Over at Slate, Nell McShane Wulfhart posted an article on why Almost Human deserves a second season. The primary point of the article is that “It’s got some of the best futuristic tech on television today.” Wulfhart talks about some of these technologies including 3D printers, robots, drones and various medical technologies.
To tell the truth I think that the show underestimates how far technology will come in the next 30-40 years. It’s entirely possible however, that if the show was realistic about where technology is headed that the show would be unpopular because people wouldn’t recognize the world it portrayed.
As a television show it is good enough, interesting characters and clever plots. I enjoy watching it and, as a rule, I don’t like ‘cop shows’.
Like Wulfhard I like watching the way the show portrays the integration of technology and they do need a ‘dramatic vehicle’ to do that. Most of all though I like Dorian and I like Dorian because of Google engineer and futurist Ray Kurzweil.
Kurzweil believes that, by 2040, computer memory capacity and our understanding of neurobiology will have expanded to the point that humans will be able to upload their brains into computers. He also believes that humans will then, later, be able to download their brains into robots. Before you jump to the conclusion that Kurzweil is an eccentric who doesn’t want to die, I should also mention that Stephen Hawking basically agrees with him.
If they are correct it means that humans will, essentially, become immortal and able to live in either a, completely realistic virtual world of their choosing or in the real one as an android with a human mind. I can, and sometimes do, go on at length about the social, political, economic and ramifications of that but, back to the point at hand – I see these future human/android hybrids as being a lot like Dorian (played brilliantly by Michael Ealy).
Maybe, someday, they will do a show about that exact thing: Human/android hybrids who are hundreds of years old, but until then I’d like some more seasons of Almost Human to happen.