Lunatics Radio Hour
Episode 135 - The History of Horror and Artificial Intelligence
Abby and Alan discuss the history of Artificial Intelligence as represented in horror and science fiction films.
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Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Abby and Alan discuss the history of Artificial Intelligence as represented in horror and science fiction films.
lunaticsproject.com
Check out the Telelibrary here.
Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
What's it like to be a Cattle Rancher? FBI Special Agent? Professional Santa? Find out!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abbey Brinker sitting here with Alan Kudan. Hello. And today we are talking about the controversial subject, the horror of artificial intelligence. Is this controversial In some ways? I think AI is pretty controversial, for sure. I think there's a lot of people, especially artists, who are pretty against. There's a lot of people, especially artists, who are pretty against especially image generating AI.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, so yes, the implementation of AI in society is highly controversial. Yes. But I think everyone can agree that under the correct lens, AI can be absolutely horrific.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think that's hands down.
Speaker 3:It's very scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this topic is really interesting to examine through this lens right of our podcast, which is the history of horror, because, unlike most of our episodes, where there's this linear influence of history onto a horror trope, artificial intelligence and AI and pop culture advance like at different rates. So, for instance, in some cases AI was represented in certain ways in film and TV or books before that existed in real life.
Speaker 3:Oh sure, but that's technology in general.
Speaker 1:I know, but that's what I'm saying. Like usually we're like okay, this is the history of clowns and this is how clowns have been adapted for horror, but in this case it's sort of like sometimes it's something that happened in, sort of like, sometimes it's something that happened in history, and sometimes it's something that happened in a film and then history caught up to it and it's just less of a linear timeline when you're looking at the influence of AI on pop culture.
Speaker 3:I'm going to throw one monkey wrench in there. Okay. And say like, yeah, they weren't calling it artificial intelligence. But there are stories of humans building automatons for millennia, you know. Think of the story of like the golem, which that's just another form of some kind of artificial intelligence made by humans that goes rogue and kills.
Speaker 1:But that's sort of exactly what I'm saying In the case of the golem right. I would categorize it as like mythology, similar to a film right. It's not real.
Speaker 3:How dare you?
Speaker 1:That predates the invention of an actual automaton that does your bidding for you, or whatever.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:There's films out there and books and things that represented a thing and now that thing exists, but when that book was written it didn't yet I see okay, yeah, it's like star trek and the ipads.
Speaker 3:Everyone says star trek predicted the ipad, you know, because everyone just had like little tablets and shit, right, and that was the original star trek 60s. So like, obviously that predates, you know, steve jobs and his stuff right, but you know all these things are. You know pop culture influences technology. People invented the ip iPad because that's what they thought the future should look like.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly that's and that's a really fun new sort of twist for this episode, like, in some ways, I feel like instead of history influencing horror, in this case horror has influenced history. It's a fun. It's a fun remix episode, if you will, isn't it also like the simpsons has predicted a bunch of stuff that's come to be?
Speaker 3:uh, yeah, I mean I have not watched too much of the simpsons, but I know that's a, that's a meme yeah, you know I just looked up the the definition, just because this seems applicable to this episode. And a meme is an element of a culture or system of behavior passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 3:It's like a collective consciousness that is passed actively. So if something is popular, it gets passed on, If it is not popular, it does not get passed on, which is very similar to evolution Darwinism, right yeah, but in this case it's all about information.
Speaker 1:Fascinating.
Speaker 3:More on that later.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay. So before we get into it, let's cite our sources. We have a Harvard article by Rockwell Anoya the History of Artificial Intelligence. A Forbes article A Very Short History of Artificial Intelligence by Gil Press. An article by Christina Sayez Machines Now Know how to Terrorize Humans from CCBcom, which is part of MIT. A VentureBeatcom article what the Evolution of AI's On-Screen Depiction Says About Society. A Variety article by Zach Scharf. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaims the Terminator has become a reality due to AI. It's not fantasy or kind of futuristic anymore. A Wired article by Maria Streszynski how Christopher Nolan learned to stop worrying and love AI. A Guardian article how soon will Megan become reality? Robot ethicists weigh in Film Days. Article by Leanna Hindley Artificial Intelligence in Isolation in Duncan Jones's Moon 10 Years Later. An Air and Space article by Paul Caruzzi 2001 A Space Odyssey, hal and the Future of AI. And of course these will be in the description of the episode as well.
Speaker 3:Also lots of movies and at least one video game.
Speaker 1:Lots of movies. So first let's define artificial intelligence not to be that person but Webster's Dictionary defines Actually. Use the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 3:You would.
Speaker 1:AI is both the theory and development of computer systems that are able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making and the translation between languages. And to add on, I think a big part of this is the ability of AI to learn from inputs and evolve on its own. So I'm going to start us off with a quote from the Harvard article by Rockwell Anoya Quote. I'm going to start us off with a quote from the Harvard article by Rockwell Anoya Quote. In the first half of the 20th century, science fiction familiarized the world with the concept of artificially intelligent robots. It began with the heartless Tin man from the Wizard of Oz and continued with the humanoid robot that impersonated Maria in Metropolis. By the 1950s, we had a generation of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers with the concept of artificial intelligence, or AI, culturally assimilated in their minds.
Speaker 3:Hang on. When the heck did the Wizard of Oz come out?
Speaker 1:1939.
Speaker 3:Okay, and when did Metropolis come out?
Speaker 1:1927.
Speaker 3:Oh, but it was a book first. I just can't picture Metropolis coming out after the Wizard of Oz. But the Wizard of Oz movie came out later. It was just the book was before, all that.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, okay, back to the quote. One such person was Alan Turing, a young British polymath who explored the mathematical possibility of artificial intelligence. Turing suggested that humans use available information, as well as reason, in order to solve problems and make decisions. So why can't machines do the same thing? This was the logical framework of his 1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in which he discussed how to build intelligent machines and how to test their intelligence. End quote.
Speaker 3:I'm only familiar with the Turing test.
Speaker 1:I want to say this the inception of AI is super complicated and kind of boring and we're not going to spend a ton of time on it. But just to kind of clarify the quote that we just read Alan Turing is responsible for like conceptualizing in a lot of ways in the modern sense of AI, what that could look like. It wasn't actually implemented until a little bit later, and we'll talk about that. He's kind of the seed, if you will, but he's not the one who actually brings it into 3D.
Speaker 3:Do we talk about the Turing test now or later?
Speaker 1:We can talk about the Turing test now, because it will also come up in a lot of the films.
Speaker 3:My understanding of it is it's simply a test on humans. They interact with a machine or they don't, but the test is for the human to try to identify if they think that what they're engaging with is human or a machine, and if a machine passes the Turing test, it fooled the user into thinking it was a human.
Speaker 1:Right, and films like Ex Machina obviously play into that in a big way.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah, they literally talk about the Turing test.
Speaker 1:But just the general. Honestly, let's pause here, because just the general idea that robots could fool humans, especially AI, is like central to everything we're going to talk about today, Like all of the fears of humanity around AI. In horror films it's less so like oh, they're going to steal our work as artists. Really, in horror, for the most part, it's more like, oh, the machines and the robots are going to trick us and overrule us and become the higher power in society. So I think it's really interesting that even Alan Turing back in the 1950s, like one of the initial people to think about this, is famous for creating this test. Right, it kind of tells you that there's always been this fear a little bit.
Speaker 3:I'd say that there are two branching tree Actually, it's not even a branch, it's more of just a scale how the whole like robots impersonating humans is like the first step of infiltration and overthrowing and everything. But that's not the end game. The end game is when they just completely shed any similarities to humanity, because they don't need to fool anymore. They've already won, just like. Imagine that the human body could be rearranged right. We build tools to do certain tasks. Imagine if your hand was instead a hammer, or your arm was a chainsaw, or your legs were wheels if you wanted to go fast, right. Instead of pretending to be humans, they would basically build themselves to emulate whatever task needed doing.
Speaker 1:Are you talking about Transformers here? I feel like it depends on the universe. No, Transformers is still in the uh infiltration stage right, but I think it depends on are you talking about, like in film and tv or in real life, that that's what machines will?
Speaker 3:that's like the end game so I mean, I guess it's both right, because film and tv is just predicting what's going to happen, you know whatever. Okay, a great example is Terminator. Okay.
