PR AND ARTILECTS

Abstract

T wenty-first Century public relations, in the age of Web 2 technology, is the art of developing, retaining and transforming with participatory communities. More  advanced technologies than Web 2 are in the offing, and are depicted by science fiction. A case in point is Tron, a movie in which Encom Corporation is controlled by an artilect, or artificial intelligence known as the Master Control Program (MCP). MCP, which evolved from a chess program and is a master strategist, decides to take over the Pentagon’s computer systems for reasons of efficiency. Users decide that it has to be destroyed. In science fiction films, almost invariably. Power hungry artilects are defeated. If nascent artilects wanted good public relations, Hollywood contributes to this by presenting scenarios of artilects running amok as both distant and reversible.