#อนาฅต

[clairedaring]

Sneak Peak of the Cutting-Edge Futuristic Netflix Thai Original ‘Tomorrow and I’

What happens when hyper-advanced technology collides with traditional Thai beliefs and customs? Discover the answers in Tomorrow and I, a four episode anthology series that takes viewers on a journey through a futuristic Thailand where technology has become an inescapable part of daily life.

The cast includes Pakorn Chatborrirak, Violette Wautier, Waruntorn Paonil, Treechada Hongsyok, Ray Macdonald, Timethai, Thongchai Thongkuntom, Aelm Thavornsiri, Pongsatorn Jongwilas, Chananticha Chaipa, and Wanichaya Pornpanarittichai.

This groundbreaking series is directed by Paween Purijitpanya a trailblazing filmmaker known for his genre-defying works such as Body, 4bia, and Phobia 2. Paween has also showcased his talents with the feel-good series Seven Something, the boundary-pushing film Ghost Lab, and his exceptional direction in the episode “Liberation” of Girl from Nowhere Season 2. In Tomorrow and I, Paween reimagines four everyday scenarios in intriguing ways, starting with…

Episode 1: Bringing your loved ones back from the dead. Imagine a future where innovation has reached its peak, testing the boundaries of life and death. In this world, the cycle of birth, death, and being reborn may become an everyday reality through the technology of cloning.

Episode 2: Welcome to a place where technology meets intimacy. Have you ever felt that your partner couldn't quite meet your desires, or felt uncertain because you're still new to relationships? What if there's a city where technology might provide the solution? Enter a world where intelligent sex robots are designed to cater to every emotional and physical need.

Episode 3: What if a Techno-Monk joined the Buddha and the Dharma in the Triple Gem, replacing the Sangha? Imagine AI continuing ancient teachings preserved and upheld for over 2,500 years, revolutionizing Buddhism. Could this challenge traditional faith, or signal the end of the monastic order?

Episode 4: And if an entire city were submerged underwater after years of relentless rainfall, how would humanity survive? Would people fall into despair as the waters rose, or would they have to rely on "octopuses," potentially the last hope for survival? When this moment arrives, everyone will face a crisis beyond our species' abilities.

Unveil the future in Tomorrow and I, the year-end series that will spark your imagination and challenge your perceptions of a world where technology seamlessly integrates into every facet of our lives. Coming soon, exclusively on Netflix.

[clairedaring]

Yo! I hope you enjoy that surprise ramble on your Tomorrow + I intro post, ahhaha! Thanks for the tag, man!

But like I said: I want to know what you think!

Just judging from the premise and summary, what do you think the Buddhism episode might be exploring?

What are your thoughts on AI as an actor of a historical or real person?

Do you have any questions from your own experience that you hope the episode might tackle, not just in the Buddhism episode, but the other three?

Sorry my dear friend Lyn for this way overdue answer (I promise I'm getting to the Haunted Universities 3 ask eventually, my apologies)

Actually when it was announced that one of the episodes of Tomorrow & I will be centred around Buddhism and the little snippet we got, I genuinely thought that the episode would only cover the possibility of feeding AI the dharma and growing them to replace monks. But looking at the brand new trailer we just got, I'm really happy to see that the episode might tackle how good deeds can become quantify and making merits are ranked into different levels. I don't have too much expectations but hopefully these episodes will be interesting.

Tomorrow and I premieres December 4 on Netflix.

[clairedaring]

TOMORROW + I อนาฅต (2024) dir. Goff Paween Purijitpanya

[kafkaoftherubble]

HAAAHAHA!

Dude, my best friend texted me last week (which I haven't even replied her yet ahhahaha what is this life) about this exact Thai series and for the exact same reasons as you do:

Basically, "Sci-fi and Buddhism have come."

Nothing tells me what kind of reputation I enjoy more than the sort of things people tag and text me about, man. I have become a Buddhist Philosophy Dispenser-Yapper in the neighborhood!

