1.About Our January 10th #AI Episode
Our theme on the January 10th episode of SNS Eigojutsu on NHK E-Tele was #AI. To coincide with CES2020, the world's largest international trade fair in the home electronics sector, we featured tweets talking about cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
Our MC Haruhi-san and co-host Hide-san marveled how life-like modern robotics has become, and how brain-interfacing technology is allowing users to fly drones and operate prosthetic hands using their brains. Our resident English teacher Torikai-sensei and I talked about portable translating devices, which are currently sufficiently advanced to be more than adequate for the kind of simple phrases and interactions used by tourists. Commentator Tsukagoshi-san gave an easy-to-follow introduction to the benefits that humans can gain from the development of AI.
As I confessed at the beginning of the show, my thoughts on AI are a little more...negative. From my perspective, we are likely to lose more on account of AI than we stand to gain from it.
In this column, I want to talk about some of the sci-fi movies that shaped my apprehension of AI and consider some of the implications for human society going forward.
2.Movies About AI That Influenced Me
I remember that many of the science fiction masterpieces I watched when I was a child often portrayed AI from a pessimistic point of view. Back then, the “digital revolution" had just begun, and the far-off promise of AI was an unknown—both a source of hope and a vague but palpable sense of fear. Few could imagine how this technology would change humanity.
2001: A Space Odyssey
This work directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the SF novel of the same name, and is a masterpiece not only of the science fiction genre but also of film in general. A crew is sent aboard a spacecraft equipped with the artificial intelligence “HAL9000" to go and investigate a monolith excavated on the moon, but when HAL gradually goes insane, the crew must hurry to stop it. HAL is depicted as having a single cyclops-like eye and a point of view like a distorted wide-angle lens; in other words, HAL is a kind of monster made by human hands, reminiscent of Frankenstein—which was written 200 years ago. It makes you think that even if technology advances, human folly will remain the same.
Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day
In the near future of 2029, the artificial intelligence network "Skynet" causes a nuclear war ("Judgment Day") and pushes humanity to extinction. In an attempt to strike a final blow, Skynet sends the robot T-800 to the past to kill a key figure’s ancestor. The first movie, released in 1984, is truly a sci-fi horror film, and the T-800 is a murderous, unstoppable killing machine. However, in the second movie, the T-800 is programmed to protect humans. In the latest movie in the franchise, Terminator: Dark Fate, the T-800, reflects on his actions and leads a mediocre but comfortable life as a human. What complicates watching these movies is that the T-800 is an android—he looks like a human. The threat of AI may strike us in a most familiar form.
Total Recall
This is an epic action movie centered on an unremarkable construction worker who dreams of Mars, a place he has never been to. Artificial intelligence is not a main theme in this movie, but the way the future technology depicted is very interesting. The protagonist, who is being chased by a mysterious organization, tries to evade his pursuers by getting into a self-driving taxi, or by using a hologram. But each time the technology reacts unexpectedly or breaks down. No matter how much technology evolves, human error will surely stand in our way. Even in the era of self-driving cars, I choose to take the wheel myself, thanks.
The Matrix
The Matrix is science fiction that depicts human beings enslaved by “The Matrix”, an artificial construct created by machines. This masterpiece tackled themes such as the real world versus the virtual world and the threat of AI just as these technologies were starting to become a reality. By the time you finish the movie you’ll be questioning the nature of your reality. Are we already living in The Matrix, and we just don’t know it?
Minority Report
Based on a short story by famous American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, this is a mystery thriller directed by Steven Spielberg. In Washington D.C. in 2054, the police have implemented a prototype “PreCrime” police department that stops murderers before they act using specialized mutated humans, called “Precogs”. As a result, the murder rate is reduced to zero percent—but at what cost? AI is not the main theme of this film, but it gives an important lesson at a time where surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology has become widespread. It also provides much food for thought in terms of the question of human rights. And it reminds us that even if there is no malicious intent behind AI itself, the question is who is allowed to wield the power.
These films show that the works considered masterpieces of sci-fi tackle the topic of AI and technology only as a way to explore human existence and human fears. After all, at the base of the behavior of HAL9000 and the T-800 are programs created by humans, and so the AI itself can hardly be said to be acting with malice. In other words, humans are threatened by humans more than they are by advanced artificial intelligence. And as The Matrix tells us, there are those of us who want to know the truth of our reality, and those who want to remain deceived.