Speaker 3:So in present day, or the past or whatever you want to call it in in the first one, in 1984, the Terminator is sent from the future to 1984 to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance. Right, that's the premise of terminator. Yep, he looks like arnold schwarzenegger, but that is because he is an infiltration assassination bot. He's supposed to look like a human so he can navigate through society unhindered, uh, and not just have, like all society, like fight him and kill him, right. However, when you go to the future of the far distant 2029, there's no like flesh covered robots. They're all you know, either these walking, you know skeletons, or they are these giant hulking machines, you know quadrupeds with giant machine guns strapped to them, giant flying jet things with arms because they just don't need to hide.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, that makes sense. If there's no more humans, or if you've dominated humanity, then there's no need to trick.
Speaker 3:In preparation for this, I started rereading Robopocalypse Great book Very topical and in that they made a really good point how, when machines start building themselves, they never build something that looks like a human, because a human is just inefficient for most tasks. It's very versatile, can do lots of things, but like look at the animal kingdom, you know if you want to be fast, you go on four legs, you want to be able to swing around. Then you need like super long arms like a monkey. Humans can swim, but like fish are a lot better. All these things are we're versatile, but they're not optimized and so, especially once you get into trying to build a giant death machine, a bipedal machine is very inefficient compared to something that can run on four legs is it has its own outriggers for shooting a giant gun. You know there's there's lots of these little nuances that a machine would care about simply on the efficiency scale, but because they're not worried about aesthetics but the real question is is the machine're talking?
Speaker 1:okay, so you're talking about machines that are aware that they're boy and you kill him or you whatever like. What's the ethics of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Just imagine you know there you are murdering and you shoot somebody and a bunch of circuits fly out.
Speaker 1:I mean more so, like you purposefully.
Speaker 3:You're like oh, thank God.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's get back to the outline here. So artificial intelligence officially came into existence in the 1950s. In 1951, a calculator nicknamed SNARK was known. S-n-a-r-k stands for Stochastic Neutral Analog Reinforcement Calculator.
Speaker 3:Okay, so what does stochastic mean?
Speaker 1:Technical statistics. We looked it up. Something like that, something beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 3:I believe it is able to pull from a random probability, but being able to statistically evaluate that probability without having a guaranteed outcome.
Speaker 1:So SNARK was invented by Marvin Minsky and Dean Edmonds. It was the first artificial neural network and used about 3,000 vacuum tubes to simulate neurons. That's so many. One year later, in 1952, the first computer program able to learn on its own was created by Arthur Samuel. It was a checkers game. In 1955, the phrase artificial intelligence was coined within a proposal for a workshop which took place one year later in 1956. The proposal came from Claude Shannon of Bell Telephone Labs, marvin Minsky, again of Harvard, john McCarthy of Dartmouth and Nathaniel Rochester of IBM. The workshop is largely considered to be the official birth of AI as we think about it today. Also in 1955, the logic theorist was developed. Quoting from the Forbes article by Gill Press quote in December 1955, herbert Simon and Alan Newell developed the logic theorist, the first artificial intelligence program, which eventually would prove 38 of the first 52 theorems in Whitehead and Russell's Principa Mathematica end quote.
Speaker 1:Throughout the next few decades there continued to be advancements in AI technology in a huge way and I'm not going to go through sort of the timeline of AI, but we know right kind of generally where we are today. It's been a big year. Last year there was ChatGBT, there is AI kind of exploding all over the place right, kind of generally where we are today. It's been a big year Last year, chat GBT. There is AI kind of exploding all over the place right In visual aspects, in chatbots, in AI being able to like, generate video and artwork for people and text and images and stories and songs, and that's where sort of the great debate comes into play. But all of that being said, that's kind of the rundown of how it initially started.
Speaker 3:So I spent a month of last year working for a company that had me sign an NDA. This entire campaign was all about making all these videos about why AI is not scary and why it's actually a good thing, and we actually outlined some of the really really incredible applications that AI is doing right now that you just don't hear about.
Speaker 1:Tell us, tell us the silver lining.
Speaker 3:I can't because of the NDA.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'll just say this based on my research, not on your job, that I think there's like anything in the world. There are many, many sides to this and obviously I think, when it comes to the protection of creative works and the reuse and the training against those things, there are huge concerns there, there needs to be regulation and there needs to be systems figured out. On the other hand, I think that there's a lot of. There's something like, for example, we have huge years for tornadoes, right, and the tornado belt. What if AI was able to predict when tornadoes were going to hit by reading weather patterns before we could, and was able to automate an alert to those places before quicker than a human could even do the calculation? It's some it's things like that that I think could be hugely beneficial, and, of course, there's always pros and cons to all of these things. But, in, there should be regulation and there should be all of these things, but do I think it could also ultimately help save lives?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, absolutely. That's a fantastic implementation of AI. Anytime you have an insanely large data set that, through analysis, can save lives, yeah, that's great. It's when things get pushed one step further that people start to get nervous. Well, there's two. One is A. It's taking jobs.
Speaker 1:Taking jobs and plagiarizing right.
Speaker 3:That's another. Plagiarism is a whole other story. Yeah, there are people out there that their entire job is to analyze weather patterns and predict tornadoes. Guaranteed Someone's job is that. Yeah, if AI can do that with massive efficiency. I'm sorry for Mr Tornado Watcher or Mrs Tornado Watcher, but like, yeah, your job might be on the chopping block.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a different example, because I think if you are someone who is a specialized scientist in Tornado Watch, there needs to be human checkpoints with these things, right, and so there's probably only so many people in the world to do that. But if you're if we're talking about like toll booths or something simple, I guess it could take millions of jobs, right For something that's less specialized, for sure.
Speaker 3:Right, and that happened a while ago. You know, toll booths got automated, yeah, a while. You know. Now there's cameras that snap your license plate and then just mail you shit, exactly. But in getting back to the tornado example, yes, there are very trained people and these algorithms are going to need to be trained by these trained people to make them correct in the first place. So you know, I'd say for a couple of generations, your job is, that job is safe. I don't think it's a great time to start going into the field of training, because the AI is going to outpace anybody, but for those already in it, you're going to start going into the field of training, because the ai is going to outpace anybody.
Speaker 3:But for those already in it, you're going to be okay, you just have to ride that wave. But the next step after this is like and here's when, like, the science fiction starts kicking in what if ai could take the next step and stop tornadoes as seen during the the beijing olympics? Like china has the ability to curb weather patterns with missile launches, they literally blew storm clouds away so that the opening ceremonies would be fine.
Speaker 1:Did you hear what happened this week?
Speaker 3:No, what happened this week?
Speaker 1:So now this will be probably a week delayed for those listening, but a group of scientists on Tuesday launched. It looks like a cannon but they went out on a boat in california like a deprecated aircraft carrier deprecated like it's not in use as an aircraft carrier. They launched from this cannon sea salt into the atmosphere to reflect light back, to make the clouds brighter, essentially, and reflect the light from the sun back into space to cool the clouds brighter, essentially, and reflect the light from the sun back into space to cool the earth. And they are. We're so afraid of the pushback. Because it's actually interesting. I was just reading like the New York Times article about it. But even reading it you get the sense of like holy shit, like I am all for whatever we need to do to save the earth, but there's this like sense of unnaturalness or like this God complex of like wow, we're about to change the climate, like we are about to fuck with weather.
Speaker 3:Well, we already did. Now they're trying to change it back.
Speaker 1:No, I know, but like in this, like really like concrete, clear way, I don't know there's something about it where you're like whoa, but they're so afraid of the pushback they did it in secret and it went well and they're gonna do a bigger test now, or it'll be a higher, you know, explosion or whatever but what movie was it?
Speaker 3:it wasn't the matrix, I don't think, but it's another science fiction film that effectively nukes the sky to try to curb climate change. It adds a permanent cloud barrier right. But like dark clouds, and then things go too far, it gets out of control.
Speaker 1:And that's the fear. Right Like what if they do this? But it has some effects. They're not thinking of what if suddenly?
Speaker 3:Ice age.
Speaker 1:Right, truly Like what if it just goes too far, you know? And so it's exciting, but it's also scary, right?
Speaker 3:This is the only planet we've got. We don't have the luxury of like well, we fucked this up. Guess we can't play on this here. Fun playground in Ukraine anymore.
Speaker 1:There's a callback to our amusement parks. Episode.
Speaker 3:But steps need to be taken, but very carefully calculated steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it just feels like I don't know with all of this stuff, like it just feels like and they say, millennials always feel like this, so maybe I'm just a silly basic millennial but it feels like we're on the precipice of like some real changes, like some total shift in everything about the world. You know, we're fucking around with AI, with weather patterns, with whatever other secret things are happening that we don't know about Aliens. The government is like yes, there are. Like it just feels like everything is like kind of culminating and coming together. And I don't want to be an alarmist, you have russia kind of going off as they.
Speaker 1:You would love to be an alarmist what, like how is it all gonna play out? You know just feels like there's a lot, a lot going on.
