In this task, I’ve decided to portray my two speculative fictions in two different ways; the first, as an advertisement of the “better” self-driven future that has begun, and the second, as a short fictional story.

Speculative Future 1

Speculative Future 2
In the second speculative fiction, we enter the world of John Doe. He lives in a world where careers are chosen for individuals based on strengths and weaknesses shown in the first 16 years of their lives. Data from individuals are collected and analyzed in a predictive algorithm. Individuals are unable to dispute the algorithm, and are stuck with these careers for the rest of their lives…

The alarm goes off. 6:30am, like clockwork. Another day at the office, I think, dragging my feet. I look up at the calendar beside my bed. Day 1,825. The same questions run through my mind. Do I really need this job? I wonder if anyone would notice if I called in a sick day today? I push the pointless thoughts aside and get up. “Good morning, John Doe, the architect,” Alexa’s voice greets me in front of the bathroom mirror. “Good morning,” I respond with a mouthful of toothpaste. John Doe, the architect. How did I end up here? Actually, I know exactly how I ended up here. I’ve always been excellent in mathematics and appreciated the beauty in geometry. So it was no surprise when the almighty algorithm concluded that I would be best fit as an architect in this society. It was almost too easy. I rinse my mouth and head to the closet. “Here are your architect clothes for today, John Doe, the architect,” Alexa reminds me as a pair of khaki pants and plaid shirt is pushed in my direction. I take the outfit and stumble into it as I cross off today’s date on the calendar. 12,775 days remaining. I’ve always been excellent in mathematics…

Side note: this last task of ETEC 540 was a blast for me to do. I tapped into some creative writing skills that I haven’t really had to use after high school as a scientist… So I am grateful for this task. 🙂

First of all, the sentences generated using the predicative text on my phone made absolute no sense and was grammatically incorrect. I believe these series of words were stringed together by using my most commonly used vocabulary- not necessarily taking into consideration the meaning of the entire sentence. For example, I must be using the word “way” often after using the word “only”, leading to the suggestion from my phone that I should be using these words one after another. In a way, it reflects my “voice” but the sentences as a whole did not generate a statement that sounded like me.

I see this sort of predicative algorithms in social media sites today, such as Instagram. I’ve recently been searching for a new coffee table for my apartment on Google, Wayfair, IKEA, and other furniture websites. Slowly, the ads on my Instagram feed have begun to show me links to coffee tables from furniture companies that I had not known about. I wondered, where did Instagram get access to this type of data? It is almost scary how accurate predicative algorithms can be with our modern technology. It can be both very convenient but also feel quite intrusive. I think it is always important to question the ethical implications behind using data for predicative purposes, whether it is for simple tasks like buying coffee tables or for more academic purposes using student data for learning analytics.

Using these visualizations as prompts, reflect on the political implications of such groupings considering what data is missing, assumed, or misinterpreted. For example, while you may be able to justify your musical choices in the Quiz, there also may exist reasons why you did not chose other pieces. Can the reasons for these “null” choices ever be reflected/interpreted in the data?

My first impression in looking through these visualizations was that my name seemed to be generally positioned towards the centre of the web. Having this higher degree of connections could reflect that my choices are more “popular” compared to the other nodes. This may indicate that my opinions are either more valued or mainstream, and other students are able to agree with my decisions more easily. There may be danger in representing the opinions of our class this way, as it may imply that the opinions those in the outskirts of the web do not hold as much importance. Everyone is entitled to their own musical opinions and not choosing the most “popular” songs does not necessarily indicate less importance. Also, even for students who chose the most popular songs, their reasons could be completely different. For example, some students may have chosen a song by Bach for its mathematical excellence and some students may have chosen the same song due to the fact that it falls under the category of classical music. The final decision may not be the most important data in this case and it may be necessary to take a look at a new web created from “reasons why” data. This would be especially significant in looking further into why students did not choose certain songs to be included in their top 10. Different students will again have different reasons for these “null” choices, which could be represented in a similar styled web.

Curated from the 27 pieces of music included in the Golden Record on the 1977 Voyager spacecraft:

1. Track 5: Brandenburg Concerto by J. S. Bach
2. Track 8: Alima Song
3. Track 9: Australia Barnumbirr and Moikoi Song
4. Track 10: El Casabel
5. Track 11: Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry
6. Track 13: Sokaku-Reibo
7. Track 16: Chakrulo
8. Track 17: Roncadoras and Drums
9. Track 20: The Rite of Sprin
10. Track 22: Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven

My criteria for this top 10 selection was very similar to the original selection parameters: to be as inclusive as possible. The songs I have chosen reflect musical languages from most continents around the world, as well as universal languages such as mathematics. I also believe the first 4 tracks are the most important (which were not included as options for choosing the top 10) because it represents the land and evolution of it- something that was already there before humans were present. The existence of humans only takes up less than 1% of the Earth’s history, so it seems more appropriate that the land be represented. My top 10 choices of songs would probably look very different in the 21st century, but would still be selected from the same criteria.

Reflection: It was much harder than I thought completing this assignment. First, I started to summarize the movie on an online emoji keyboard, but it was missing some of the new emojis. The next challenge was coming up with a synopsis using only emojis… especially for a movie that portrays mostly internal struggles in a protagonist- so difficult to convey emotions!

Here is a quick little scenario game I created using Twine:

http://philome.la/jisoocomplains/bee-game/play

I normally type everything I need to in my day- whether it’s on my laptop or on my phone. This task was surprisingly difficult, because I did not realize how much I had weaned away from handwriting over the years. Everything for school work was written by hand up to the end of highschool, but typing became much more integral in my life starting with my undergrad. Today, I rarely write anything by hand- and when I do, they’re short comments or check marks when marking students’ assignments. I found my hands cramping up after a while and my recently done nails were digging into my palms, making the experience uncomfortable. I used a pen for my writing and did not have to edit any errors- however, if I had made a mistake, I would’ve had to use white-out. This would leave a mark of my mistakes and errors, whereas in typing, there is no trace of this left in the final product. For me, the most significant difference was the speed in which my thoughts could be produced into text. I’m much faster with typing and I got frustrated at times because I would forget what I wanted to write next as my thoughts were running faster than I could write. This is important for me, because I tend to forget things often- that I can translate all my thoughts into text before they’re gone. Definitely pro-typing.