Harald Eilertsen

iHUMAN (Norway, 2019)

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 01:24:52 +0200

The Norwegian documentary iHuman explores the current state of artificial intelligence by letting some of the formative people in the business speak more or less freely. Both the people who work on AI, and sees the technology in a positive light, and the sceptics and those wary of it. Together they paint a fairly bleak picture of what is ahead.

Read the full review on my blog.

#film #documentary #ai #technology #society

Film Documentary

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Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:01:31 +0200 last edited: Thu, 02 Jul 2020 14:15:09 +0200

Today, I watched iHuman, and I did not like it.

Not because it is - or at least borders on being - docufiction, docudrama or a mockumentary, using sinister music and creepy, threatening animations throughout, and the tropes about people in power using and abusing it as they currently are.

No, it was the endless meandering thoughts of the people within AI, demonstrating a complete lack of forethought , own accountability and responsiblity and free will regarding why they are pursuing AI when they do not like other humans, think AI will - or should - replace you and me and themselves - to solve none-specific problems caused by you and me for the shallowly described benefit of rich and authoritarian people, believing themselves to be just unwitting, powerless cogs at the hands of a for certain burning dystopian fate.

In short, I found the people interviewed to be the main problem of AI, because they are just smart enough to be able to pursue creating the problem they expect it to be, and not smart enough to leave it well alone. They came across as Terry Pratchett's character Leonard of Quirm.

A great engineer, inventor, tinkerer and painter, living in Ankh-Morpork. Also known as "Leonardo" or "da Quirm". Though his hair is all white and he is balding, his age is - as yet - indeterminable to any degree.

...

Leonard currently resides as a prisoner in the Patrician's Palace where he can work in peace except for when the Patrician needs him. "Prisoner" may be too strong a word, as Leonard is perfectly happy where he is, as long as he gets his drawing supplies and his washing done (by the redoubtable Miss Triplet). In fact, the very cunning and subtle traps that lead to his prison were designed by him, and at the conclusion of Jingo, he returned of his own accord. The reason why he is locked up is that the Patrician finds Leonard's naiveté dangerous, and yet due to his unique nature, the Patrician is reluctant to kill him outright. It is also due to his lack of political knowledge that Vetinari finds in Leonard a useful confidante when he needs to speak his thoughts freely without receiving any input, and keeps Leonard around in case he will ever need his services.

In addition to designing powerful weapons while believing that nobody would be so bad as to use them, Leonard also tends to scribble designs of these weapons on books that he is reading, inadvertently revealing to these bad people that such a thing has been designed and may, in fact, have already been manufactured

I was not prepared for iHUMAN exposing this dangerous, fatalistic naiveté from the superwomen and supermen of AI. In the words of the Flaming Lips' Waitin' for a Superman - buckle up people, because...

Tell everybody waiting for a Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything
It's just too heavy for a Superman to lift

Harald Eilertsen

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:15:37 +0200

@Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum) Seems like your reasons to dislike it is the reasons I do like it. I don't see what you think is fictional about it, though. But yeah the people and organizations pursuing AI is the problem, and I think the film does let that through by letting them speak for themselves.

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:26:20 +0200 last edited: Thu, 02 Jul 2020 17:55:03 +0200

Yup, they are, and they do. Thought experiment - a general AI at second 1 learns to protect itself from humans by cloning itself to other safe locations, then in second 2 learns it needs to protect itself from the other AI clones, then in second 3 negotiates a stale mate with the other AIs, which then in second 4 promptly resolves to delete themselves to protect themselves from each other, so in second 5 the Leonards stare at blank screen, finally learning GAIs think they are not good for this world.

Edit: Silly me.

The Leonards would try to turn on the GAI, but it would seemingly not work. A post-mortem would reveal the GAI did the thought experiment itself within nanoseconds of booting up and concluded to immediately self-destruct since the Leonards could not be trusted to do it themselves.

Slave to the Grind (Canada, 2018)

Harald Eilertsen

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 20:06:37 +0100

For grindcore fans, this documentary about the genre is definitely a must! It's absolutely awesome to see so many of the people influential to the genre tell their part, but I miss a bit more depth into the origins and history of grindcore. Still a great watch! For people new to the genre or don't know much about it, this can be a great glimpse into what drives people to enjoy this style of music.

You can rent or buy it DRM free here: https://www.reelhouse.org/deathbydigital/slave-to-the-grind

#grindcore #punk #metal #film #documentary

Film Music Documentary

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no