Transcendence was a more positive outlook of A.I. It looked
into the trials and tribulations that human society would enter into in order
to come to understand and ultimately come to live. We begin with two characters
who when originally believe to be our protagonists. They are based as the
protagonist because we, the audience, is meant to believe that their dreams for
our world would be beneficial and be instrumental in the coming age of our
planet. Evelyn, who works along side Will Gaster, both dream this dream. Their
goal is to create a world that is more at equilibrium and can maintain being
more homeostasis like. This includes the environment externally of humans and
internally of humans. It seems to be that this is what all A.I.’s strive to
achieve. Even Evelyn states this as a goal in changing the world, but Will does
not want this same thing. He is only envisioning his work as just that–work.
When paralleling this to the Brian Christian book, “The Most
Human Human”, it is clear to see just how distinguishing the two are. “The Most
Human Human” primarily focuses on the aspect of humans in terms of their
technological use; such as the small limited use we have of A.I. in things such
as Cleverbot. These are examples are of A.I. that do not have a direct effect
on our entire world. Whereas in the imaginary world created by the movie Transcendence, A.I. has a direct effect
on humans as well as the planet. It is beyond what is discussed in “The Most
Human Human.
But one thing the movie does create that distracts us from
the main plot line is the complicated romance between that of Evelyn and the
A.I. Will. And in this way we can plainly see the true agenda of this movie to
be mostly entertaining rather than provocative in intellect. But ironically,
this too is what makes us ‘human’.
Throughout the movie there is a question that is proposed, “Can you
prove you are self aware?” In which the proposed response given is, “That’s a
difficult question. Can you prove that you are?” A provocative question that if
one could answer, I believe would be sure to crack that of the Turing Test. The
understanding and explanation of self-awareness would be explained by the human
and then answered by the one proving it is A.I. or human.
Hey Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI found Transcends very creepy because Will uploads himself to the internet and somehow survives. What I do not understand is how he is able to "process" and retain all of the data that is the internet. I think this is a tremendous leap in human technology because somehow the human mind, in Transcends, is capable of understanding the infinite. Though I am sure there is a limit in date, the amount that is accessible is a lot. I think you bring up a valuable claim in the movie's direction. It really attempts to show how Evelyn wants to be with Will but Will wants to change the world. Their dream ultimately killed their relationship. Could this be a sign that the producers are attempting to show? Maybe technology and humanity should be kept separate. What do you think?
In line with David's comment above, I feel like there's this desire within us to be separate than technology. Not, necessarily from technology, but as something more significant than technology. It's like Christian says, us humans have a kind of complacency, a kind of entitlement that leads us to insist that technology could never be what we are. That there is something about us that cannot be programmed, predicted, or created regardless of intelligence. After all, in our society we believe that even humans can become inhuman, lose their humanity, and can go from being someone who became something that isn't human anymore. What makes us human is fragile and fairly objective, and you can call it a soul or light or life whatever, but I do admire Christian's optimistic perspective that if AI ever did catch up to us, we would be able to hold our own. Unfortunately, I've never been much of an optimist and as inspiring and wonderful as his vision is, I am far from convinced that we would be so gracious when faced with defeat. I fear that instead we will become our own fears and do as we have always done and resort to bullying and destroying the things we're threatened by. That, or that we will never give it a fighting chance to fully flourish, that at the first sight of success fear will win over fascination and possibility extinguishing any further exploration unless we're certain we can control and understand it and that it's on our side. In all, the way I see it, AI's regardless of their intelligence and limitless possibilities, will still be seen more as weapons than people. That if to ever come true, we would want to credit ourselves as their creators and if they turn against us and defeat us, we will blame them for being heartless and inhuman. I think that to the end, we'd still hold onto our pride more than our fighting spirit, and justify that we're still more special and just glorify our defeat by highlighting that we have humanity and not just intelligence; it's something they could never create so ultimately, never have.
ReplyDeleteI thought the question of self-awareness was very interesting. I caught myself wondering how to prove that I am self-aware. Instead, I came to the conclusion that replicated the ideas in Most Human Human: "I think therefore I am". I couldn't find any way to explain my self-awareness other than my thinking process. I think, and I am fully aware of the overt thoughts that I have, and even my subconscious thoughts can be accessed with the right amount of focus or quieting of overt thoughts.
ReplyDelete