Ghost in the Shell | Witches and Ray-Guns

I’m proofreading Frostburn before it goes out for Kate to do a professional job on it, and these things need a break to be taken, so…

Late last night YouTube threw me a recommend which piqued my interest. I should know better: anyone who says they’re going to analyse something is generally going to take something you like, dissect it in what they think is a detailed manner, and bore you to death with it. With AnimeEveryday’s Ghost in the Shell – Film Analysis, I instead got frustration and irritation. Partially it’s because he insisted on calling the Major by her first name throughout and then, I’m fairly sure, mispronouncing it, but mostly it was down to the fact that a lot of his assertions were based on a profound lack of knowledge of the (fictional) technology. I gave up before the end. (His analysis of the Arise series is, in my opinion, flawed as well, but for different reasons.)

However, this got me thinking about cyborgs and androids and such, and I decided to explore both the GitS view of things and mine. As a result, I learned more about GitS cyberbrains, which was interesting and annoying. It’s a prime example of why you should avoid looking under the covers because the cybernetics in GitS makes little to no sense. It’s a little like another classic sci-fi piece, Neuromancer: Gibson more or less created what we think the VR representation of the internet will be like, and he did such a great, evocative job because he hadn’t got a clue about computers. It’s apparent that something similar is working with GitS, except with electronics, computers, and neurology.

It doesn’t help that the same term is used for a range of totally dissimilar technologies: cyberbrain. All the GitS characters, and most humans in that world, have a cyberbrain, but the term is misleading. If you take the likes of Aramaki and Togusa, the two characters with the least cybernetics, what they have are cerebral implants: their brains are basically natural with implanted electronics allowing them to access communications and external memory storage. Up at the top end, Kusanagi and Batou, we have full ‘cyborgs’ with “up to 97.5% of their brain replaced with electronics.” That’s still a cyberbrain. Somewhere in the middle, maybe Ishikawa, there is extensive electronic augmentation with far more natural brain left intact.

I’ve been ignoring various comments in various parts of GitS for ages about the amount of brain replacement in Kusanagi. I used the word ‘cyborg’ in quotes above because, with the amount of her brain which appears to be electronic, calling her a cyborg is kind of silly. Another thing GitS does is play fast and loose with what a cyborg is. Cyborgs are a combination of organic and inorganic components. You can argue over the details, but if your brain is 97.5% machine, calling yourself a cyborg is kind of lame. Those organic bits are doing nothing. This is where the failure to understand neurology comes in. 2.5% of your brain is not going to contain your consciousness. It probably has no useful function because your brain is a huge, complex, interconnected machine. 2.5% of that is a symbol. Sentimentality. Kusanagi is right to question her nature, because it doesn’t make sense.

I suspect that the full-on cyberbrain is really supposed to be like Aneka’s brain. Kusanagi’s cyberbrain is a hardware and software emulation of the brain she (may have once) had. I’m not sure why there’s the continued desire to keep some organic component in the system. This may be a Japanese cultural thing I don’t understand. If Kusanagi was entirely synthetic, I don’t believe that would take away from the integral dilemma facing her. In fact, I think it would add to it.

The other annoyance was the use of ‘cyborg’ for things which aren’t. The Puppet Master is described as being a cyborg because he takes a cyborg body. Well, no, he’s not a cyborg because he has no organic components. He’s an android (or gynoid, since it’s a female shell). He has a cybernetic body, because cybernetics is different from ‘cyborg.’ This apparent failure to understand the technology irked me.

So, for your edification, I present an explanation of how I use various terms. These are mostly from Fox Meridian’s world, where the terminology is pretty well developed.

