Pantheon Explained | Why It’s the Only Singularity Show You Need to Watch

UI instead of AI

Pantheon is a masterpiece of science fiction work. It’s especially crucial now as myself and most of the world is suffering from A.I or artificial intelligence narrative fatigue. In the current generation AI is everywhere but pantheon instead chooses to focus on U.I or uploaded intelligence. From a narrative perspective this allows the singularity to have quality characterization as Pantheon is able to show us the lives the uploaded intelligence lived prior to their upload and how the resulting uploads has affected the evolution of the individuals. Singularity related shows have always been severely uninteresting due to the lack of characterization behind the AIs.

Ultron aside of course. I fell asleep in Mission impossible 7 because that snooze fest constructed its plot around a singularity but made no big effort to develop and characterize it. Instead it opted to rely on large scale action set pieces  and treat the AI as merely a mcguffin like the cube from starwars. Conversely; the action was actually the worst part of Pantheon, which instead relied on its neatly crafted narrative and compelling characterizations to provide entertainment. Pantheon explores all of the world-ending technology of the coming century. It is the definitive Singularity show and definitely the only one you need to watch. Welcome to anipriop, careful for spoilers and let’s get into it. 

What is a singularity?

Singularity is a term that has been trending more and more in popular culture lately. But what exactly is it? 

Ill let Chat GPT do this part being an AI and all

“The singularity refers to a hypothetical point in the future where technological growth, particularly in artificial intelligence, reaches a stage where it fundamentally alters human civilization. At this juncture, AI and machine intelligence are predicted to surpass human intelligence, potentially leading to rapid and profound changes that are difficult to predict or comprehend based on our current understanding” 

Pantheon attacks the concept of the singularity from the perspective of Uploaded Intelligence. The greatest minds humanity has to offer are uploaded to private cloud networks with access to the internet. Think Stephen Hawking , Albert Einstein,  Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla floating around in your google drive or Icloud inventing things forever. Imagine how much more advanced the planet would be if these minds were not only immortalized but released from the restraints of terrestrial embodiment. 

To make sure Pantheon lands its point and underlines the believability of its grand science fiction concepts;. 

Steohen Holstrum vs Steve Jobs

The fictional corporation that is most aggressively pursuing the UI technology in the narrative is one called logarithms. This company is obviously based on apple with stephen Holstrom’s entire character design being based on steve jobs. The name Holstrom is swedish and  literally translates to island River. This foreshadows the prophetic nature of the character connecting terrestrials to the digital Ocean. Logarithm jacked apples’ whole flow, the all white aesthetic, the turtle necks from the hay days of the legend and even his death in the early 2000s was lifted from reality just to give the show an insane level of believability. 

Where other shows have failed in their depictions of singularities; Pantheon succeeds and I notice 2 key differences with their approach that allow for this. The first is that in many of the other shows they depict governments as being responsible and involved with the singularity technology. It is so much harder to characterize governments as it is to do so for private organizations. The use of imaginary companies gives the writers way more freedom in how their operations are depicted. Plus it adds a layer of realism because in the modern era, it is the private sector that is driving technological development. Craig Silverstein and the writing team borrowed many ideas for the depiction from the original terminator with skynet and the matrix with the Machines.

The other way Pantheon succeeds with the singularity is by focusing on UIs. The UIs have a flaw when uploaded. Because it is the digitization of a degradable human brain, the UIs break down after expending certain amounts of processing power in the same way that a traditional organic  human brain would decay overtime. The UIs are able to overclock to achieve intense processing but this intern degrades them faster. The UIs are essentially then mortal. There is however a cure, a way to stabilize the UI meaning infinite processing capacity and true immortality. That UI then becomes the singularity as they will live forever, processing information at the speed of the internet which is analogous to the speed of light with optical data transfer. They have the capacity to self-replicate and decide which other UIs get to live, essentially shaping the future of man. 

Amazing technology in Pantheon

The last reason why Pantheon is truly the definitive singularity show is because it does not neglect the other technologies that would realistically develop alongside the singularity as the human race sees exponential increases in tech discoveries. In the order of their appearances here are all the technologies that appear in Pantheon.

• Artificial Intelligence, Ultra wide band internet and Advanced Cloud technology , so almost where we are rite now just one step ahead.
• Next we have synaptic brain scanning technology and the Uploaded intelligence. 
• We Also get : Full body Haptic feedback VR technology 
• UI Anti virus, where the virus is the UI.
• Cloud Intelligence – basically intelligent life born in the cloud 
• Downlink capable bipedal robotics like an advanced version of what boston dynamics has ; but controlled by a UI. 

Finally at the upper limit you have the type 1 civilization technology

• Space Elevator and long distance space crafts. With Digitized beings such as UIs,AIs and CIs . Representatives of the human race become able to make extremely long distance journeys. Beyond the milky way and into other galaxies. 
• We have also the Dyson Sphere and its Tesseract designed Data Centre or the Pantheon. Yep we finally get a name drop. The name of the entire series is based on the very final technology we see. With the Development of the Dyson Sphere we unlock energy potential nearing the limits of the output of the universe. We are then able to create a data center that can produce multiple simultaneous simulations of the universe’s continuity. Pantheon is a greek word that refers to a collection of Gods which basically is a data center with a continuum of singularities. 

Mic drop. 

The story told in Pantheon doesn’t use the concept of the singularity as a crutch to tell a story but instead invests time to build a universe where it is believable that such a technology would arise organically. The narrative does have its issues with time skips and general pacing in season two however Despite the attention to details and the believability of the science fiction, what is most compelling about pantheon is actually the characters behind it. The characters help ground the story and make everything we are seeing believable. This is why Pantheon is the definitive singularity show. And you should Watch it. Like and subscribe. See you next time.