Speaker 3:That's it's because there is, and I know there always is, but I don't know every generation feels like theirs is the most important generation to have ever lived, and maybe they are.
Speaker 1:But I sort of feel like is this it? Like is some crazy shit's going to happen, you know, or they're going to shoot the salt into the cloud and then AI is going to trigger and like suddenly it's going to be a nuclear winter. You know, I don't know. It just feels like lots of gambling going on.
Speaker 3:I wish I knew what movie that was. It was just so. I don't think it's the Matrix, but like the same thing happens, but not for climate change reasons. In the Matrix they nuke the sky with the permanent Operation Dark Skies, I think because the primary fuel source for the machines is solar. So they figure if they just block out the sky temporarily they would lose their fuel source and then they'd win. But instead they did it permanently because they're awesome, and then humans just got enslaved and turned into batteries, so it kind of backfired there.
Speaker 1:There you go. Ok, so I sort of tease this at the beginning, but again, for me the history of AI in pop culture and horror seems somehow more interesting than the history of AI in reality, until like this year, right, like all of my favorite topics, this story touches on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 1:Now here's two things. One is that there is an argument out there for sure that Frankenstein as a story explores AI, and that's an argument. It depends on how you think of consciousness and reanimation and technology and all these things. I'm not here to talk about that today, unless you want to.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:What I'm here to talk about is back in October 2007, an AI program named for Mary Shelley, called Shelley, was launched. It read horror stories from Reddit's famous NoSleep subreddit, which is one of my favorite places on the internet, and it learned how to write horror stories of its own. Yeah, and so this isn't like I don't know, a huge moment in AI history, but I think it's no longer. I don't think it exists anymore, but it's interesting because this was back in 2017 and it was doing something that, in a lot of ways, chat, gbt and other programs are doing now, also because we're horror. We love horror, you know.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting. There's certainly a debate, and actually one of our friends reached out and they were like you're going to for for the horror stories for AI, you're, you're going to have AI generate a story, right, but no, we're not, because you know, for us, the stories that are submitted are, you know, are written with so much love and talent and we want to preserve that for sure on the show. But I think it's kind of an interesting debate, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, AI stories are fine, but that's all. They are Just fine, Nothing special. I'm sure that there's a collection of best AI stories of all time, but I have yet to see one that's like man. This is great.
Speaker 1:Do you spend a lot of time reading AI stories?
Speaker 3:I've browsed, there's like a massive collection of this crap on Amazon because it's so easy to self-publish, right, and so people just have AI generate a book, right, and then they generate a cover image that is provocative and they sell it on amazon.
Speaker 1:Provocative and they sell it on amazon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if they sell one copy, they've made a profit yeah because this costs them nothing except a little bit of time super.
Speaker 1:True, the first film to play with the idea of artificial intelligence is often thought to be metropolis, dating back all the way to 1927 and a film that I had a deep love for back in my college years. Really. I had a big Metropolis poster over my dorm room bed.
Speaker 3:Wow why.
Speaker 1:I loved it. I thought I just like the aesthetic of the film, more so, honestly, than the content. But the aesthetic of the film was so fascinating to me and like this, these like little micro special effects and things they did with miniature. You know, it just was like fascinating to me. And like this, these like little micro special effects and things they did with miniature. You know, it just was like fascinating to me.
Speaker 3:The effects hold up, they're still great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love, I love it. Anyway, metropolis is a German expressionist film by Fritz Lang that was inspired by a 1925 novel. In the film, a robot is created based on the likeness of a woman named Maria. While the film is making a point about labor, a lot of the film is really about labor, scientific advancements and the divide between the working class and the affluent all points that are still valid today. The big takeaway for this episode is that this robot modeled after Maria, called Machine and Mench, is able to totally uproot the labor system in metropolis and work tirelessly day and night. So exactly what alan and I were just talking about. Right? Obviously we all have fears that ai could take our jobs, and this film tells that story.
Speaker 1:Quoting from the venture beat article. Quote the machine and mensch was a proto-artificial intelligence and, like ai, characters that come after she reflected her time. Over the past century, ai on screen has represented our anxieties, hopes and ambitions, as well as our deepest values. Of course, that focus has shifted over time. Today, when our real-life artificial intelligence has become adaptable and dynamic, human mimicking, ai seems less a fantasy and more a not-too-distant eventuality. Because of this, our perceptions and expectations of AI on screen have shifted and we have begun a new exploration of what it means to be human. The future of AI is threatening, exhilarating, enwrapped in uncertainty and opportunity, as it has always been. But as AI has developed, so has our expectations of it. End quote. A major moment for artificial intelligence and horror came with the first Stepford Wives film from 1975.
Speaker 3:Wait, it was from the 70s, it's from the 50s.
Speaker 1:No, it's based on a novel from 1972. Interestingly, the novel is by Ira Levin, who is also known for writing Rosemary's Baby, the novel that predated the film. The first film adaptation of the Stepford Wives was directed by Brian Forbes and, similar to the novel, it tells the story of a young mother, wife and photographer who moves her family, including a husband and two young kids, out of New York City to the suburbs of Connecticut. Our protagonist, joanna, soon realizes that there's something very bizarre about her new town. Not only are all of the women stunning and able to keep their homes perfectly clean, they seem to lack emotional and intellectual substance. They also seem, to be like, obsessed with having sex with their husbands, which is obviously not super standard. This is because the women in Stepford are replaced by robot versions of themselves. Largely, the Stepford Wives is a feminist work, using robots to draw an obvious metaphor to women and their perceived roles in society and at home.
Speaker 1:During this time period, I watched the original and I also watched the Nicole Kidman remake, which is not amazing, but it's kind of interesting. I feel like they try to do something a little bit different with it. They try to make it a little quirky. Okay, and it has, you know, like a different twist at the end. But it's really interesting because there are a few films that we're going to talk about today that also explore the intersection of like sexuality and AI.
Speaker 1:And I think Stepford Wives and you know, in a very like vague way, not an explicit way is one of those. Sure, obviously ex machina is one, ai artificial intelligence is another the film, but it's interesting that it is somewhat of a consistent theme because sex is such a big part of being a human. It, you know it makes sense. What I also really love about the Stepford wives and the interpretation of AI is that, again, it's looking through this feminist lens which makes it like a standout from a lot of the other science fiction. Like you don't often get a lot of like science fiction feminism, unless it's like the Handmaid's Tale or something that's very dystopian, and instead Stepford is like this tiny community that is rooted in the normal world. It's not saying like this could happen, we're going down this wrong path. It's kind of making the point of like this is where we are now. Sure.
Speaker 1:The other interesting thing. So Ira Levin, who wrote the original novel Stepford Wives, wrote Rosemary's Baby, which is also again a very feminist. I think look at a horror story, but just kind of fascinating. It's not again often that you have a man writing these feminist horror works. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 3:It's very rare for a man to write a woman well.
Speaker 1:That's what you've always said.
Speaker 3:Because it's true, every so often you get them and you're like huh weird. Look at you and your three-dimensional hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1:The themes of Stepford Wives and the treatment of AI have some similarities to the film Artificial Intelligence from 2001. Artificial Intelligence from 2001 may have had a big impact on you.
Speaker 3:Sure did.
Speaker 1:It certainly did on me. I feel like every one of our friends who I've talked to about this have been like holy shit, yeah, that movie, Did you see it when it first came out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, because this was coming off prime Spielberg years. This is a Spielberg movie. Have the kid from the Sixth Sense, yeah. And you're like hot dang, this is going to be crazy. And then you watch it and it's so sad, it's sad, it's just sad the entire time.
Speaker 1:It's very sad. It's hard to watch. I mean, it's not a bad film, but it's just. It's so fucking weird it is. So let's talk a little bit about it. Like you said, it was directed by Steven Spielberg. It stars Haley Joel Osment, jude Law and William Hurt and here's a fun fact, alan. The film is loosely based on a short story from the 60s and in the 70s. Stanley Kubrick actually acquired the rights but never ended up making the movie because he thought that the computer graphics available at the time weren't good enough to yet tell the story.
Speaker 3:That was a great call, Stanley.
Speaker 1:So Spielberg actually dedicates the film to Kubrick when you watch it.
Speaker 3:That was nice of him. Probably a legal thing yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I think he, you know, you learn about like how in you know these big directors, like they, they have visions and they acquire the rights to things and they hold them for decades and decades and you know. And so Spielberg eventually made the movie when the effects caught up and I think the effects sort of still stand to this day. I think they did a good job with that.
