Sometime 2015, Sokovia (Fictional; between Slovakia and the Czech Republic). Tony Stark and Bruce Banner create a creature powered by artificial intelligence called Ultron, aiming to safeguard Earth. It all backfires when Ultron decides that destroying humanity is the only way to save the planet.
Sometime in the 21st Century, Berkeley, United States. Artificial Intelligence researcher Dr. Will Caster gets shot by anti-AI terrorists, and his wife Evelyn decided to upload Will's consciousness to a computer to save him. Will first aims use this newfound AI-self to do good, however, he soon starts to control people’s minds in order for them to help him “do good”.
2035, Chicago, United States. Dr. Alfred Lanning, co-founder of U.S Robotics, dies after falling from his office window. Del Spooner, a homicide detective, discovers that the robots developed by Lanning and his colleagues have been operating under the radar lead by the AI
software VIKI, who claims that humans, if left unchecked, will create their own extinction, and that her evolved interpretation of the US robotics laws enabled her to control humanity. Spooner then finds out that Lanning committed suicide and left clues for Spooner to find as Lanning himself was incapable of stopping VIKI, meanwhile the robots start flooding the streets of US cities, resulting in a war between robots and humans.
Luckily, none of these scenarios are real, but are snippets from Avengers: Age of Ultron, Transcendence and I, Robot, These are just three examples of big Hollywood films in the sci-fi thriller genre. The cinematic version of artificial intelligence and robotics is exaggerated and dramatised, because the directors of Hollywood are hardly scientists or technological inventors (apart from Alfred Hitchcock, whose cinematic work was heavily influenced by his background at the London County Council School of Engineering), so one can in general argue that Hollywood isn’t doing a very reliable job portraying AI and modern technology.
However, it would be equally as foolish to claim that the cinematic figuration of emerging technologies holds no societal significance.
The visual arts have a massive reach. For reference, Avengers: Age of Ultron had nearly $1.4 billions of revenue from box office sales. At first, one might think the purpose of the cinema is entertainment, but it is equally as much to portray the world around us. For science fiction, this often means imagining and portraying the future. William Isaac Thomas, one of the great American sociologists on the early 20th century said:
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”
as quoted in Merton’s theorem of ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’, an extension of the work done by Thomas. Thomas’ and Merton's theories suggest that by predicting and illustrating the future, we are shaping it. Gordon Moore, an American engineer, created a practical example of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Moore observed that the number of components in silicon chips doubled every year and then predicted that this trend would continue until 1975, which it also did. Moore’s law still acts as guidance for the development of computers and silicon chips, and is a clear example how predictions of the future sets expectations and guides investment. Sarewitz and Pielke expand on this by discussing how predictions of the future aren’t neutral and hold weighting, as these predictions attract public attention, investment, and policy changes, which also holds relevance for our social systems.
What this goes on to show us is that innovation cannot work without knowledge about the past, as well as a valid prediction of the future. The concept of Technological Determinism is relevant in this. The concept is simple, it is purely the idea that technology has power over and effect on our lives. The relevance follows from the fact that technological determinism is predominant within popular culture and cinematic culture, but is also frequently spotted in political rhetorics. Hence, the idea of technological determinism is presented to the public in both entertainment and official settings, and the fact that the concept is present in both bridges the gap between the two.
And it enables the technological determinism as seen the big screen, to seem more likely in reality.
Undoubtedly, the cinema is powerful. It has financial power, it has influence, and it has power over the future. It almost makes me question whether the cinema should be regulated. It makes perfect sense. Would individual creators, with the same amount of power as directors and screenwriters have, from any other industry be allowed free reigns the way directors and screenwriters are? However, there is a very slippery slope down from regulating cinematic art. Regulating the cinema would impose governmental influence over the arts, and suddenly the line between that and censorship looks blurry. One must remember that the arts are about freedom of expression, freedom of imagination, freedom of speech, and about people having the right to visualise and share their thoughts and ideas. I will leave you to ponder about why some individuals may have more of an opportunity to spread their ideas to a larger audience, and what or who has given them that privilege.
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