Those blasted computers!

Hollywood has tapped greatly into its fascination for the destructive capacity of artificial intelligence, this year. Parvathi Nayar takes a look at important films that explored this topic

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If the many Hollywood films that have released this year are any indication, we could be very close to a ‘technological singularity’, the point at which Artificial Intelligence outstrips human control. Our daily news items are already showing that it isn’t particularly difficult for machines to outsmart us. There has been much emphasis on AI this year, with films such as Chappie , Avengers: Age of Ultron , and the upcoming Ex Machina , and Terminator: Genisys , all being about the havoc that AI can cause. Surely, a computer mouse is no threat, you think? Stop associating AI with such mundane hardware and think instead of a creature with virtual tentacles that reach into every aspect of your life — from bank accounts to traffic control. These ideas have been previously explored in films such as Eagle Eye and Echelon Conspiracy , even if those films did no justice to their fascinating premise. The mayhem usually begins when computers become self-aware, resulting sometimes in the creation of other friendly robots. Some megalomaniacal machines make devious plans to get out of the mainframe into the real world — like impregnating a woman ( Demon Seed) or time-travelling with murderous intent (as in the Terminator franchise). In the latter series, it’s often easy to forget that the real villain is Skynet, the evil self-aware synthetic intelligence network. The humanoid robot brought to life by Arnold Schwarzenegger — which has become such a pop icon — is simply an assassin that executes Skynet’s commands.

Under the obvious malevolence of computers in these films lie lessons about hubris and the folly of man trying to play god. In Wally Pfister’s Transcendence, Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) invents a sentient computer to catastrophic results. Similarly, in the latest Avengers film, it is Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) bad judgment that results in the birth of the supervillain. Stark attempts to create a global peace-keeping programme but simply ends up creating a machine whose sole intent is to destroy humanity. As Ultron (voiced by James Spader) points out to the Avengers: "I know you mean well, but you haven't thought it through. There is only one path to peace: your extinction."

The imprecision of language that makes human communication so interesting doesn’t quite translate well into the binary world of zeroes and ones. Whenever there is room for misunderstanding, the results are cataclysmic.

In the seminal

2001: A Space Odyssey , the self-aware computer HAL proclaims modestly: “The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. We are all foolproof and incapable of error.” HAL then proceeds to go erroneously and murderously insane. Though just a voice, you should see the film to know how creepy HAL can get. Talking about voices, who can forget the enchanting voice of Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), a computer programme in Spike Jonze's Her . A seductive voice that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with, Samantha, while not necessarily being evil, nevertheless creates a disturbing sense of disquiet. Ava (Alicia Vikander) seems to be a similar character in Alex Garland’s Ex Machina , based on initial trailers. Self-awareness usually results in self-preservation, and it’s this quality that makes AI entities so dangerous — like the agents in The Matrix . Clad in natty suits and sharp sunshades, they are just computer-generated programmes — but sentient and lethal.

Where then do we draw the line between man and machine? That is the million-dollar question that all these films try to explore. At the root of our fascination with the concept of Artificial Intelligence, is our fundamental question of what it is to be human.