3.Judgment Day Has Already Arrived
Since its beginnings, Hollywood has produced films that reflect or attempt to capture the zeitgeist—films that speak to the concerns and fears of general society. When a certain movie connects with audiences, movie studios conduct marketing studies to death to glean some formula that will allow it to produce many similar hits until the well has run dry. By repeatedly focusing on certain themes, it amplifies them, and shapes society in turn. It’s the cycle of a country obsessed with large explosions and mindless entertainment.
If a movie that channels public fear for technology or the unknown turns out to be a hit, you can rest assured Hollywood has many more like it coming down the pipeline. Hollywood does not excel when it comes to nuance, nor does it try to. International relations, cultural differences, and social issues are all depicted with the same broad strokes.
One such popular theme is the doomsday movie or apocalyptic movie. The Terminator series, which depicts a“Judgment Day"where robots revolt and attempt to exterminate humanity, is one such theme. Such themes have had the collective effect of engraining a negative impression of AI.
But the change brought upon society by AI will not occur suddenly, but will gradually occur under our noses. In fact, these changes are already well underway. 5G equipped smartphones, virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa, smart home appliances, facial recognition on security cameras, biotechnology, and other technologies are quickly becoming a part of our daily lives.
The notion of an algorithm on which AI is based has already blended into our everyday life. Behind the advertisements displayed when surfing the internet and the various recommendations offered to us by sites like Amazon and Youtube is an algorithm based on AI. The algorithm shows the best (most clickable) ads based on its analysis of our past behavior. Even on video distribution services such as Netflix and Hulu, our homepages are populated with the videos it determines we would want to see. As a result, we grow more and more entrenched in our particular tastes.
Just the other day, Warner Bros. announced that it would use AI (big data analysis) when deciding what kinds of movies to make in the future. From a marketing point of view, that may be the correct answer, but it does not bode well for the diversity of content. We can likely expect more super heroes and sequels and remakes of past hits in the future. In order to compete with video streaming services, they likely have no choice.
For all intents and purposes, the human race has already been “judged" by artificial intelligence.
4.Professor Hawking’s Warning
Professor Stephen Hawking, who passed away in 2018, voiced his concern in his final years that the creation of a powerful artificial intelligence would be “either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity".
What Prof. Hawking means by “the worst thing" is the idea that an advanced artificial intelligence with its own will would exponentially increase its ability to redesign itself until it had far surpassed its former human masters. In 2014 he said in an interview with the BBC that “Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
We don’t have to wait for that to actually happen to understand the gravity of what he means: consider the spread and our usage of the internet and devices such as smartphones, which have become an indispensable (or rather, unputdownable) part of our daily lives.
Over the first two decades of the 21st century, the amount of information we are exposed to has increased dramatically due to the rapid spread of internet and modern tech. Studies have shown that the human brain is not equipped to handle the information overload, and so we’ve come to rely on things like search engines, internet aggregators, and summary sites to filter the information for us. We give over the entirety of our phonebook to our smartphones for safekeeping, and rely on password management software to be the gatekeeper of our various internet accounts. In other words, our lives are already in the hands on technology.
In recent years, AI-based facial recognition technology has become increasingly widespread, largely without us noticing. The database of facial images required for such a system is being compiled from surveillance camera footage taken on street corners and in public spaces, and the social media through which we divulge our deepest secrets. The issue of human rights is at the center of this entire effort, and many oppose the implementation of such Minority Report-like systems. However, many of us are nonetheless more than happy to post photos to Facebook and Instagram and tag ourselves and our friends and family for the proverbial Big Brother. We grow closer and closer to the surveillance state described by the English writer George Orwell in his classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In recent years, the negative effects of internet and social media addiction on mental health have become the subject of many studies, and many are advocating for the need to teach children about healthy media habits and digital literacy. However, much of the research being done progresses at a human pace, and the implementation of policies that address the situation come at a snail’s pace. Meanwhile, technology evolves so fast it is difficult for us to keep up. In a sense, we’ve lost this game a long time ago.
When I get onto the train and see most of the passengers staring down into their phones with a zombie-like expression on their faces, I sometimes wonder if the future Hawking warned about has already arrived.
5.My Wardrobe for This Episode
White button-down shirt by Universal Language
