Flat Eye presents a possible future which may be neither desirable nor avoidable.

To create this world and make it credible, MONKEY MOON took inspiration from the present. There is no lack of sources: online articles, social media videos, scientific journals and more. On the team's private chat, one observation came up again and again: ""when reality goes beyond fiction."" Things that may seem a long way off or even impossible in the game may in fact have already happened, and some of the game's narrative threads were directly inspired by these true stories.
As archivist for the project, my mission, toward the end of the development process, was to gather all of these articles to create this coherent bibliography. It provides a closer look at what inspired Flat Eye, of course, but also at our present--a time of such rapid, constant change that we don't even realize it's happening anymore.
The goal of this snapshot of the world is to place Flat Eye's major themes (artificial intelligence, the future of work, social change, etc.) in their context. The bibliography sorts articles into several different categories (with frequent overlaps) and provides a summary for each. If you're only after the links and references, you'll find it all at the bottom of the page.

September 2022. The archivist.

Artificial intelligence in retail business

Published on December 02 2019

Seen by Flat Eye team on December 24 2019

{Content in English}

Short video which shows through examples how videosurveillance and machine learning can be combined to analyze customer behavior in a store: picking up or putting back an object, opening it, scratching your head, etc.

https://imgur.com/gallery/ySdYHqo

[SUR-0] See reference details

Drones could help us Plant more Trees to help reduce Carbon Emissions

Published on December 18 2019

Seen by Flat Eye team on December 24 2019

{Content in English}

Video about start-up Dendra Systems, which makes drones that shoot beads full of seeds at the ground. These "sky tractors" aim to optimize planting.

https://imgur.com/gallery/jnO6Byc

[SOL-5] See reference details

Watch a Mother Reunite With Her Deceased Child in VR

Published on February 07 2020

Seen by Flat Eye team on February 09 2020

{Content in English}

For a South Korean documentary on the power of virtual reality, a mother who lost her daughter to an incurable disease was reunited with the girl in VR. The documentary shows clips of her interacting with the model and alone in a green room.

https://futurism.com/watch-mother-reunion-deceased-child-vr

[WT-6] See reference details

Never Gonna Give You Up, but an AI attempts to continuously generate more of the song - YouTube

Published on April 30 2020

Seen by Flat Eye team on May 13 2020

{Content in English}

The Jukebox tool by OpenAI is used to extrapolate the song "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley from the refrain alone. Results vary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJgNpm8cTE8

[AI-5] See reference details

Hope Frozen: A Quest To Live Twice (trailer)

Published on August 19 2020

Seen by Flat Eye team on August 31 2020

{Content in English}

A documentary about a Thai couple who decided to crypreserve their daughter who died of an incurable brain cancer in hopes that future technology will be able to revive and cure her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vecjCWsrhww

[SOL-7] See reference details

I spent a week in a VR headset, here's what happened

Published on March 07 2019

Seen by Flat Eye team on October 15 2020

{Content in English}

Short documentary about a journalist who wore a VR headset for 168 hours, his take-away and relationship to reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRY14znFxY

[WT-8] See reference details

Severance (trailer)

Published on February 18 2022

Seen by Flat Eye team on April 14 2022

{Content in English}

A company with sterile offices offers to insert a chip into employees' brains to completely separate their professional and personal lives. Severance is an Apple TV+ series that explores how two people living in the same body try to exist side by side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEQP4VVuyrY

Note from the archivist: Recommended on the Monkey Moon forum, with this comment: "The combination of hellish work conditions x shady technology x retro-future with CRT screens and alarm clocks for videoconferencing is super cool, but yet again it's the story of a huge corporation that does/makes... too many things, who knows what (food, electronics, big data, etc.). The employees don't know what they're doing either. Everything is strange."

[WOR-10] See reference details

What is THE LINE?

Published on July 25 2022

Seen by Flat Eye team on August 17 2022

{Content in English}

Saudi architecture firm Neom has designed a city in the middle of the desert that is 200 meters wide, 500 meters tall and 170 kilometers long. They're calling it: The Line. The city would have no roads. Instead, a train would take passengers from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes. Public services would be no more than a five-minute walk away. The project aims to house 9 million people in 34 square kilometers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kz5vEqdaSc

Note from the archivist: "What could go wrong?" asked a member of the Flat Eye team. Another thought the idea would be perfect as the basis for Spec Ops: The Line 2.

[SOL-21] See reference details

References