Monthly Sci Fi Friday for Sci Fi Fans
On November 13 I took part for my first time on the monthly Sci Fi Friday Zoom meeting. As the majority of the participants including the founder of the monthly Zoom meeting were in Germany, the meeting was luckily held in English. (Even when I lived in Munich many years ago my German level would never have been good enough for participation in German in this meeting.)
The monthly meetings — announced on Facebook — grew out of the efforts of the producers of the sci fi film GUARDIAN to raise production funds via Indiegogo. The Indiegogo campaign includes this information about GUARDIAN:
The Story
When the artificial intelligence in control of a military space station decides to launch an unprovoked, all-out nuclear strike on an enemy nation, it is up to the AI’s creator and a maintenance technician to stop it from annihilating half the globe.The Reason
Guardian is not just a film about an artificial intelligence going haywire. It is about an almost maternal relationship between E.L.I. and his creator Diane Colton, who lost her own son in an enemy attack, and now considers E.L.I. as more than just an artificial being. And it is that relationship that both complicates matters, but also offers hope in a crisis of global proportions.Our goal with this film is to blend breathtaking sci-fi action with a touching emotional story that has universal resonance with our audience. This is not just another short film, but the seed from which we hope to grow an ongoing story that can be told in a serialized format.
Yes, I contributed to the Indiegogo campaign, and I did so in part because this is the type of sci fi story that truly appeals to me — a story set in the future that asks questions about our present.
While we humans usually trust on blind faith that innovations in artificial intelligence will improve conditions for us, we have no guarantees that this is going to be true. It is our responsibility as ordinary citizens of the world to keep an eye on what is being done behind security doors in the name of advancement. And being a fan of science fiction can encourage us to do this.
If you are interested in sci fi in general or in sci fi filmmaking, consider joining the monthly Sci Fi Friday.
Join the December 11th Sci Fi Friday Zoom meeting.