What If Doctor Octopus Had Unleashed Genetic Crops?
I'm a fan of the Spider-Man series of films, but I detect biochauvinism in them.
Yesterday at the coffee shop I saw a dangerous petition to enforce a global moratorium on vitally important genetically modified food. Accompanying it was a horrifically misanthropist newsletter about what the paranoid reactionaries label "Frankenfood." The automatic distrust of technology by default seems to be a rampant problem today. Opponents of technology advocate that we relinquish manipulation and control, of which Ock's metal limbs are iconic. Perhaps the scriptwriter should have made him the inventor of GM crops.
Why is it that technologists are the bad guys in Spider-Man, but the good guy has been made purely biological? In the comic books Spider-Man invented web-shooting cuffs, a bit of heroic technology saving the day. His webbing comes straight from his wrists in the film version. (He can even experience projectile disfunction!) His transformation into a superhuman is somehow sanctified by its un-intentionality.
I felt a deep affinity and sympathy for Otto Octavius, who I think had even more personality magnetism than the title character. His desire to give the world an infinite energy source was more noble than Green Goblin's war-machine project. In The Demon-Haunted World Carl Sagan complained about how the media mis-portrays technologists,
"I'm sorry, Dr. Nerdnik, the people of Earth will not appreciate being shrunk to 3 inches high, even if it will save room and energy..." The cartoon superhero is patiently explaining an ethical dilemma to the typical scientist portrayed on Saturday-morning children's television. Many of these so-called scientists... are moral cripples driven by a lust for power or endowed with a spectacular insensitivity to the feelings of others."
Spidey stories have always been a prime example. Ock wasn't driven by revenge as Norman Osbourne was. He is the self-made man on the literal and symbolic level. His lab accident happened because he was myopically goal-oriented and wouldn't doubt his own genius. When he accidentally melded his mind with A.I., these were the only personality traits not submerged. He's not hateful, he's emotionally impaired.
He fits the Transhumanist vision of a transcended posthuman, because before a brain could incorporate additional motor skills and visual input -- much less have two-way communion with four artificial intelligences -- it would have to be so fundamentally altered that it would arguably be a new species. What went wrong is that he paid no attention to what transhumanists call the "friendly AI problem." I would think it would be really desirable to try deliberately augmenting the fatal deficiencies of my own flesh and grey matter in the way that he did... if it weren't for the whole sociopath thing. Morality software will be a prerequisite before I install a mind-machine interface.
Comments
matt-arnold on Jul. 4, 2004 10:39 AM
Another crucial difference from the comics is that the movie added to Doc Ock the most important superpower that any character can have. I can see the thought-balloon now: "Fashion Sense tingling! Must not be a fat guy in a leotard with a bowl haircut!" I've been fearing for years that the Hollywood Ock would suffer the same horrible fate Jim Carrey had as the Riddler. Admittedly, we see enough of Alfred Molina's chest hair at first that the critics are calling for punitive federal legislation. But later he just looks perfect.
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