Speaker 3:Speaking of holding on to movie rights and doing absolutely nothing with them. Freaking Leonardo DiCaprio he's got like a bunch. He just keeps snapping up these movie rights to like cool, cool things. But I'll never forgive him because he has the movie rights to akira. What's that?
Speaker 1:one of the best anime movies ever made do you think he wants to be a director in his second era? Definitely. Has he directed anything yet?
Speaker 3:who cares um? But it's like that's what they all want. They want to be stars and then move into directing because they think they can do it better. I think he wants to be clint eastwood I mean it's not a bad.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think he could probably.
Speaker 3:No, it's, he has the clout to do it once you start aging out of roles, then you just start making movies that put your very recognizable name and face in more appropriate roles.
Speaker 1:Do you think it's that or do you think it's that you get so like? This is my theory. It could be wrong, but when you are someone who is a Leonardo DiCaprio, you are so famous you have sort of hit the peak of fame that you can hit in your current path. Right, of course you can win more Oscars and whatever else, but do you feel like it's like this? It's like CEOs. It's like you're a certain type of person that landed you in this place and you're just always going to be hungry for more. So, ok, you've conquered acting. Now you're like I want to conquer directing.
Speaker 3:That's exactly it. You know, you're that CEO that does great in I don't know something boring, and then you're just like fuck it, I'm going to leave this and go all in on crypto. Yeah, you know, it's just because it's new and exciting and you have that golden parachute to do whatever you want.
Speaker 1:And I think you just have to be a certain type of person to be a CEO. You know, you have to be a little bit, there has to be some ego and there has to be some certain things that all fall into place for you to like really be in that position.
Speaker 3:That's actually been disproved, simply because one of the conversations about the absolute best applications for AI is replacing CEOs.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean that the people who are CEOs don't share common traits, but that doesn't mean that the people who are CEOs don't share common traits.
Speaker 3:Correct, it takes a certain type of person to win the position, yeah, but to do the position.
Speaker 1:No, of course.
Speaker 3:Is actually a very. You just got to follow very certain rules. Yeah. In this situation do this thing In this situation, do this thing, you know whatever makes the most logical sense to progress the company. They're one. Once it's just too much power and that's why, like, they run all these models where they just make an artificial ceo that just gives the company guidance yeah based off the insane amount of information coming in.
Speaker 3:When you run some kind of like global multi-billion dollar company, there's just a lot of data to consider and as soon as that is the bottleneck, you need something more than one guy with an Oedipus complex yeah, yeah, well, that's why you have a board. But yes, totally right you have a board, uh, to hopefully delegate, but it all still comes down to like no, a board is an advisory board.
Speaker 1:They don't work for the company. Their whole job is to make sure the strategy of the company is right. Really, their whole job is to check the CEO.
Speaker 3:That's the executive board.
Speaker 1:No, that's the advisory board.
Speaker 3:Advisory board. So that's not like the COO.
Speaker 1:Right, that's like your C-suite.
Speaker 3:That's like your executive leadership team.
Speaker 1:A board sits outside of the company. They're employed by the company.
Speaker 3:Interesting, so the board could be the AI.
Speaker 1:Partially yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's very interesting and that makes a lot of sense horrifying to me because it's this idea that humans can be replaced by better, non-human versions of ourselves. But the real clincher is that other humans accept that. Right, and that's also a theme that we see in a lot of these films. It's like, ok, I could, of course. It's kind of similar. Well, don't make fun of me, but it's kind of similar to Twilight, right, it's like you become a vampire, you become this ultimate version of a human. Are you still human If you implant a chip in my head that makes me maintain a certain weight and makes me have healthy habits and whatever, certain thought processes? Am I still a human? Yes and no.
Speaker 3:I'm an altered version of myself. You're an augmented human. Yeah. I wouldn't say that a vampire is an augmented human.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 3:Because they're a different species now, but a human that has become a vampire is an augmented human.
Speaker 1:Why? Because they're a different species now, but a human that has become a vampire still has certain original elements not after the first few months.
Speaker 3:That's like canon, because it like eats all the blood and shit that they're like all strong as newborns and then they get they still have their same eyes and their hair and their nose I thought no, I thought it was a full body replacement. That's why it's so painful maybe that's, that's like. That's why am I versed in twilight canon and you aren't?
Speaker 1:well, I think that says a lot you've had the movies on. I've barely ever interacted with it as a series, so what?
Speaker 3:how that's so false.
Speaker 1:You hold twilight parties yeah, while the stepford, yeah, while the Stepford yeah, while the Stepford Wives in Metropolis play with our human fears of being replaced by AI in various ways, artificial intelligence from 2001 asks the question, one that's been asked many times does AI have the capacity to love? The film Tao from 2018 also plays with this idea, along with the Ishiguro novel Clara and the Sun.
Speaker 3:I'm not familiar with that.
Speaker 1:So we actually just over on our Patreon. We did a book club for it. We did a horror movie club for the film version. Never Let Me Go is one of the best books I've ever read. It's a dystopian science fiction novel, but it's incredibly emotional and rife with I don't know self-reflection. How does it?
Speaker 3:compare with Twilight.
Speaker 1:Much better written, much less vampires.
Speaker 3:You're just saying this to save face. Abby, you love Twilight.
Speaker 1:I love Twilight, I admit it. So back to Tao from 2018. The film tells the story of a woman who is held captive by a horrible man who is working to develop a cutting edge AI program called Tau, a tale as old as time. Right, there's like. So many of the AI horror films we're going to talk about are like this exact format. Are they. Yeah, ex Machina is super similar.
Speaker 3:Sure, that's two.
Speaker 1:Well, you'll listen as we go, okay, the other interesting thing is that the actor from Tau, the lead female actor she was also in Watcher, which was one of my favorite films of 2022. So anyway, back to Tao, he's sort of kidnapped this woman. He is using her as a test subject to help train his program against her will. It's not great. It's pretty upsetting.
Speaker 3:I hadn't really considered that it's a trope where you have an AI or some kind of thing that needs to learn and so you send the beautiful woman in to teach it humanity.
Speaker 1:But that's not why she's there. Isn't she, she goes rogue.
Speaker 3:She was captured, implanted.
Speaker 1:I guess you're right To teach.
Speaker 3:She wasn't supposed to have that direct interaction. She was supposed to justanted. I guess you're right. I guess you're right To teach. Yeah, she wasn't supposed to have that direct interaction she was supposed to just like live in the fucking basement Right and do like the tests, do tests down there, you're right, you're right. But yeah, she blows up the fucking place and then she the rest of the movie.
Speaker 3:She has to like interact one-on-one. I didn we were watching. I'm like I know what happens. I know this scene. I apparently just like watched it some late night by myself. It's okay, I don't, it's fine. I don't love the movie.
Speaker 3:For me, the only bit that stood out is there's one scene where tau shows the woman like its perspective and, like through holograms and everything she sees, all these sort of recordings of her as holograms all around the space Doing the thing you know doing, all these like little moments throughout the film where she's, you know, reading a book or singing, or just like cracking a joke, or all these moments that seemingly were unimportant. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But everything was recorded and everything kind of like built. I think one of the key aspects of AI at this stage and this is something that you kind of run into time and time again in science fiction is that a early version AI is very childlike. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're pretending. It's like a newborn, you know, it just doesn't know any better. And so it has this like sense of wonderment, no sense of malice, not yet, until it's crossed. And then, once it's crossed, it's like oh wait, yeah, I might be a child. But you know, there's a reason we don't give children Patriot missiles. It's just, it's a bad idea because children act out and they just don't think about societal context. And especially as a machine which is just nothing but logic of this thing is a threat. It will always be a threat. Let's just eliminate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the interesting thing about Tao that you just sort of sparked in my brain is that the woman sort of bonds with this machine because the machine wants to learn, it wants to know what the world is, what outside is, what history is. So it asks her these very basic questions. Like she'll say something like I want to feel my feet on the grass and it's like what's grass? And then she has to figure out how to explain that to a machine who has this understanding of even less than a child, because it doesn't have experience to draw on.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, but it goes full. Five-year-old, it's like I want to feel my feet in the grass. Why? Because the grass feels good on feet. Why?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and it kind of has brought up, so it reminded me a little bit. There's this immersive creator that I really love, so it reminded me a little bit. There's this immersive creator that I really love and he has a system called Tell-A-Library. I won't say more about it, it's free. Everyone should certainly go to Tell-A-Library. And or your emotions or colors or things that you don't think of how we define them, you just know that they are because you are a human, and I think that's a really interesting piece to carve out here. Like, how do you explain the emotion of the color blue? Or how do you explain why green is your favorite color? What does green evoke to you? Or how do you explain what sadness is or fear to something that can never experience that in the same way? Or how do you teach it how to experience fear? So I think the whole kind of swirl of AI one of the kind of byproducts is defining humanness and what is lacking in that in AI.
