[rating=7.00]
Humanity’s long fascination with robots is about to come to a head. Automatons have held a centuries-long place in the collective consciousness of human culture though, for the most part, they’ve been relegated to the realm of science fiction and fantasy stories. Like so much of what was just fiction, however, we’re now at a place in our history where robots actually exist and might soon be endowed with an intelligence of their own.
For at least the last 50 or 60 years, scientists and philosophers have pondered what the emergence of artificial intelligence might mean for humanity. Just recently, in fact, none other than Stephen Hawking posited that intelligent robots could spell doom for humankind. Others, however, take a less dramatic approach, saying that robots and AI might ultimately liberate humanity from the confines of work and drudgery. Who’s right? Who’s to say?
These questions, and more, are explored in a fascinating new documentary, More Human Than Human. Directors Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting have explored this subject from all conceivable angles, painting a riveting portrait of the new technological advances that lay just on the horizon or, in some cases, that are already here.
Though perhaps a bit over reliant on pop cultural touchstones (the film is laced with clips from movies like Terminator, Blade Runner, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and others) More Human Than Human still serves as a wonderful repository of information for people with even a passing interest in artificial intelligence, even if it often doesn’t go as deep into the issue as it could have.
Much of the film is centered around the filmmakers’ efforts to design and make a camera bot that can film and interview the filmmakers; using this as their platform, they begin to examine the rise and implications of both robots/automatons and artificial intelligence and their effects on modern society.
The implications of both these things are astounding. Already, robots have begun to transform our society and economies—just ask any of the thousands of factory workers who have been replaced by robots—and, even, our home lives. Every new technological conference seems to introduce an incredible new robot designed to help out around the house. And while they’re too expensive for the average person to afford, that won’t always be the case (just look at computers—30 years ago they were a luxury few could afford; now, there’s a good chance you’re reading this on a computer you keep in your pocket 24/7).
More Human Than Human explores this in a wide variety of capacities. From robots who make painting to robots who give performances—one robot they show performs the “You talkin’ to me me?” monologue from Taxi Driver and, somewhat creepily, sings “If I Only Had a Heart”—the implications of these machines simply as tools is astounding enough, but when you add in the looming prospect of AI, it becomes clear that we, as a society, have yet to fully appreciate the magnitude of what is probably about to happen.
Already, our lives are becoming dictated by rudimentary forms of artificial intelligence like Siri or Alexa (who, incidentally, has begun to laugh creepily unprompted by its user, and who I just referred to as “who” without even noticing I was doing it, which is also kind of creepy) designed to help us keep our lives in order. So far, neither of these programs have gained any sentience but it’s not at all far-fetched to think that one day they might.
This forces us to ask the question: what is humanity? More Human Than Human spends some time discussing a woman who, following the death of her friend, designed a neural net using all her friend’s text messages that could, then, imitate the patterns of speech her friend used in texting. As much as we logically know that isn’t her friend sending her text messages, the philosophical implications are staggering. This might one day be a service people use in order to keep some form of their loved ones alive. What comfort might you receive from getting a unique text from a deceased friend or spouse? What dangers might that hold psychologically for the user?
More Human Than Human gives us a lot to consider and unpack as we move into the dawn of a new technological age. It seems more likely than not that one day, not so distant, we’ll live alongside sentient and intelligent machines with thoughts of their own. Whether or not Hawking is right in his doom-saying is something that we will have to contend with, as are the potential rights of these machines. Though the film itself doesn’t quite go as deep as it could have (or should have) into these topics, the implications are there, and that’s something that we’ll be forced to contend with sooner or later.
