies start off by paying workers to produce the cars, but it cuts into profits so they either move production to a country with cheaper labor or they start using AI’s to make production cheaper. Tesla has done the opposite they started off with the use of robots and then decided to use more workers to increase production numbers.  

Gabriel Almonte

In “Understanding Rhetoric” I agreed with the ideas Aristotle had on rhetoric. I believe that rhetoric is bad for the progress of people. I view it as a negative because people will be closeminded if it’s used often. Everyone can have their opinion but without having discussions and being open to hearing other’s views how can someone expect to learn about any topic. I agreed with a lot of the ideas in “When Your Grades Are based on Labor”. I go to class to learn if I knew the criteria, I wouldn’t need to take the class. Therefore, I agree that mistakes shouldn’t be viewed negatively because the class is supposed to teach the concepts. You become a better writer by practicing your writing, if you get a reasonable grade while making a few mistakes you will want to revise the writing because constructive criticism leaves a writer in a positive state. I also agree that writing should be for the writer not the teacher. Students will be using writing concepts learned in school for their entire work careers. School is very important but isn’t where your writing will be used the most, the workplace is. As a student I love the idea that revisions have no penalty. Many teachers don’t like this concept because it leads to more work for them, but I believe if we put in the effort to try and correct our wrongdoings it should be rewarded. Some students are better at writing then others so it would be unfair for the struggling students to not be able to practice their writing for a revised grade. In “Labor Log” I disagree with it because it stated students would receive no grade if they didn’t hand in the assignments on time. I believe that’s unfair because although students should be aware of deadlines, we take many classes and once behind it makes students unmotivated if we are not allowed to do the work late. We are still putting in the effort but should be penalized as well.