Crime, corporation, and authority in the era of "modified": when algorithms write laws, and cyborgs guard order

Abstract

This article provides a philosophical and cultural analysis of the portrayals of police officers and criminals in Hollywood dystopian films about the near and distant future. The authors explore why filmmakers often depict the future as bleak and totalitarian, emphasizing themes of cyborgization, absolute power, and the transformative role of science and corporations in society. It is telling that a common thread running through a number of such films from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is the persistent emphasis on the idea of traditional authority's absolute impotence in the face of rampant crime that underscores it. In this regard, ideas and images directly related to the cyborgization of both future crime and the police, its main institutional opponent, are being actively introduced into the consumer imagination. Using examples from films like "RoboCop," "Judge Dredd," "Demolition Man," "Detroit Evolution," and other works, the authors demonstrate key motifs and conflicts: the struggle of the individual against the system, the risks of moral programming, the danger of concentrating power in corporations and technocrats, and the degradation of moral norms in the context of corporately regulated technological progress. Particular attention is paid to the inextricable link between cultural fears of scientific progress (the aggravated historical upheavals of the 20th century) and the demands of the consumer audience, as well as an assessment of the role of posthumanist ideas in shaping perceptions of the future. The conclusion emphasizes the need for a consistent and systemic philosophical and cultural analysis of dystopian cinema as a media mirror of current social concerns and reflections on the consequences of modern technological trends.