"There, they maintain the machines that run Metropolis the futuristic city imagined in Fritz Lang's visionary 1927 film, co-created with screenwriter and novelist Thea von Harbou, his wife. The story unfolds in 2026, our present day. It features one of the first robots to ever be depicted in film. The human-machine was the embodiment of artificial intelligence."
"In retaliation, Metropolis's leader instructs a scientist to transfer her likeness to a robot with sinister intentions. As Maria's double, the machine manipulates the workers and exploits them even further. The plan succeeds because the workers cannot tell the difference between human and android."
"When Fritz Lang envisioned the dystopian world of labor in 2026, he imagined humans left in the service of machines. Today, news reports appear almost daily with predictions of which jobs AI will replace, and how it might impact unemployment."
Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis, set in the year 2026, presents a dystopian vision that eerily parallels contemporary concerns about artificial intelligence and automation. The film depicts a stratified society where the wealthy elite inhabit luxurious skyscrapers while workers toil below to maintain the machines powering the city. A central plot involves a robot created in the likeness of Maria, a working-class woman, who manipulates and exploits workers because they cannot distinguish her from the human original. Lang's depiction of the robot as an embodiment of artificial intelligence captures many modern fears surrounding AI nearly a century before they became widespread concerns. Today's daily news reports about job displacement and unemployment caused by AI echo Lang's original vision of humans rendered subservient to machines.
#artificial-intelligence #science-fiction-cinema #labor-and-automation #dystopian-futures #technology-and-society
Read at www.dw.com
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