At the end of a recent interview I gave to the Roda Viva program, Marcelo Tas asked me if I had a pessimistic or optimistic view regarding artificial intelligence.
Already tired, I gave a standard answer. Later, I thought that the idea of a computer being able to learn on its own scares me less than the power of the current CEOs of big tech companies over the computer that learns on its own.
We are at the mercy of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, opportunists devoid of ethics, who would make the philosopher Immanuel Kant turn in his grave with his categorical imperative.
When Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” bought Twitter, he stated that he wanted to turn the platform into an interactive PvP—player versus player—game, where “participants could argue and attack each other on verified personal accounts.”
Zuckerberg had already discovered the added value of gossip and defamation with his Facebook, which originated from the Ivy League university bullying.AI may discover a cure for cancer, but with these guys in charge, the chances of us being extinct by a PvP driven by flesh and blood players increase considerably.
And that’s why I praise here four mediocre productions from Apple TV that, I believe, came from an effort by the company to remind Americans of the democratic values that founded them.
I am talking about two very expensive documentaries, “The Lincoln Dilemma” and “Benjamin Franklin,” and two mediocre fictional series, “Manhunt” and “Franklin.
“Marta MelloWith Trump rising in the polls despite being on trial, and another black man dying from asphyxiation in a police raid, using history as a mirror for reflections of this eschatological present could instill some seed of sanity in the public.
None of the productions mentioned has the quality of “Five Came Back,” by Laurent Bouzereau, about the five Hollywood filmmakers sent to the front of the Second World War; “The Vietnam War,” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novik, which recalls the greatness of Ho Chi Minh; and much less of “Dr. Strangelove,” by Stanley Kubrick.
They are simplistic works, like a well-finished literacy class, but that rescue the ideals of freedom and equality defended by two great Americans, besides discussing the nefarious legacy of slavery.
For those who, like me, have a shallow knowledge of American history, “The Lincoln Dilemma” highlights the importance of the black abolitionist intellectual.
Frederick Douglass, who persuaded Lincoln to abandon the idea of sending the enslaved people to Liberia in Africa, and helped him convince himself that the Civil War was a battle for abolition.
Lincoln was assassinated five days after the victory over the Confederates, and the documentary also addresses the setback caused by the rise of Andrew Johnson, the vice president who was elevated to the presidency, aligned with the racist South.
The fictional series “Manhunt” duets with the documentary and narrates the hunt for actor John Wilkes Booth, the author of the shot that killed Lincoln in a theater.
The highlight of the TV production is the parallel it draws between the invasion of the Capitol in 2021 and the assassination conspiracy of 1865.
And, as one thing leads to another, I ended up watching “Franklin,” by Ken Burns, about the brilliant Benjamin.
Slow, long, and detailed, the documentary is worth it for the character and is informative.Benjamin Franklin was a self-taught man, typographer, writer, journalist, aphorist, politician, ambassador, and scientist, an.
Enlightenment figure of the New World, a plebeian, practical and down-to-earth, who foresaw the need for unity among the American colonies.
Franklin discovered the electricity present in the atmosphere, with a key tied to a kite, invented the lightning rod, and was called Prometheus by Kant. Acclaimed in Europe, he was cast out in England, as a traitor to the Crown.
Franklin also raised funds for the War of Independence in the court of Marie Antoinette and participated in the drafting of the American Constitution, the theme of the fictional series “Franklin,” starring Michael Douglas. This one, dear reader, you can skip, it’s unwatchable.
Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln were slaveholders, but by advocating equality as an inalienable value of their country, they understood that America was incompatible with slavery.
In cordial Brazil, so fond of connivance and undeclared conflicts, the Revolt of the Lash continues to be seen as an act of insubordination and not of justice.
Perhaps, here, Frederick Douglass and, perhaps, Benjamin Franklin would receive the same treatment given to the Black Admiral João Cândido, still considered a troublemaker by Navy Commander Marcos Sampaio Olsen.
This is our side of the story, which gave rise to the most beautiful song by Aldir Blanc and João Bosco.