Android: A humanoid robot. In Fox’s world, this generally means a male form, but can be used generically, and is used for ungendered models.
Bioframe: Currently theoretical, a bioframe is a bioroid with a computer for a brain, hence the organic equivalent of a cyberframe.
Bioroid: Not a robot, but an artificially created life form. Again, currently theoretical.
Borg: Street slang for a cyborg, and yes, it was derived from Star Trek.
Cyberframe: Purely in-world jargon, a cyberframe is any kind of device which can have an infomorph loaded onto it as the operator, or be remotely operated. Technically, computer implants and wearables are cyberframes, and so are things like servers, handhelds, and laptops. Even the humble Q-bug is a cyberframe if it has a powerful enough on-board computer.
Cyborg: A human with mechanical parts either replacing or augmenting their natural ones. In Fox’s world, people with computer implants are not generally considered cyborg’s, though they technically are.
Droid: In Fox’s world, this is the preferred generic term for and android/gynoid where the sex is unknown, or you’re speaking of a mixed gender group.
Frame: Shortened from cyberframe.
Gynoid: A female form android. (Interestingly, gynoid is a recent invention. The original term was ‘fembot.’ Yes, like in Austin Powers. And that’s in the real world!)
Infomorph: A life form composed of data and software. Includes AIs, but also some forms of computer virus, and perhaps some other things.
Robot: The absolutely generic term for any mechanical, self-motivated machine. In Fox’s world, it’s also jargon for machines installed with exclusive operating software such that they can’t be operated by an infomorph.

My definitions are closer to (if not the same as) the real-world jargon terms. The ones I haven’t made up anyway. I think being clear about this and knowing where the terminology comes from makes things easier. For one thing, it means you’re not worrying about what on Earth the writer was thinking when they came up with a plot idea. I just hope no one ever does a psychological analysis of my stuff: I might cry.

I’ve been watching a lot of cyberpunk/AI/etc stuff recently. Well, I’ve been watching a huge amount of The Ghost in the Shell, but I also finally got around to watching Ex Machina too, and going back a bit there’s The Machine and a few giant-robot Anime… I’m soaking up the cyber.

So… here’s the inflammatory question: Can anyone explain to me what’s so good about Ex Machina?

I spent a good couple of hours knowing more or less exactly what was coming. There were no surprises. The special effects were very good, I’ll give it that, but Ex Machina explored nothing, gave no new insights, gave nothing new to the genre… I don’t get all the really amazing reviews, I simply don’t. I checked out Rotten Tomatoes for a round-up and found one critic saying pretty much what I just did; all the rest seemed to think it was some sort of genre classic. I won’t go into the gaping plot hole, because it would spoil the ending if you haven’t seen it.

So, nothing new there. The Machine is in some ways very similar, but I thought it was more visually appealing and more accessible. It didn’t get the exposure Ex Machina did, which is a shame, in my opinion.

And so to GitS. Let just face facts here: I am a big fan of Ghost in the Shell. Not actually of the original movie, but of the Standalone Complex series. I like the movie, though I could have lived without the sequel, but being able to play out and develop storylines across several hours instead of 90 minutes often works better. Even so, GitS:SAC suffers a little from what the movie does (and a lot of Asian movies do, actually): exposition.

If you read a book on wiring, one of the things that you’ll pick up is that you should research your material. “Write what you know” is an over-used axiom, but researching things which can actually be researched is a good thing. There is, however, an addendum: your readers don’t need to know about all that research you did. GitS suffers a lot from long-winded, frankly boring sections of conversation where the writers demonstrate how damn clever they are through their characters. GitS:SAC suffers from it to, generally in the scenes where various characters quote authors at each other (hilariously sent up, maybe not intentionally, at the end of Saints Row IV). Last night a friend of mine summed this up very nicely with regard to the recent battle between Batman v Superman and Civil War by saying that one of the differences was that it took 20 minutes to establish Bruce Wayne’s problem with Superman, and 15 seconds of amazing character acting to set up the same dilemma for Tony Stark. (Thinking about it, it’s a bad example since it took an entire movie, Age of Ultron, to setup for the great character acting, but the point stands.) Movie’s are a visual medium, and they need to be treated as such. Exposition is really bad in movies.

That said, I’ve been through two GitS movies, both series of GitS:SAC plus Solid State Society, and the five new Arise films (and will someone put Pyrophoric Cult out in the UK, please!) and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them. They’re all way more thought-provoking than Ex Machina.

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