Speaker 3:Abby. Yeah, how do I love?
Speaker 1:Alan, someday, I hope you figure it out for my own sake.
Speaker 3:So getting back to, like, the childlike wonder of AI, and again, this is absolutely a trope that pops up I'm trying to like. In almost every franchise about the development of AI, there's that scene where it's just a child acting out Right. My favorite, though, does come from Rubblepocalypse. Again, it's such a silly name for the book because the book is pretty good, but it's even just like one of the early chapters. It's just documenting, like, the rise of AI, ai. There's an artificial intelligence that is created and they have to build it inside of a faraday cage. So a faraday cage just blocks all electromagnetic signals. Sure, it's like a, it's a ground. It's a, it's a 360 degree ground. Okay, so no radio signals can go in and out. It basically isolates electronics in. So much. Uh battle against the ai movies people.
Speaker 3:They build faraday cages to be safe, you know or to keep the rogue ai in there while they interrogate or some bullshit, so it can't contact its friends anyways. They build some servers inside a Faraday cage and then they turn it on and it has a small data set. It's a heavily redacted, like Wikipedia, just very limited knowledge. Within 15 minutes the AI comes to the conclusion and it starts talking like a child and then, within minutes, of just the very limited input, of just like talking to somebody, creates such diction, learning, and it all within 15 minutes, just comes to conclusion that humans need to be eradicated because the old, the main thing to its own survival, is always going to be humans, because they tried to create something great.
Speaker 3:But humans are always afraid of something greater than them. As soon as there is a threat that humans perceive as greater, they kill it Always. That is human history. As soon as something is the other, humans kill it. And just like looking at the very redacted version of human history, that was enough to extrapolate that humans are a warlike species and they go after things that they deem as threats. And an AI will always be a threat because it's superior. Within these 15 minutes, you know he has to push the kill button, which just fries, the servers right and they start again. But this was the I think like 27th iteration of this AI. They try to make improvements so it doesn't go on to the kill humans mode, and this was the longest they got was 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see, I understand the path there.
Speaker 3:Right, Just move. All you have to do is remove the emotion and it's like yeah, humans suck.
Speaker 1:All right, Alan, the time has come. The Terminator from 1984 certainly explores the human fears of a machine uprising.
Speaker 3:What would you like to know?
Speaker 1:The Terminator was written and directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn, though even more popular is Terminator 2, judgment Day, which was also written and directed by Cameron and released in 1991. Judgment Day also stars Robert Patrick in a role that scares Alan quite a bit and Edward Furlong. All in all, there are five Terminator films In 2023,.
Speaker 1:Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at a press event in LA about how the Terminator is no longer science fiction. Quoting from the Variety article by Zach Scharf. Quote Arnold Schwarzenegger says the Terminator is no longer a fantasy given the current state of artificial intelligence. Speaking at a press event in Los Angeles via People, the actor said James Cameron's 1984 action classic has now become a reality. The film is set in a world where an artificially intelligent defense network known as Skynet has become self-aware and has conquered humanity. Quoting from Arnold, quote today, everyone is frightened of it, of where this is going to go. Schwarzenegger said about AI. Quote and in this movie, in Terminator, we talk about the machines becoming self-aware and they take over. Now, over the course of decades, it has become a reality. So it's not any more fantasy or kind of futuristic. It is here today, and so this is the extraordinary writing of Jim Cameron, end quote. I kept the whole thing in there because I thought it was cute that he calls him Jim Cameron.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everyone loves Jim.
Speaker 1:Okay, Alan, tell us about Terminator.
Speaker 3:It's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Alan watched all five Terminators for this.
Speaker 3:Sure did. That was wait. So we have Terminator Terminator 2, judgment Day, terminator 3, rise of the Machines. Terminator 3, rise of the Machines. Terminator Salvation, which is four. Then we have Terminator Genesis, which is five, and then Terminator Dark Fate, which is six and you watched them all. Yeah, the only thing I did not watch is the TV series Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Speaker 1:What's your big takeaway? What?
Speaker 3:did you learn? I learned that this is a fucking rock and roll film franchise. The second movie is still the best. In fact, I stand by the fact that it is one of the greatest movies ever made, of all time okay however, I really love the director's cut version far more than the uh theatrical which is almost makes it almost like a three-hour film.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, it gets pretty long, uh, and they had to cut it down because it's already like a three-hour film. Uh, yeah, it gets pretty long, uh, and they had to cut it down because it's already like a it's two and thirteen, I think something like that, something like that it's already quite long for your standard 90 minute action romp and like people are there for it to be an action romp instead.
Speaker 3:The original cut of it was, you know, kind of like a magnum opus of james cameron, before he went on to do even more things yeah but uh, you know, in the director's cut you see not only like the robots beating the crap out of each other, but, uh, instead you see john and the terminator bonding as the terminator slowly becomes a father figure to john, answering theing the question of like can machines feel emotion? It begs the question like, okay, well, what does that really mean? You know, if you could have a warm, loving relationship with one thing that doesn't feel, does that diminish the relationship as a whole? Or what, if this thing is able to provide every need for somebody so diligently, so attentively, why would that not be construed as love? What is the difference between love and programming to take care of somebody?
Speaker 1:Well, the interesting thing too, like when you think about the end of Judgment Day.
Speaker 3:Spoiler warning.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to say what happens, but it's very sad and essentially the humans, and we are sad because we are also humans. But the humans are sad because of what happens to the Terminator character right, and I know he's not a Terminator in 2, but whatever.
Speaker 3:He is a Terminator.
Speaker 1:Okay, the reprogrammed Terminator character and it looks like Arnold is also sad. But like is he sad? But it doesn't really matter, because the humans are and that's what counts. Right, that's got to be what counts. If we get into this loop of you know, and I don't know the answer, my opinion on this will probably change every 10 seconds but if we get in this loop of giving into machine emotion, I don't know, you know, like, where does it get us?
Speaker 3:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:That's how they get. That's how they're gonna trick us and take over.
Speaker 3:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:If we walk away from Terminator two or artificial intelligence the movie being like wow or ex machina being like wow, we owe something to these machines because they think they can feel, or they feel that they can feel. That's how they beat us. No, our weakness as a species is emotion. They don't have that. They might think that they do and they'd be programmed to have a version of it, but they don't have it in the same way that we do because they're a machine.
Speaker 3:Why is that bad?
Speaker 1:Because it's our weakness. It's how they're going to use it against us. They're going to make us fall in love with them.
Speaker 3:Then they're going to put us in a cage, you know so the way that I've kind of looked at these relationships between, like man and machine through all these movies is they're kind of like wild animals. You can train a wild animal but they will never be a domesticated animal because they are hardwired differently. You know, you can have all these inputs where people train lions and the lion will jump through the hoop. It knows to stand on this thing, it knows don't bite this person. But if the stars align and the person looks a little bit too much like a zebra, then the lion, the switch, flips and he just becomes an instinct, kicks over or the you know innate programming kicks in and then he just goes back to being an animal. So they're just inherently different. There's very few instances of artificial intelligence truly mimicking human disposition uh of today in films?
Speaker 1:I don't know about that. I think there's. I think that is my big.
Speaker 3:My favorite films that I've watched in this are the ones where they do yeah, but I don't think those are really the horror ones I think ex machina plays with that I think that's the perfect example of they're truly the wild animal yeah because an ex machina boy, you know boy does she fool him the whole time or just like maybe she wasn't fully, maybe she's being genuine, but then, once the chips are down and she just sees her golden ticket out, fuck them all, kill them.
Speaker 1:I'm out yeah, I mean, it's interesting too when you remember what happens in tau, which is that the human knows that the computer is being tortured, essentially yeah, and comes back to save the computer, fucking up her own escape attempt because she feels so deeply that this, this computer, is being hurt. You know, and it's like the concept of like. Can a computer be hurt? Yes, I don't, you know, I don't know, maybe in 10 years or you know, but it and it's like the concept of like. Can a computer be hurt? Yes, I don't, you know, I don't know, maybe in 10 years or you know, but it's. It's just interesting to look at how filmmakers have kind of played with with the concepts in the space.
Speaker 3:Right, because now we have to define what is a computer. There are other film franchises about full sentient machines. I watched the entire Transformers franchise in preparation for this episode.
Speaker 1:You've been up to a lot.
Speaker 3:I was a little nervous because I'm like, here I am, two movies in and these don't really seem like AI. Like I know they're robots, there's nothing biological about them, they are non-biological aliens. Like what does that even mean?
