All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Synopsis

We have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers.

First Air Date: 2011-05-23

Last Air Date: 2011-06-06

Number of Seasons: 1

Number of Episodes: 3

Created By: Adam Curtis

Networks: BBC Two

View Technical Specifications on IMDb

Top Cast

Adam Curtis as Self - Narrator (voice)
Ayn Rand as N/A
Stewart Brand as Self
Peder Anker as Self
David Attenborough as Self
Richard Brautigan as Self
Bill Clinton as Self
Richard Dawkins as Self
Tord Björk as Self
Daniel Botkin as Self

Seasons

Season 1 (2011)

No overview available for this season.

Episodes:

Ep. 1: Love and Power (2011-05-23)

In the first episode, Curtis tracks the effects of Ayn Rand's ideas on American financial markets, particularly via the influence on Alan Greenspan.
Ep. 2: The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts (2011-05-30)

This episode investigates how machine ideas such as cybernetics and systems theory were applied to natural ecosystems, and how this relates to the false idea that there is a balance of nature. Cybernetics has been applied to human beings to attempt to build societies without central control, self organising networks built of people, based on a fantasy view of nature.
Ep. 3: The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey (2011-06-06)

This programme looked into the selfish gene theory which holds that humans are machines controlled by genes which was invented by William Hamilton. Adam Curtis also covered the source of ethnic conflict that was created by Belgian colonialism's artificial creation of a racial divide and the ensuing slaughter that occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is a source of raw material for computers and cell phones.