I watched the movie Ex Machina recently. I’m not a movie critic, and so this post isn’t a review of the film – even though I thought it was really good. Rather its my take on whether the representation of AI in fiction is a good way to predict our collective future as machines continue to evolve, and why we should all pay attention to these kinds of books and movies.
Ex Machina is a movie about an artificially intelligent human (AI entity? non-human person?) called Ava. Without spoilers, the movie explores questions of AI consciousness and morality, and what makes an artificial person ‘intelligent’. This is a topic that has been discussed at length, ever since Alan Turing proposed a simple test in 1950 for how humans should evaluate intelligent behavior by machines. But what makes this movie fresh, is how it approaches the topic not as an intellectual exercise but rather through the different ways that Ava interacts with her creator, and the first human person that she meets. If this sounds familiar, then I expect that you made the connection to the book Frankenstein as I did while watching the movie.
I’m very interested in how Artificial Intelligence is getting integrated into our lives – sometimes seamlessly, and sometimes less so. Not only because that is part of my job, but also because I’m a technology enthusiast. So its easy for me to expect that literature and movies predict the way that humanity and Artifical Intelligence will co-exist in the future. And it is reasonble to believe that Ex Machina does a good job of showing the future of ‘race relations’ between humans and AIs.
However that isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. AI is getting depicted in works of fiction in a wide range of ways. All the way from the dystopian future in Battlestar Galactica where mankind is battling killer robots for survival, to the post-scarcity world in the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks that is made possible by a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI “Minds”. So which of these extremes is closer to the future? Is AI a threat or an opportunity? Will AI take away jobs and paychecks, or unlock unlimited free time to invest in personal interests? Clearly there is no consensus in the creative community for how all of this will unfold. Ava doesn’t represent the future of artificially intelligent humans, just one of many possible futures – which is a good thing for those who have seen the movie. This is also true of other AIs in fiction like H.A.L in 2001:A Space Odyssey, Holly in Red Dwarf, or Deep Thought in The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
There isn’t much depth of thinking on possible futures for Artificial Intelligece within the Technology Community today – even as we collectively build this future. Nor can we look to policy decision makers (i.e. governments) for how AI will integrate into our daily lives. Science marches on, and society evolves in order to keep up. This has been true throughout the history of our race, pretty much ever since man descended from the trees, mastered fire, and started to invent useful things like the wheel.
But it is important that all of us start thinking about this topic. Engineers will build the future of Artificial Intelligence, but there needs to be a broader set of discussions around guiding principles and ethical considerations. Not only among engineers, but also among policy decision makers and the people who elect them. And these discussions need to translate into appropriate guardrails for the technology. That is why literature and movies on the topic of Artificial Intelligence are so interesting – they help all of us broadly understand the implications for our society. Fiction may or may not predict the future, but it should shape the thinking on the important issues involved.
Definistic 