Response Week 2

 In Chapter 1, Williams describes the view of “symptomatic technology” as one that views research and development as self-generating in a “marginal way” (6). Put simply, emergent technologies are “taken up and used” or even combined to create what we broadly define as the television medium. 

It’s interesting to consider the emergence of artificial intelligence through this lens and how such technological innovations can have a broader effect on what Williams calls the “generalized authority” (40) of the television medium. Hyper-realistic films and TV are still recognizable as such, purely because we click on them on Netflix or Hulu. But we’re quickly arriving in a technological age in which computer-generated characters can, in the exact idiosyncratic manner of their real-world counterparts, say anything that a writer wishes, or to take it further, anything that artificial intelligence desires. We’re talking about a new form of realism in which world events, speeches, and anything truthful can effectively be produced in a studio or by artificial intelligence, a further evolution of the television form into one that can reproduce reality on a level hitherto unseen – not merely as something that masquerades as realism through ultra HD lenses, but one that will so be literally indistinguishable from reality. 

Ultimately, the question I’m interested in is this: in the context of a ‘post-truth’ society and culture, how will artificial intelligence impact the television medium and, in turn impact the way we consume, understand, and trust what is being shown to us onscreen?