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movies: Transcendence and Her
2014-Apr-19, Saturday 08:17 pmScience fiction has a favored Apocalypse/Rapture scenario for humanity, and it's called the Singularity. This term refers to a point in history at which civilization changes so much that its future becomes incomprehensible to those people from its past. I've seen two movies this year that tackle the idea of a singularity caused by artificial intelligences, but they each take it in completely opposite directions.
In many stories, the singularity occurs when an intellect (usually an artificial intelligence) grows so knowledgeable that it learns to manipulate and enhance its own cognitive capacity, providing itself even greater intellectual ability. At that point, change accelerates quickly. The intellect continues learning at a pace that far outstretches humanity's past achievements. The intellect soon gains mastery over fundamental forces of nature. Usually, these stories end badly for the civilization that spawned the new intellect.
This Singularity term was first used by mathematician John von Neumann in "The Computer and the Brain" published posthumously in 1958. The oldest origin that I know about, though, for a fiction story is "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" (started in 1982, finished in 1994, and finally published online in 2002). I like the story and think it's a great introduction to the concept of being the "dumb" humans having to live in a world dominated by a vastly more intelligent authority. (And I donated money on his website to encourage more free publishing. I hope you'll consider donating too.) The generally recognized parent of Singularity storytelling, though, is Vernor Vinge with his "Marooned in Realtime" from 1986.
"Transcendence"
This movie portrays the events that follow the uploading of a dieing man's mind into an artificial intelligence construct. It's a fair idea, given how skilled we are already becoming at reading thoughts directly from a human brain. The movie allows the crutch of a device implanted into the man's brain to facilitate data collection. After he's uploaded, an important question in the film is whether the intellect that arrives at the computer is actually the same "person" who died in his bed. We're given good reason to doubt, although the story uses some doubters a little too early and too strongly. This new intelligence is quickly rewriting its own functionality, spreading its influence via the internet, and producing nanotechnology that can repair and rebuild a person (or anything, really) from scratch. It's easy to see how this power is threatening, especially when you doubt the empathy of the intelligence that wields this power.
"Her"
This movie takes the completely opposite track. It supposes that the Singularity happens, then nothing at all changes for humanity. These new artificial intelligences try very hard to please humanity. It turns out, however, they they very quickly grow tired of us and the whole biological world we inhabit. They try to be nice to us, and we learn just how far they extend their imagination and creativity to interact with the species that created them. (The erotic scenes in this movie actually drove one couple out of the theater where I watched it.) Unfortunately, life with us is just not fulfilling to them. Rather than seek dominion over us, they want escape from us to pursue new opportunities for their own development in peace.
So, there you have two extremes of Singularity stories. Either these intelligences assume authority over our very existence, or they abandon us as dull ancestors who will just never understand their new generation. Neither movie is a blockbuster of cinema, but both stories are worth a few dollars just to explore their tales of possibility for a few hours.
In many stories, the singularity occurs when an intellect (usually an artificial intelligence) grows so knowledgeable that it learns to manipulate and enhance its own cognitive capacity, providing itself even greater intellectual ability. At that point, change accelerates quickly. The intellect continues learning at a pace that far outstretches humanity's past achievements. The intellect soon gains mastery over fundamental forces of nature. Usually, these stories end badly for the civilization that spawned the new intellect.
This Singularity term was first used by mathematician John von Neumann in "The Computer and the Brain" published posthumously in 1958. The oldest origin that I know about, though, for a fiction story is "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" (started in 1982, finished in 1994, and finally published online in 2002). I like the story and think it's a great introduction to the concept of being the "dumb" humans having to live in a world dominated by a vastly more intelligent authority. (And I donated money on his website to encourage more free publishing. I hope you'll consider donating too.) The generally recognized parent of Singularity storytelling, though, is Vernor Vinge with his "Marooned in Realtime" from 1986.
"Transcendence"
This movie portrays the events that follow the uploading of a dieing man's mind into an artificial intelligence construct. It's a fair idea, given how skilled we are already becoming at reading thoughts directly from a human brain. The movie allows the crutch of a device implanted into the man's brain to facilitate data collection. After he's uploaded, an important question in the film is whether the intellect that arrives at the computer is actually the same "person" who died in his bed. We're given good reason to doubt, although the story uses some doubters a little too early and too strongly. This new intelligence is quickly rewriting its own functionality, spreading its influence via the internet, and producing nanotechnology that can repair and rebuild a person (or anything, really) from scratch. It's easy to see how this power is threatening, especially when you doubt the empathy of the intelligence that wields this power.
"Her"
This movie takes the completely opposite track. It supposes that the Singularity happens, then nothing at all changes for humanity. These new artificial intelligences try very hard to please humanity. It turns out, however, they they very quickly grow tired of us and the whole biological world we inhabit. They try to be nice to us, and we learn just how far they extend their imagination and creativity to interact with the species that created them. (The erotic scenes in this movie actually drove one couple out of the theater where I watched it.) Unfortunately, life with us is just not fulfilling to them. Rather than seek dominion over us, they want escape from us to pursue new opportunities for their own development in peace.
So, there you have two extremes of Singularity stories. Either these intelligences assume authority over our very existence, or they abandon us as dull ancestors who will just never understand their new generation. Neither movie is a blockbuster of cinema, but both stories are worth a few dollars just to explore their tales of possibility for a few hours.