I am definitely keeping an eye out for the series just for being a sci-fi telling of a society that isn't touched upon frequently just yet (I've seen plenty of UK, US, and Korean-based sci-fi socio-drama).

But... AHAHAH I AM SO JUMPING STRAIGHT TO THE BUDDHISM EPISODE BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE AHAHAHHA!

----

Fine. There's a pretty big reason for it. It's not really because it's explicitly about Buddhism.

"AI as An Actor"

This is actually one of the topics Last Year Me and Last Last Year Me et al. had been interested in.

Last year, I remember reading an excerpt about training large language models (LLM, the type of AI that outputs sentences and paragraphs, i.e. ChatGPT) on Bible quotes, as well as teaching it through large data of commonly accepted history about Jesus and his personality, to basically re-create Jesus as accurately as possible to offer advice and support.

In other words: teaching AI to roleplay Jesus among other historical figures who might not be religious.

And yes, because this is Lyndis you're talking to, I did wonder about "bringing back the Buddha."

I asked a Catholic friend who happened to be in my vicinity while I was reading about it for her thoughts, and she was naturally rather apprehensive.

I think the mimicry of historical persons—especially those who are long past and can only be reconstructed through our best historical data—sounds instinctively bad for good reasons. History is incomplete and is written by parties with different agendas, sources, angles, and more. The most objective historical evidence is often artifacts, and yet even they are created from circumstantial subjectivity.

Just look at how many kinds of depictions of the Buddha from different periods and places! Bro's handsomeness is so diverse across depictions, in our times you'd think he's catfishing pictures with the search term "top knot, curly black hair, long eyelashes, blue eyes, [28 more characteristics]..."

He was allegedly handsome in his youth; I tend to believe this because if you're compassionate, that qualifies you as good-looking to me already. Also HEY, HANDSOME MONK TEACHES MORE PEOPLE (Shh I am definitely talking about Mxxx Dxx)! The blue eyes were described in one of the suttas, the Lakkhaṇa Sutta, in the Digha Nikaya though. Are you surprised?

Even the suttas' truthfulness in describing the Buddha can be reasonably questioned since we could never be able to go back then and verify it for ourselves. That's the same for all historical records no matter how much effort we put in, yea?

Who gets to choose which sutta, account, historical record, and interpretation to be a part of this AI Buddha/Jesus/Florence Nightingale/Lyndis roleplayer? Who gets to decide which piece of history is correct enough to be a part of the system?

Even scholars debate about certain points among themselves, and though consensus does form a lot of times, it rests on the notion that it is impermanent, and may very well be revised upon further excavation, evidence, and re-interpretation. It is necessarily a long, unsettled, alive process. But will these AIs' programmers and stakeholders care to reflect that in their programs?

If you say, "Well, you shouldn't actually see this AI version as the genuine article; it's just here to give you the best answers from compiling the sutta." Then... what makes it different from simply asking a monk, a learned Buddhist scholar, a Buddhist Philosophy professor, or a discussion with fellow Buddhists? Why do we need him?

That's not all. The Buddhist doctrine of anattā, "non-self", also states that there is no such thing as a permanent self. There is only a process we call a "person"—who changes all the time due to cause-and-effects from the interaction between the mental state/psychological conditions and the physical world/environmental conditions (the more Buddhist term for the "person" will be "the khandha;" while the term to describe these interactions will be "dependent co-arising/pratiyasammupada." I spelt it right... right?).

If you read all my diaries up till I was 14, your mimicry of me will be a static version of me who stopped growing by 14 years old. You can predict how I'd be by age 29, but your imitation of an aged-up me will be very different from the Actual Person Lyndis... because there was never an "essential self of Lyn" in those diary pages you used to predict who I'd become. There was no real Lyndis. Just a process named Lyndis.

So, how real is the AI actor gonna be, if its aggregate is formed from data of the past but not given the chance to interact and grow beyond that point?

As a Buddhist, how do you justify the recreation OR creation of a self through technology... when you understand that there is actually no self?

