With the Cyberpunk genre more popular than ever, many are wondering about AI and the internet merging with human beings. Ian Cheng is hoping to capture that sense of wonder with his eight-part series Life After BOB: The Chalice Study,
Admittedly, we’ve seen numerous media tackle humans giving up their humanity to be one with machines, like the Robocop films. Still, the fact that this series will focus on the possibility in-depth has many excited and thinking about our futures.
Humans merging with AI and the internet?
Commissioned by LAS, Life After Bob is an eight-part anime series that tackles what happens when humans merge with AI and the internet. The series takes place in 2074, in the “Great Anomic Era,” where an AI called BOB (Bag of Beliefs) makes people feel better by merging with them.
Knowing that this AI is aware of what we’re thinking and can rewrite whatever we’re planning to do is thought-provoking. Hopefully, Ian Cheng can make this anime series feel more original than previous films we’ve seen about technology and humanity.
“How will artificial intelligence transform the archetypal scripts that guide our lives? Imagine a future world in which your mind is no longer entirely your own, but co-inhabited by an AI entity,” says LAS. “Now imagine how a life lived with an AI might transform the scripts that guide your sense of a meaningful existence.”
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Making AI unique
Admittedly, it’s hard to make humans merging with AI and the internet feel original since these themes have been explored before. Cheng is hoping to make this series feel unique, promising “new archetypal characters” that will fit this weirdly wonderful concept.
“Life After BOB imagines new archetypal characters for our ever-weirdening times, and gives life to them through an experience that integrates authored cinematic storytelling with open-ended simulated worlding,” says Cheng.