I think most of us could have predicted that, unfortunately. Hollywood screenwriters are not known for getting their science right, nor for writing genuinely thought-provoking plots and scenarios. They more sort of scream things in big, bold capital letters, like FREEDOM versus ORDER, or TECHNOLOGY versus NATURAL HUMANITY… blah blah blah.
Yes, I’m planning on going to see this film quite soon with some heavy alcohol secreted in my coat.
EDIT: Saw the film. The AV Club’s review is quite accurate. I do give the film points for vague gestures in the direction of Basic AI Drives, uploading as Indirect Normativity, and Friendliness being an issue at all. 6⁄10 just for being seemingly as well-informed as you’d expect from a Hollywood screenwriter trying to translate some MIRI/FHI propaganda into a film, but still a fairly bad movie. Better than the latest Captain America?
Ugh. Still such bad character performances that for the second time in my life I gave up and rooted for the UFAI.
I liked Her, but it was quite a different story. Her was not about an emulation, but about a constructed AI. A significant part of the piquancy of Transcendence is the “how human is he” aspect. In general, an AI from an emulation should be a lot less predictable than a constructed AI, since with emulation you are uploading all sorts of pieces without necessarily understanding them, while with a constructed AI you can skip anything you don’t need and build all sorts of clunky hacks to make it appear as you want it.
Her did not address an AI becoming powerful and active in human affairs at all, rather an interesting theme of Transcendence.
From what I’ve heard, Her featured the “AI are people like us” Phlebotinum, but that’s Phlebotinum, and they did pass the first test of not having the AIs be evil people.
I think most of us could have predicted that, unfortunately. Hollywood screenwriters are not known for getting their science right, nor for writing genuinely thought-provoking plots and scenarios. They more sort of scream things in big, bold capital letters, like FREEDOM versus ORDER, or TECHNOLOGY versus NATURAL HUMANITY… blah blah blah.
Yes, I’m planning on going to see this film quite soon with some heavy alcohol secreted in my coat.
EDIT: Saw the film. The AV Club’s review is quite accurate. I do give the film points for vague gestures in the direction of Basic AI Drives, uploading as Indirect Normativity, and Friendliness being an issue at all. 6⁄10 just for being seemingly as well-informed as you’d expect from a Hollywood screenwriter trying to translate some MIRI/FHI propaganda into a film, but still a fairly bad movie. Better than the latest Captain America?
Ugh. Still such bad character performances that for the second time in my life I gave up and rooted for the UFAI.
I have heard that Her was really good, and it dealt with similar themes, so that might have gotten people’s hopes up.
I liked Her, but it was quite a different story. Her was not about an emulation, but about a constructed AI. A significant part of the piquancy of Transcendence is the “how human is he” aspect. In general, an AI from an emulation should be a lot less predictable than a constructed AI, since with emulation you are uploading all sorts of pieces without necessarily understanding them, while with a constructed AI you can skip anything you don’t need and build all sorts of clunky hacks to make it appear as you want it.
Her did not address an AI becoming powerful and active in human affairs at all, rather an interesting theme of Transcendence.
From what I’ve heard, Her featured the “AI are people like us” Phlebotinum, but that’s Phlebotinum, and they did pass the first test of not having the AIs be evil people.