Civic Imagination and Culture Resources
Photo by Luiz Guimaraes on Unsplash
Civic imagination bleeds into many movies, songs, books, memes, etc. Everyday users, writers, painters, filmmakers, etc., seek to better society. They imagine new worlds and warn others of political, social, and economic issues. One 2023 culture resource movie, The Pod Generation, directed by Sophie Barthes and starring well-known actress Emilia Clarke and actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, warned viewers of an alternative reality not too far from where we are in society socially, politically, economically, and technologically.
The movie constantly reflects the struggle of artificial technology against nature and humanity. Clarke and Ejiofor’s characters, couple Rachel and Alvy Novy, dwell on opposite ends of this spectrum in a world embracing AI to the loss of nature and humanity. Rachel works for a tech company and is recognized as the breadwinner, while Alvy is a botanist professor with low-paying wages.
In Rachel and Alvy’s journey in the AI world, they begin desiring children. Rachel’s AI therapist, Eliza, and HR encourage her to have a baby through the Womb Center.
The Womb Center is said to provide women empowerment to continue their aspirations and work production without the inconvenience of being pregnant. They made an artificial womb shaped like an egg where a baby can grow outside the mother. A wireless base powers the pod and transmits food tablets placed in the center, below the pod, to the baby. The pod then connects to an app that provides the baby’s vitals.
As the movie continues, Rachel and Alvy decide to go with the Womb Center. As months pass, Rachel becomes depressed and longs for the connection she would have had with her baby if she had been physically pregnant, resulting in her taking the pod to work to bond more with her baby. However, her boss lightly reprehends her for embarrassingly carrying the pod around and tells her if she wants to bring her baby to work, she needs to place the child with the other pods. Her company has a designated section, hidden behind a wall, where pods sit until the parent is off work. No connection, no bonding.
The tech company, Womb Center, and Rachel’s friends don’t appreciate the bonding of humanity or nature. They first blur the line between humanity and technology by viewing technology as a superior destination. Womb Center employees and Eliza indicate that imagination, creativity, fear, love, bonding, dreaming, etc., are unimportant for a functioning society, emotions are weaknesses, and AI is more creative.
In the end, Rachel and Alvy run away to their beach house where they have their baby, leaving the viewer to believe that they never return to the city but instead embrace the natural cycle of life and connect with nature and their humanity. Despite the social, political, and economic issues presented in the movie, the film mentioned additional technologies and environmental issues.
The couple lives in a machine-learning smart home named Elena. It opens shades, cooks food and prepares beverages, turns on lights and the television, tracks health, schedules and reads off dates, possesses “emotions,” and can have an entire conversation with the consumer. Similarly, Rachel develops an AI office assistant that maintains the same features.
Besides advanced smart home systems and AI assistants, viewers see citizens walking around with clear pod-like backpacks containing plants with oxygen masks attached. There are also nature pods scattered across the city, pod-like stations containing plants where consumers can pay to wear an oxygen mask and breathe in fresh air. These nature pods leave the viewers to think that plants outside the domes are artificial or holographic to appear natural.
These alternative technologies and social landscape required technological and systemic change to separate humanity from nature. A philosophy and new value system were taught to the citizens, persuading them that AI would make a better life, and the closer you are to nature, means human weakness. Eliza, Elena, the tech company, Rachel’s friends, and Womb Center encouraged a divorce of humanity and nature.
The director, Sophie Barthes, saw the dangers of these technologies and the slight social beliefs currently in our world. We have AI assistants such as Siri, Cortana, Google, and Alexa. We regularly use digital devices to check our health, manage our lives, assist with work, and connect with our community. We also have artificial insemination, but we don’t have the available technology to grow babies in artificial wombs quite yet.
We don’t have smart homes and AI systems that are entirely machine learning to the point that they can have an entire conversation. We also don’t live in a world where nature is a complete commodity. We have trees, flowers, bushes, and grass around us, including wildlife creatures. Although, we have botanical gardens and zoos where we pay to see unique plants and animals.
In many ways, the alternative reality presented by The Pod Generation isn’t too far off since we live in a softer and milder version. As long as we use AI tools to aid us but not to control us, we will stay true to ourselves, bond with each other, and connect with nature. We will love, be curious, and creative, vital aspects of functioning in this world. We need emotions, hopes, and dreams because they cultivate imagination, motivation, and social change.