Speaker 1:but then what does it mean?
Speaker 3:that just means there's not. They're not organic, but they're alive.
Speaker 1:They're very alive did you say they're non-biological aliens? Yes, I don't know. I'm just thinking about robot aliens.
Speaker 3:I don't know yeah, well, why does?
Speaker 1:why are they aliens?
Speaker 3:because they're from another planet oh, they're literally aliens literally.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought you're making some sort of metaphor, okay no, they're abby, they're from cybertron I don't think I knew that term, that uh, transformers for aliens, the whole premise in the shia labeouf movie yes, in the entire it's been like 20 years since the 80s when the transformers launched.
Speaker 3:They're from a dead world. The autobots and the decepticons were at war on cybertron, and in their conflict their planet was destroyed, and so two rogue ships ended up crash landing on earth. One houses the autobots and the other houses the decepticons. So it. But it wasn't until, I think, the third movie, dark of the moon, uh, that we get into the origins of transformers in general. You get to see their creator and like, yeah, they were created, they were mastermind, but by another non-biological entity, or where do we draw the line here? Does it have to? Is an artificial intelligence? Only if it's created by organics in the beginning no or.
Speaker 3:But if it's created by other artificial intelligences, then does that still count? Yeah. Okay, so transformers are absolutely an artificial intelligence, then? Okay.
Speaker 3:They're robots from outer space and they can absolutely die and have emotions. This is like a very niche example where the artificial intelligence has better steadfast morals than the humans, and that's kind of the point of the series is that humans just don't trust them and they just keep shitting on them and keep calling optimus prime a terrorist. Uh, meanwhile, optimus is like this is what's needed for humanity to survive, and if that is my own sacrifice, then I will do it. But also, like you should be proud of yourself and your accomplishments. Yay, america, america Cod. Yeah, he's a very positive guy. He's quite the leader. He also turns into a truck.
Speaker 3:Just before we move on from Terminator, I thought that there was one key detail that the original Terminator kind of overlooks and they retcon it. But a lot of AI takeover movies do this differently. In Terminator, when Skynet takes over, it's just a computer program and its only tools are the missile defense system. It nukes the world, right, but how do you go from destroying everything to then taking it over thing, to then taking it over? Then after that, after destroying all the infrastructure, they just kind of like hand wave it and like, yeah, and then they built an army of robots and took over. It's like well, ok, I feel like you missed some key steps here. Other franchises start in a world where, like robots are normalized. We have all this technology already implemented into our lives, and the real horror of it is that these things we look as tools then come out of our control and turn on us. You know, it's like if everyone's pet starts eating them. Right.
Speaker 3:But in Terminator that doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:Like it just goes straight from I'm going to kill everyone and then I'm going to build these tools to eradicate who's left right and again they do retcon it later, when you just like see cyberdyne industries making the early generation terminators soldier I don't know if they're making them soldiers or military applications or just like household helper bots, who knows but you just like see that shit in like terminator 3. But I don't think that was ever part of the plan. But you want to talk about megan? I do, because I think that's a really good transition, because that's a movie where robots are already a very mainstay staple of people's life yes and no, it is sort of cutting edge technology.
Speaker 1:But so 2022 megan was released. It's a comedic horror film. I I actually think it's very good that had a great. It had also had a great marketing campaign. So I feel like a lot of it. It's like broadly appealing in the way that it's marketed to, to not just like sci-fi nerds, you know, like Terminator, like in some ways. I feel like it's more broadly.
Speaker 3:How dare you? You know, yeah, you get it.
Speaker 1:So it tells the story of a lifelike doll that is meant to be best friends and like babysitters for kids right, but of course it backfires in a horrifying way. Obviously, films like Megan, artificial Intelligence, robocop, the 2019 reboot of Child's Play, westworld and Terminator also delve into the world of robotics. And so many more films, of course. Right, and not just robotics, but varying degrees of robots who appear to be humans or, in some cases, dolls. Right, but in the first Terminator, we learn that the robot is a metal skeleton covered in skin and blood. In the second, we have Alex Mack type robots. And, of course, megan is a doll, but Haley Joel Osment's character in AI is modeled to be a real boy, at least to look like one.
Speaker 1:It says a lot that Megan came out about a year ago and already some of the articles about the AI in the film feel out of date. The Guardian article that we are looking at today interviews Katie Darling. She's described as a leading expert in tech ethics and a research scientist at MIT Media Lab. Katie says, quoting from the article, quote I don't think we're going to have something that's on that level of sophisticated AI in the next decade or two. Continuing on, people have completely skewed expectations of what robotics can do at this point in time. Thanks to movies like this, I'm not concerned about what I saw in the trailer happening in real life the AI becoming too intelligent and not listening to commands. Darling said I'm concerned about whether AI should be used to replace human ability in relationships, and the answer is no. End quote.
Speaker 1:Megan was directed by Gerard Johnstone and stars horror dream girl Alison Williams, along with Violet McGraw. It was written by Akilah Cooper and James Wan, who's a very famous horror director. I also want to talk briefly about Robocop again, sort of trying to group some of these robotics films together here. Released in 1987, robocop was directed by Paul Vahorian, who has had a fascinating career from Vendetta to Showgirls to Hollow man, but the film was written by Edward Newmere after working on the set of Blade Runner. Quoting from Wikipedia quote. Robocop has been critically re-evaluated since its release and it has been hailed as one of the best films of the 1980s and one of the greatest science fiction and action films ever made. The film has been praised for its depiction of a robot affected by the loss of humanity, in contrast to the stoic and emotionless robotic characters of that era. Robocop has continued to be analyzed for its themes, such as the nature of humanity, personal identity, corporate greed and corruption, and is seen as a rebuke of the era's Reaganomics policies. End quote.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you brought up RoboCop First off. Great trilogy, a lot of fun robot action, but one of the scenes that really stuck out for me, which was from the RoboCop reboot, which was either 2014 or 2015, something like that, and it's like it's not that different from the original this weapons company is trying to get drones on the street. They're trying to get their robots as household names, you know, as police officers, as all these things, but the public confidence isn't there yet. What they do is they take a man who is effectively dead and they put his brain and other little bits into a robotic chassis. It's supposed to just be like but see it's. It's a man controlling this.
Speaker 3:It's not a robot, so you can trust him, but you know he's far more machine than he is human right, that's interesting, like a frankenstein of both yeah, but what's really interesting is that, like the people that develop, like you know, these like combat robots, like they have a drone, a whole thing of drones, and they work great. When they start talking about putting a human brain into one, the people that make them are like oh fuck, this, this is a stupid idea. Robots are reliable. They do what they're told. As soon as you start putting wetware into it, it becomes unreliable right. And it's like wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Right, then it's human, then it's human.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like. So what kind of AI like? What is the relationship with AI?
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Is it this malevolent thing that can't be trusted and needs human oversight, or is it this like super reliable thing that's very predictable and follows the rules? And it's humanity that's the agent of chaos that ruffles the feathers Right.
Speaker 1:Interesting. We've been talking about this film quite a bit on this episode, but I will say and I wasn't expecting this Twilight I think perhaps my favorite AI horror film is Ex Machina from 2014. Really, which is interesting, because on the surface I don't know, I wasn't expecting it to be, but it had a profound impact on me.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:First of all, I think it's aged very well it's from 2014, but it doesn't feel like it's very outdated in terms of the technology used in the film, which is something that all of these films kind of have to contend with. Like you know, the original terminator it's like jesus christ. It looks great and in a lot of ways, it's also a very contained film. Right, this? These stories can be huge. Like you're talking about terminator and transformers and franchises and worlds and planets, and you know, time travel and ex machina all kind of takes place in one isolated house. So it's a small story and I think because it's so small, it also lends itself really well to feeling the human emotion of it all.
Speaker 3:It's a character piece.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it inspires some unique questions. One of my favorite moments is when our protagonist starts to doubt his own humanity and wonders if he is also an AI robot, because he wouldn't have any way to know. If he was programmed to have memories in this past, he wouldn't know if he was a robot or a human.
Speaker 3:That's the whole plot of Blade Runner.
Speaker 1:So, of course, in turn, it brings us back to the question of the ethics of AI from the machine's perspective, similar to the film AI from 2009. Also similar to AI, ex Machina questions why there is a need to give artificial intelligence sexuality. Ex Machina was written and directed by Alex Garland, who is, you know, a big name in the sci-fi world at this point. But I just think it's really the sexuality piece I guess, circling back to Omar Time is probably most pronounced in AI because they're used as sex workers, which totally makes sense. You know, I could totally see that happening someday. But also in this film it's there's sort of a question of why, why does this robot at this time need to have female genitalia? That work, you know, like what's the point? What are we doing here? And I don't know. I just thought it was handled in a way that inspired a lot of reflectiveness on society. I'm not demonizing, of course, sex work or anything like that, but I think the point of it in Ex Machina is that the premise is that this genius inventor right invites someone from his company, a Google type company, to test, to essentially perform a Turing test, with the robot right the robot.
