Read up on your AI

Rating: 9/10 (20 May 2003)

Ladies and Gentlemen,
***BEWARE OF SPOILERS***
At the risk of being a nerd, I am going to give you guys the title of a book. You must go read it. The Wachowski brothers certaily know of it, or at least had some major consulting in the arena this time around. The title is "Godel, Escher, Bach." It is written by a very learned professor of Artifical Intelligence at Indiana University. A little minor prose(it's hardly minor...I was being sarcastic) on AI that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 by our dear Dr. Douglas Hofstadter. You could call him the real Father of the matrix one day if such a thing could be done. When you read this book, you will understand the total concepts of the Matrix. Do not let the 10 minute cliff note introduction to AI that the brothers "W" give us throw you into a fit. It's a Hollywod thing and you have to educate yourself to enjoy the rest. They were trying to spoon feed you if you're not into the technology. At least forgive them for trying to actually teach you something instead of giving you some more "bullet time." It's not psychobabble as I've heard this refered to it many times from movie goers and reviews alike. It's an introduction into the world of AI that was better than you got in the first film outside of just saying the words or lettters. Granted, it was 10 minutes that probably caught most off guard, but go read that book. It's not terribly scientific in most places that count.
Douglas Hofstadter is a genius, and the book is literally the text of what the Matrix is - Artificial Intelligence. There are big words like "recursion", "self-representation" and all the things that the Matrix is an example of in the world of AI. It was already written about in 1979. You have to realize that the machines are just like you and me now, they think for themselves and do for themselves if you can imagine that. They pass the Turin test. Go find out what that is. Educate yourselves. They are layer upon layer of recursive subroutines that self-reference themselves and act in the manner their creators do. They are using Neo to become more intelligent and further their survival. They are pretty much our equal. Will it be Man vs. Machine in the end, or Man AND Machine in the end? Think it through folks. If you were paying attention you might have noticed that the 'real' world may just be another part of the program or not. Neo has the power to sense and destroy Sentinals in the 'real' world now? Curious. Agent Smith 2.0 can imprint his code on a human mind and escape into the 'real' world? Well maybe it's just this way, and maybe there is just that much evolution in the two hour snap shot we got on this go around. Maybe they're huge holes who knows. Brothers "W" certainly left it open for you to come see the next installment right? It's a trilogy folks. We won't know what they intended until the end of the story right? Holes or no holes...plot, or a total lack of it in the end. Let's all hope for the best since we're fans of the story.
So for the sake of Aritifical Intelligence go educate yourself, and you'll enjoy the movie a whole lot more I promise.
Did I like the movie? Sure. It went were it was suppose to. It made all the choices it was suppose to, and what will be will be. It had all the "bulltet time" it needed to make my jaw drop again as well. Don't look for that 'revolution' in the movies folks. At least learn that simple thing the film is trying to share. Go make your own revolution on yourself and show the artifical intelligence how it's done ;-)