The Creator - Imagining Clash of Humans and AI

It seems to be topic of AI has dominated the news, discussions, and social media this year. Maybe it is because new tools emerging in rapid speed, or maybe it is because many tech companies shifting their focus to integrate AI into their businesses or business strategies. AI is not a new concept. It has been imagined and reimagined through many sci-fi books and movies. Today we are able to view it through a completely different prism. It is more real because technologies in computation hardware, machine learning and robotics have taken huge steps forward. The Creator is one of the newer movies that presents a world where humans and AI coexist and fight against each other. It is available to stream on Hulu.

It is not the best movie I have seen about AI imitating humans. It is not the worst either. While watching it wouldn't a total waste of time, I think it could have been much better. Science fiction movies do not have to make complete sense. The don't have to be scientifically accurate either. But a lot depends on the story, its premise, flow of the story, characters, and somewhat completeness of the story do make a difference. The movie has an awesome premise and great topic to explore. But the I think writers could do more with it. The picture is great, overall story is interesting, and the movie is entertaining. Ignore my complaining and see for yourself.

Spoiler Alert: This post may contain spoilers. If you are planning to watch it and don't want to see spoilers, you may want to stop reading here.

This post is not necessarily about the movie itself, rather about imagining the future of AI, possibility of the technology advancing to the levels that would allow AI humanoids to imitate humans so well that they become sort of "conscious" beings, if it is ever possible. This topic is will be debated for a long time. I hold a view of that AI will never become human like being. Now it is only in our imaginations, and the technology of today only gives an illusion of such possibilities.

In the movie there are AI humanoids live amongst humans, some look like humans, other look like robots. But almost all behave like humans. War starts between the too, when an AI launched a nuclear attack on humans. It is not completely clear if it was actually AI attack, or software glitch or some kind of sabotage. After the attach AI are banned in the US and western world. However the part of the world known as New Asia maintains AI friendly societies, and most AI flee to these areas. They are on the run and are being chased by western war machine. They are portrayed as victims being hunted and killed by humans. They behave like humans, work as communities, show emotions, all while completely being aware of what kind of being they are.

Those who look like humans are indistinguishable from humans if we look at their face, but if you look from the side we can see they are machines. If there is technology that can make machines look like humans in such great detail, my question was why not make them look completely like humans. Perhaps there were laws in places for companies who build these machines to make sure they never look like humans completely. Even if this would be the case, wouldn't there be those among the rebels who would still want to make them look like completely humans. This would give them ability to hide better during this war and not be identified as machines easily. Maybe this choice was done by writers to make it easier for viewers to tell who are humans and who are not. I still don't agree with this approach.

The story follows an American spy who infiltrates into AI community to gain intel on whereabouts of Nirmata, a nickname given to an architect or AI in New Asia. While US forces have been successful in their fight against AI utilizing their massive weapon in the orbit that could launch attacks anywhere in the world remotely. AI side has no such tools to retaliate. But the rumor is Nirmata has built a weapon that can help AI win the war and make western humans weapons powerless against AI. This weapon ends up being a child machine that was different from any other machines. First there were no other child human-bots. Second this machine had an ability to grow, while no other human-bots can. The name of this child AI is Alpha O, aka Alphie. The power of Alphie is the ability to communicate with other machines and control them if needed, sort of. I think the idea was that ability would grow and the child grows. Alphie is a creation of Nirmata.

What sergeant Joshua Taylor who infiltrated into AI community in New Asia doesn't realize is Nirmata was his wife Maya. When US soldiers attach the AI community in New Asia where Joshua lives, his cover is blown. It didn't have to. He makes a mistake of revealing himself as a spy to one of the attackers, not realizing Maya was in the room and overheard the conversation. Maya in a rush decides to abandon Joshua and joins other AI in their attempt to escape. They can escape the soldiers, but nothing can escape the weapon in the orbit which launches bombs on the boats Maya and others were trying to escape on.

Joshua decides to leave the service and devastated about the loss of his pregnant wife. Then it is revealed to him that his wife may actually be alive. Motivated with a desire to find his wife he joins for another mission. This leads him to Alphie and their journey to locate Nirmata. I do not really like this story. It just makes no sense. A spy had one mission, to find Nirmata. Then spy ends up marries Nirmata and not knowing this all this time. Nirmata is not part of most of the scenes, not actively. Only in Joshuas memories. Maybe Nirmata wasn't that important, instead the important character in the story was Alphie. Even Alphie doesn't seem to be able to deliver any huge power that could put AI at better position. See Joshua and Alphie's journey to find Nirmata, while trying not to stay not caught by human soldiers who are chasing them.

The movie is a struggle of AI trying to find peace and their desire to survive and hope to build a future where humans and machines could co-exist in peace. The entire war doesn't make sense. Machine do not engage in any attacks against humans. They are just trying to stay "alive" and it seems they deserve to be alive. The ideas range from "they are not humans, they are nothing, they don't feel" to "they are different from human, but are being who can feel, think, build, live, ask philosophical question like what happens when they die." It seems machines are self aware and know they are not like humans and life after day is only a human thing, and machines to nowhere. I can understand that with certain level of AI sophisticates even machines would wonder about their beginnings, existence, and ending. I do not think machines would be anything close to real human. This is just our imagination. Just like we give voice and bring to live animals in movies, machines could never behave like humans. Our imagination is so amazing, that we can even bring inanimate objects into life through our imagination and creativity.

I do'nt down that there will be many AI based robots or humanoids given enough time. But I can't say that machines don't hold place in this world. So far three s no evidence of this. I can see a future where we rely on AI creations for a while But I don't see it would be widespread and we would see AI robots.

Another strange thing is such sophisticated human like machines engage in traditional warfare against humans without any superior powers. If anything it is humans who have more powerful technology in this war. I don't think there will be machines living amongst humans in the future like humans. Our imagination is limitless and often confuses us beyond reality. I know I am just talking about a made up story and a movie as if it is imagining the future. But what I am actually trying to do here is explore the ideas that have been shared for the future of AI by humans these days. Humans against robots is a real topic, no? or am I overthinking it and giving these idea more credit than they deserve.

Enjoy the movie if you decide to watch. Let me know what you think about the movie and in general future of AI.