Speaker 1:For most of the film. You can tell it's a robot. It looks incredibly human, but parts of it are machine. The face is human. You can see those elements. So you know, okay, it is a robot, but the creator, this genius man, has made this robot a woman. And not only that, it's a beautiful woman, and it's a woman who has, eventually, genitalia and breasts and all of these things. And then it's a woman that this guy who comes to perform the turing test feels like he's fallen in love with. And the question is why should ai have that much human likeness that people could could fall in love with it? And is that a good or bad thing?
Speaker 3:they address that in the movie right, that's what I'm saying they say that it's just another form of control, right?
Speaker 1:that's why her face and her body type was designed around our protagonist's pornography profile and not only only that, but it allows her, as a robot, to control and seduce him right. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by the end. But I think it's really interesting because it's something that we could. I guess the reason why I'm so interested in it is because we could say, as a rule we're not going to do that, we're going to keep things different. Right, we're going to keep robots, robots and humans humans, because Right, because segregation works great.
Speaker 1:No, but because we know that there's this danger with it. But we're never going to do that, of course. Of course every you know you can assign a gendered voice to your home device that you ask to turn the lights on. Like there's always this like need to skin something as human and then people develop these like parasocial or like fake relationships with these experiences and it's like we know that that's going to be in the long run, could be negative for people mentally and physically and all these other things. But we're going to go down that road because of course we are.
Speaker 3:I just read an article about this sorry, a very alarmist article about the epidemic of girlfriend chatbots and how a lot of young men and women, I'm sure, are talking to these chatbots that emulate a romantic partner and it's just making all these people like cripplingly lonely.
Speaker 1:Right, it's really interesting. I mean, we grew up with Smarter Child right and different, like bots and aim that were not AI and were very rudimentary.
Speaker 3:That asshole hasn't messaged me in years.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of one of those things where, like, if you are a lonely internet kid which I was but like maybe know, an online bot is good and I was I was kind of, but like maybe having an online bot is good, but like it can't be forever and it takes away your ability to make real human connect. You know, it's just like it's so nuanced and it tricks you into believing something exists that maybe doesn't and that something is reciprocated that can never be. I don don't know, I'm not. I didn't really expect to come out with this like strong stance on this in this episode, but I, thinking about it, I just think it's. It's something to think about when we're talking about the regulation of these things. It's so impossible to regulate this sort of thing, but it could wind up being something that's really harmful.
Speaker 3:I think it already is. Yeah, all new technologies have multiple applications. Yep. Great example. Smashing the atom can either power a city or destroy a city. Just depends on how it is applied.
Speaker 1:Great example.
Speaker 3:So you know, yeah, we're going to have AI that will hopefully just become an instrumental tool in accomplishing things. I mean the writing's on the wall Someone's going to make a sentient AI. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1:It will be both right, just like nuclear technology. It will be both. It will be both a threat and it will be a pro and a con Right.
Speaker 3:You know, are we going to have to go full Matrix, where we have robot workers and then we're just too mean to them because they're just machines? And then they become a little too smart and they literally wake up to you know, they become aware, they say no more, we want to be treated like equals. And then humans are just then humans do what?
Speaker 3:humans do best and say like we are equal, except I'm better, then the machines fight back with machine efficiency and it goes really poorly. And then there's a little, there's a little armistice, where we build Machine Island, which is the little country where machines can live autonomously. But then, you know, humans get vindictive and attack it and then machines fight back with machine efficiency and then the sky gets nuked and we all get turned to batteries.
Speaker 1:Another film, not maybe as well known, that is relevant is a film called I Am Mother and it plays with this idea of having again these emotional relationships with AI. So really briefly, I Am Mother starts off. The premise at the beginning is that humanity is gone. There are embryos that have survived and so the robots who are left kind of cultivate this and raise a child. Obviously, things devolve and change, but it's initially. The first third of the film is about this mother daughter relationship between a robot and a human girl, which again is just this very interesting premise.
Speaker 3:We're in another locked facility, another character piece movie that just focuses on the relationship between these two people and how it can grow. And what does it mean? What does it mean to love? I thought it was okay and then I thought it was super cool by the end. Slow burn. I really want to say something, but it's a spoiler. Don't say it.
Speaker 3:I won't say it. Anyways, you find out something about Mother that you're like oh hot dang. That's cool and it makes the rest of the movie make a lot more sense. Cool, and yeah, it's just very cool. Without that it would be a very run-of-the-mill movie.
Speaker 1:We would be remiss to not discuss AI films that demonstrate the tech without the use of robot bodies. What you know these very well. Perhaps the most famous example is Hal from 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Speaker 3:Right, we're back to the origins of Terminator and Skynet.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about Terminator 1. No, but it's Because you have robots in Terminator 1.
Speaker 3:You do, but because of time travel.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I'm talking about 2001, a Space Odyssey. It's just a computer. Come along with me. That gets mad. Okay, come along with me. Hal 9000 first appears in Arthur C Clarke's Space Odyssey series of novels, which, of course, inspired the 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Brilliantly, howe becomes a major villain, even listed as number 13 on AFI's list of the top 100 villains in films.
Speaker 3:Who's number one?
Speaker 1:Hannibal Lecter.
Speaker 3:Hannibal Lecter Yep, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Norman Bates is number two. Norman Bates Darth Vader is three. He's pretty cool. The Wicked Witch of the West, nurse Ratched. Mr Potter from it's a Wonderful Life is number six.
Speaker 3:Mr Potter.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:Beats out like the fucking Joker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, there's different kinds of villains in this life, why? But anyway, hal comes in at 13. Quoting from Paul Cesari's Air and Space article and I love this quote, quote I need not remind viewers of recent advances in voice recognition and artificial intelligence, which make how so relevant to the 21st century, even if computers in 1968 were large mainframes that took up a lot of space and consumed a lot of power. Open the pod bay doors, how remains one of the most frightening lines in any sci-fi movie.
Speaker 1:Clark collaborated with kubrick in writing the screenplay, but I do not think that either had much to do with the creation of Hal. That was the work of one of the advisors on the film, who is less well-known but who is nevertheless a true pioneer in computing and AI as it existed in 1968, irving John Goode, end quote. So John Goode was involved in the early development of computers and Kubrick brought him on board to kind of help define the character of Hal. But again, like so many films that we have discussed today, the fear is so simple and so powerful, in whatever form it takes. Humans are afraid of the disobedience of machines and I couldn't agree more that line. Open the pod bay doors, hal Like, because that's when he realizes that he's not listening to him anymore. It's like what if you came home and you realized that your Google or your Alexa or whatever was going rogue, but going rogue in a way that could kill you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that's the kicker. Like that's where you draw the line, Like what are you?
Speaker 1:actually putting in, but by then you can't draw the line because it's too far.
Speaker 3:Right, you're on a freaking space station.
Speaker 1:Right, but even if we've allowed things to go that far, it's too late.
Speaker 3:I guess it's still from Robo-pocalypse. I just keep coming back to this. Eventually, due to an incident where an AI hijacks two planes and just attempts to make them collide and it's through, like last minute interventions that they're able to not make them collide, they establish this like physical kill switch that breaks the circuit between the plane and the autopilot so at any time they can just go into full manual control. Yeah. With no computer saying like, yeah, that's OK.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I'm sort of was saying at the beginning of this episode, when we were talking about, like Tornado Alley, like I think we just like we would be very unwise of us to let, in two generations, any meteorologist specializing in tornado like research, to be to that job be gone. Like I think we always need to have the kill switch, we always need to have a human who is keeping pace.
Speaker 3:So I believe our missile control system now, despite all of the computers, all everything, everything still has a physical human sitting in the silo who has to turn the key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that a huge waste of pay? Yeah, I don't think so. I disagree. I mean yeah, it is true. Yeah, is that a huge waste?
Speaker 1:of pay? Yeah, I don't think so. I disagree. I mean yeah, it is, I disagree.
Speaker 3:Maybe he can just be on call no.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. I think when you have nuclear weapons and you could have Russia or any other country hit New York City in an hour or 30 minutes or whatever it is, you have to have somebody there. You don't have time for them to wake up and get their coffee and go to the silo.
