Notes for season 4 episode 21, “Asylum”
00:01 “We are being watched”, the show reminds us. In theory, the effectiveness of the Panopticon is not in the observing, but the constant reminder of the potential of being observed.
01:59 We presume that ISA have the capacity, independent of Samaritan, to hack into moving vehicles and disable the brakes. This was a real-world concern for a few years, and was demonstrated on “60 Minutes” a few months before this episode aired.
05:58 Elias is using New York’s old pneumatic tube mail network to communicate and avoid surveillance. But also for small arms logistics.
10:44 I note that the machine assesses wind speed in terms of “KPH” (presumably “km/h”), rather than m/s which is the SI unit. We then see The Machine output a bunch of location information in a JSON format. The code appears to be based on the Google Maps API but some of the key names have been altered to contain periods, something API designers in the real world never do because periods are considered unlucky.
13:13 Elias describes New York’s pneumatic tube system as “American ingenuity at its finest”, although it was based on a system built in Paris decades earlier.
14:48 I’m unable to identify the model, or if it’s a custom prop, but the device Root clamps on to the fiberoptic line is called an “Optical Fiber Identifier” and is used to test for the presence of a signal as well as the amount of traffic based on direction.
19:59 Naturally the psychiatric facility is full of Dell 2009W monitors.
20:31 Finch finds the resident database containing Name, Gender, Height, Weight, DSM-5 code. “Doe Jane, F, 5’2″, 105, Persian, 301.7 (F60.2)” (Antisocial personality disorder) “They’re holding a compact Persian sociopath in room 914”
21:15 The “big board” in the Decima control room shows that Samaritan has a presence across the western world, not just in the US.
33:30 One of the few “lay a hand on them and I’ll kill you” threats that are immediately actioned.
39:37 “How arrogant for you to think that any of us are anything but irrelevant.” This season has been about a struggle between two ASIs with different alignments. One that has been trained to prioritise individual lives, and one that has been trained to prioritise collective wellbeing. From an ’80s American movie perspective, these are “good” and “evil”. But since 1990 we’ve inherited a popular culture now confident in individualism as the natural human alignment. Finch continues in vain to appeal to Greer (and indeed Root) on the assumption that his values are universal, if latent. (And indeed, these assumptions colour much concern of the risks of AI. If humans don’t have the same “alignment”, what does it mean to decide what an acceptable alignment is for an AI?)
40:33 The Machine does its best WOPR impression, and communicates via large text on the LCD screens of medical monitoring equipment. (Including some analog distortion effects that would be inappropriate for an LED monitor.)
42:10 We see Shaw in the refection of a rear-view mirror, confirming she’s still alive, and it wasn’t some digital manipulation by Samaritan.