Maybe one will say, again, "Okay. Well, it's meant to be a facsimile. Not the real Buddha; not a real monk."

But if that's the case... If the AI version of the Buddha isn't meant to be seen as the real deal, then why do we need him?

---

If the AI version of the Buddha has its advantage, then what could they be?

For a philosophy/religion that lionizes practice and empiricism, can an AI Buddha—who does not and cannot practice the Noble Eightfold Path—be a sufficient teacher at all? And that's just me musing about Buddhism. I haven't even mentioned others like Socrates, Mengzi, Ibn Khaldun, Hume, etc.!

What do people who care about Buddhism etc. want from AI historical figure roleplayers? Is it akin to an interactive answering machine? All the boring text from the internet, but presented by an artificial actor?

Or are we looking for an AI who can simulate the thought processes of these figures such that we can ask them questions they never thought of in their time, so they can give us wisdom we aren't confident enough to reason out on our own?

The Buddha never gave his views on transgender rights! Time to ask AI Buddha to give me some dhamma, babe. Hey Buddha, are you actually aroace?

--

The point is, yes, one goddamn news excerpt and Lyndis started to think about all sorts of things—before even reading up on what other experts might have considered as well. I think my friend just left me on the couch and chilled with her newlywed husband in their room that day...

I'm sure there are even more exciting angles to explore on this topic. This is the fun of speculative fiction, after all! I love sci-fi!

I'm gonna drop you an ask stemming from this ramble because I'm curious about your thoughts too, but you probably don't wanna reblog this one because it will derail from the original post! Ahahhahaha!

.... Thank you for reading my ramble?

Sneak Peak of the Cutting-Edge Futuristic Netflix Thai Original ‘Tomorrow and I’

What happens when hyper-advanced technology collides with traditional Thai beliefs and customs? Discover the answers in Tomorrow and I, a four episode anthology series that takes viewers on a journey through a futuristic Thailand where technology has become an inescapable part of daily life.

The cast includes Pakorn Chatborrirak, Violette Wautier, Waruntorn Paonil, Treechada Hongsyok, Ray Macdonald, Timethai, Thongchai Thongkuntom, Aelm Thavornsiri, Pongsatorn Jongwilas, Chananticha Chaipa, and Wanichaya Pornpanarittichai.

This groundbreaking series is directed by Paween Purijitpanya a trailblazing filmmaker known for his genre-defying works such as Body, 4bia, and Phobia 2. Paween has also showcased his talents with the feel-good series Seven Something, the boundary-pushing film Ghost Lab, and his exceptional direction in the episode “Liberation” of Girl from Nowhere Season 2. In Tomorrow and I, Paween reimagines four everyday scenarios in intriguing ways, starting with…

Episode 1: Bringing your loved ones back from the dead. Imagine a future where innovation has reached its peak, testing the boundaries of life and death. In this world, the cycle of birth, death, and being reborn may become an everyday reality through the technology of cloning.

Episode 2: Welcome to a place where technology meets intimacy. Have you ever felt that your partner couldn't quite meet your desires, or felt uncertain because you're still new to relationships? What if there's a city where technology might provide the solution? Enter a world where intelligent sex robots are designed to cater to every emotional and physical need.

Episode 3: What if a Techno-Monk joined the Buddha and the Dharma in the Triple Gem, replacing the Sangha? Imagine AI continuing ancient teachings preserved and upheld for over 2,500 years, revolutionizing Buddhism. Could this challenge traditional faith, or signal the end of the monastic order?

Episode 4: And if an entire city were submerged underwater after years of relentless rainfall, how would humanity survive? Would people fall into despair as the waters rose, or would they have to rely on "octopuses," potentially the last hope for survival? When this moment arrives, everyone will face a crisis beyond our species' abilities.

Unveil the future in Tomorrow and I, the year-end series that will spark your imagination and challenge your perceptions of a world where technology seamlessly integrates into every facet of our lives. Coming soon, exclusively on Netflix.