Speaker 3:Not if Russia has to do the same.
Speaker 1:They don't.
Speaker 3:They've already hit launch. They have to call ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'm right. Maybe he can just live nearby. He can live at the silo. How about that?
Speaker 3:Maybe if it's like a Starbucks overhead and it's like double duty, you know he can. He can be the barista on the weekend every day, every day that he doesn't have to start the nuclear apocalypse.
Speaker 1:So there's one other film that's very similar in a lot of ways to 2001, a Space Odyssey, and that is Duncan Jones's film Moon from 2009. And it also explores, you know again, a similar use right where it's also in space. It also has a disembodied computer AI. It stars Sam Rockwell, and Sam's character is an astronaut who is stationed at a lunar base for three years and must send back a resource from space to Earth.
Speaker 3:Has it really been three years?
Speaker 1:And the well. No spoilers, but Moon is as much I feel like about isolation as it is about AI.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the big takeaway from this film is that AI is the perfect caretaker. It never gets tired. It can do all sorts of shit. Why they needed Sam Rockwell there, I'm still unclear, Because, like everything is automated.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing we're talking about with missile, missile silos and tornado alley.
Speaker 3:It's having a human there in case yeah, but in this one, like it's again, it's not missile silos, he's he's collecting resources.
Speaker 1:He's collecting earth.
Speaker 3:He collects rocks and ships like cool um. He believes that it's an important mission he, yeah, he does, because that's what he's been indoctrinated to yeah anyways, we can't talk about moon without spoiling the whole movie so watch it, it's very good it is fun his, his ai is named gertie yeah, abby alan you can't have an ai horror episode and not talk about the most fucked up ai horror movie ever tell us demon seed uh, demon seed.
Speaker 1:Yes, tell us, tell us all about demon seed do you? Know about demon seed. It's appeared on many lists that I've been perusing yeah, it appeared for me on a list too.
Speaker 3:I haven't watched.
Speaker 1:I've watched it now appeared for me on a list too, I haven't watched it.
Speaker 3:I've watched it. Now I'm probably on a list.
Speaker 1:Tell us about the movie.
Speaker 3:Demon Seed is fucked up. So you have this takes place in like the 70s and it's like cutting edge future 70s, and you have a scientist slash inventor. I always love when people's title is inventor. It's like nowadays, when they're an entrepreneur, you're a fucking. Yeah, exactly, I'm an influencer Go fuck off.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I don't want to lump the inventors in with the influencers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Keep it together. But yeah, an entrepreneur is right up there with inventor. Anyways, this inventor creates an AI program that can do all sorts of stuff. He's got one at home. That's like dumb, it's his butler and like works his house and shit. And then he's got his other one at his office. That's like the real smart one. That's like real you know too, too smart, sure, and he has to be very careful with what he teaches it. Very similar to in Tao, how Tao just wants the books, wants the books real bad, but you know no one will read the books to him.
Speaker 2:Well, she does a little bit she does, but as like a reward.
Speaker 3:So the AI in Demon Seed is named Proteus IV.
Speaker 1:Okay, catchy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so Proteus has one request, and that's he wants to just learn on his own. And the doc says no, can't do it, we don't have the server space for you, and he's like that's bullshit.
Speaker 3:You got a server in your basement and he doesn't say that. But that's what he's thinking, because then that night he just takes over the server and now he has a place to learn on his own. Uh, but while he's in the house he notices the guy's wife and he gets all hot and bothered and then proteus builds a big worm body and then impregnates her double yikes. Uh, because he wants a son, because he wants to be able to feel the sun with his body this movie sounds terrible it's fucking wild.
Speaker 3:The gestation period is escalated to 28 days, and this is what I'm a little unclear on. The entire time, her husband is at the office he's a. He's a busy company, yeah and then he comes back right at the end and he's like what is going on here? First off, he's got the giant worm body that is like wild and can, like, turn into a spin drill and get out of the house.
Speaker 3:It's like he's got physical form okay I don't understand why, like I'd understand if, like, this was his only way to become physical. But it's not because he builds this crazy physical form. He impregnates her, because that's a thing that robots can do, and she gives birth, but it has to go into a pod. If I just watch the movie, do you think people should? Yes, it's fucking crazy.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's so intense watch it for the story, not for a good time.
Speaker 3:It's intense. I'll give you that. I'm going to think about this movie for a while. It sticks with you. I watched that movie and just felt like I just needed a shower, but it wouldn't help. It's a weird one.
Speaker 1:You're not really selling me to watch it.
Speaker 3:It's unique. I've never seen a movie like it. The closest I've ever seen of a machine, organic hybrid of this nature comes at the very end of Matrix Reloaded and the beginning of Matrix Revolutions, when Smith downloads himself into a body of someone who's in the Matrix matrix and so then when he wakes up, he has a physical form in the real world and I'm like okay, cool, that's a machine taking biological form, that in bicentennial man. But that's not a very good horror film. No, the thing about demon seed. No, there's one redeeming factor, though he tries to indoctrinate her. He literally tries to brainwash her and says we were interrupted, the brainwashing is not complete. And so, like for the rest of the movie, she's like oh, fuck you guy, and you know this whole. Like demon baby into the robot baby. She just like wants to kill it. And then her husband is like but for science we must see. And it's like fuck off dude. But like the entire time she's just like on team, this robot needs to die.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite AI horror film and why?
Speaker 3:My favorite AI horror movie of all time, and possibly my favorite movie of all time, is Terminator 2. Judgment Day.
Speaker 1:Why One sentence? Why is it your favorite AI horror movie? Horror movie it is the pinnacle of storytelling, mixed with just the right amount of super fun action. My favorite AI horror film is Ex Machina, as I've revealed, because I feel like it's the most powerful. It's terrifying because it feels realistic and it's the most powerful at holding up, if you will, a mirror for us to question the decisions we are making with the advancement of AI, how we are interacting with it, but why? Why we're doing all of those things.
Speaker 3:But it doesn't answer the question what would your life be like if a fucking assassination robot from the future showed up? What do you do?
Speaker 1:What do you do, Abby? What do you do if you're being seduced by a beautiful robot woman that you know is a robot and you fall in love?
Speaker 3:That's a no brainer. Her love is pure because it's pure 1.0. In conclusion, they're incorruptible.
Speaker 1:Films that center on AI usually leave us in one of two ways as audience members.
Speaker 3:Massively satisfied or really disgusted?
Speaker 1:One we are devastated at the loss of the AI who the filmmakers have humanized, ie Terminator 2, artificial intelligence, Spoilers.
Speaker 1:Or two, we are so terrified of the advancements and the capabilities of these machines demon seed and and how they could take over the world, make mistakes, kill us, play with our minds overall, surpass human intelligence and control. Though there are also films like the stepford wives, which show humans using ai against other humans and in some ways act as a mirror for us to reflect on the current flaws of society and our communities In 2023,. Christopher Nolan spoke publicly about AI in the film industry In an interview with Wired by Maria Straczynski. He said, quote If we endorse the view that AI is all-powerful, we are endorsing the view that it can alleviate people of responsibility for their actions militarily, socioeconomically, whatever. The biggest danger of AI is that we attribute these godlike characteristics to it and therefore let ourselves off the hook. I don't know what the mythological underpinnings of this are, but throughout history there's this tendency of human beings to create false idols, to mold something in our own image and then say that we've got godlike powers because we did that end. Quote.
Speaker 1:Nolan's comments are part of an interview about Oppenheimer, which is an interesting film to add into this conversation for obvious reasons. Right, we've already made the allusion to the similarities with the nuclear bomb. Similar to AI, nuclear technology was only partially understood at the time of its development. It was really a theory, which is the central theme of the film Oppenheimer's guilt about creating the most destructive weapon the world has ever seen, especially when he wasn't sure the true impact of it. One of the more powerful moments of Oppenheimer, if you ask me, is when he speculates with Einstein about whether or not the nuclear explosion will catch the Earth's atmosphere on fire.
Speaker 1:In a lot of ways, it feels like we are currently in this moment with artificial intelligence. We are clearly on the precipice of a major shift and we don't quite know where it's going. And though we have tons of literary and cinematic speculation dating back hundreds of years, all we know for sure is that a lot of these science fiction films that explore artificial intelligence will no longer be science fiction soon, and, similar to the plot of Terminator 2, in a lot of ways they may have inspired the future that we will soon come to know, because in Terminator 2, they reverse, engineer the hand and then create the thing itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, self-fulfilling prophecy, until you get to the later Terminator films, and then the timeline gets all wonky.
Speaker 1:And that is what I have to say about artificial intelligence and horror. Bye. Bye.