"Starting off with familiar criticisms, such as putting the world out of work and handing over power to tech barons, Alex Holmes and Lina Zilinskaite's film blasts an concentrated stream of AI concerns in its 83-minute runtime. By the time it is talking about current efforts to create computers out of human brain cells, potentially integrable into our own craniums, and implying this might be a good thing, it is (ironically) hard to know how to process all of this."
"The Cassandra at the film's centre is Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google X, now a touring cautionary voice trying to get the world to listen about the perils of AI. Once overseeing advanced projects for the tech giants, his biggest moonshot lies ahead: to introduce a moral dimension into a tech race that looks increasingly like the frenzied season finale of late capitalism."
"He talks about feeling parental pride in watching Google's AI-driven robotic arms learn to grasp objects, as children do. And he feels that humanity's capacity for benevolence is exactly the training resource needed by neural networks in order to prevent the technology ushering in catastrophe. The parental angle is personal for Gawdat: he quit Google in the aftermath of the tragic death of his son after a botched appendix operation."
"he has an evangelical urgency addressing AI's current human shortcomings: how it's enabling a kind of digital narcissism through hyper-optimised social media and porn, facilitating mass surveillance and automated warfare, and evolving in an exponential growth curve that may soon escape human control (Geoffrey Hinton chips in here). The tech bros of course not interviewed here don't seem too bothered."
The film presents multiple warnings about AI, starting with concerns about job loss and power shifting to tech elites. It addresses efforts to create computers from human brain cells and suggests such developments could be beneficial, while leaving uncertainty about how to interpret the overall message. Mo Gawdat, formerly at Google X, is positioned as a cautionary voice seeking to add morality to a fast-moving technological race. He describes AI learning through robotic arms and argues that human benevolence could serve as training material to reduce catastrophe risk. He links urgency to personal grief after his son’s death. The film also points to AI-driven social media and porn, mass surveillance, and automated warfare, with exponential progress that may outpace human control.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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