In the midst of a hotbed of anxieties surrounding the concept of artificial intelligence, Humans weighs in on the subject with a new technological dystopia.
British writers Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley’s new science fiction drama, based on the Swedish sci-fi drama Äkta människor (Real Humans), first aired on Sunday, 14th June. It presents its own vision of what the world would be like if humanlike androids called “Synths” were commonplace items, sold in department stores, serving in the home, etc., not at all dissimilar to the vision depicted in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. But does the looming “threat” of the posthumans, in the form of an industrialised synthetic androids industry, echo the dangers which are all too common in artificial intelligence fiction?
A growing number of writers - Vincent and Brackley included - are beginning to show the prospect of artificial intelligence in a much more sympathetic light. Alex Garland’s cerebral film Ex Machina is such an example of this narrative. In the film, we are confronted with a humanlike machine named Ava - the byproduct of a tyrannical “Steve Jobs” type entrepreneur named Nathan whose innovative interests have delved into the territory of AI research and the Turing test. Awarding an employee of his company with the task of interacting with the android, Garland’s Nathan character allows us to see Ava in a much more sympathetic light, as opposed to the coldly indifferent Ash in the first Alien film, the HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey or, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic “Terminator” role in the first Terminator film. Even the videogame Portal shows an insight into this common idea of artificial intelligence being hostile: GlaDOS, the overall maintenance computer, has a direct purpose - to test subjects constantly, without refrain - and, in this sense, such characters show a much less human, much more uncanny, side to their nature.
Such cultural manifestations of the hostility of any possible artificial intelligence are much in line with warnings on the subject from voices in the scientific community: most famously, Stephen Hawking’s caution to humanity that ‘the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence it would take off on its own and would design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn’t compete and would be superseded.’ However Humans challenges this prejudice regarding AI technology. It certainly paints a dystopia but it does not affirm our prejudice of the android as an uncanny humanlike figure, to be feared and distrusted. We are first introduced to Anita, who will become the family Synth of Joe and Laura Hawkins. Joe’s youngest daughter, Sophie, asks anxiously, ‘What if she’s not pretty? Can we change her if she’s not pretty?’ Though it may be perceived as a rather innocent impulse of a young girl existing within a very beauty-conscious society to have concerns about whether her own lifesize doll will be “pretty”, it becomes appropriate for one to suspect the society as the ones at fault rather than Synthetic Humans.
As Laura returns home, she is immediately suspicious of Anita as a new addition to the family. This may be a relevant moment to raise the subject of the PR stunt the show’s marketers managed to pull off prior to the unveiling of the show. A TV advert, seeming to promote a company called “Persona Synthetics”, (realistically) portrayed an android helper being introduced to everyday life. “Sally”, the Synth advertised, was shown tidying, cooking, and looking after a couple’s children around the house; by the time the ad had ended, the text ‘Regent Street Store Opening Soon’ appeared, and, inconspicuously, the hashtag #Humans appeared alongside it. The advertisers gave the impression - without any real coverage on the show itself - that synthetic androids with a human appearance were coming to the high street. And they didn’t fail to impress: a fake “store” really did come to the high street, which passers-by could readily interact with. It was very clear that the show’s promoters were trying to exploit a particular anxiety which has been replicated time and time again in popular culture - that of artificial intelligence. The advert’s vision that a Synth could improve life at home and an anxiety that it could outperform humans is one which is reflected very overtly in the show. As Laura confronts Anita with these fears, Anita retorts with the assertion that, “in many ways, I can take better care of your children...however I cannot love them.”
Another character who becomes increasingly agitated by his perceived inferiority to the AIs is DS Pete Drummond, a detective assigned with investigating a crime involving a Synth sold into prostitution who murdered her client (this will be examined further latterly). With a heavily built, handsome synth taking care of his disabled wife, Pete’s self-loathing arises out of the jealousy he feels seeing his wife in the arms of the muscular robotic servant. This provokes him to cry exasperatedly, “I am a man. And I’m not perfect; that’s the point, none of us are! We’re not supposed to be.” His story urges us to reflect philosophically on the imperfection of man, but more importantly how this can be threatened by something which is uncannily (albeit ostensibly) “perfect”.
However, after some narrative exposition throughout the series, we begin to discover a number of things which change our perception on the Synthetic Humans. A man named George Millican is discovered to be one of the scientists responsible for their creation (along with a man named David Elster). George practically serves as the carer for his own Synth, Odi - an outdated model, meaning he needs an upgrade - and goes to extreme lengths (e.g. stowing him away in his cupboard) to keep him. George’s character shows much more depth to the Synths. He serves as a “father” of his synthetic creation (in the vein of such father figures as Eldon Tyrell of the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner), and identifies the human side to his creation. Unlike multiple actors in the series - whether it be the government, the NHS, or the black market and rogue traders - who view the Synths as subhumans (selling them as servile “humans” whilst still regarding them as obviously inhuman) George sees a great deal more compassion existent in the Synths which is lacking in humanity.
Humans is more like a cautionary tale to us as humans to remind us of our humanity. As is the case with fictional “Others”, the Synthetic Humans can be taken in both a literal sense and as a social metaphor. Synths are subjected to unbelievably cruel “services” throughout the series. Anita herself initially belongs to a band of highly intelligent androids who are believed to possess consciousness on a similar level to humans (another thing which allows us to sympathise with her, as we see she both exhibits and understands complex human emotions). Led by human Leo Elster, the group was seen to be divided at the beginning of the series: one was sold to junkers, and one (a female Synth named Niska) was sold into sexual slavery - the latter is the aforementioned synthetic prostitute who murdered a client. Niska is a particular character who shows this deep level of cognisance and poignant emotions (mainly distress), as she conveys her suffering and the awareness that she is suffering. Her actions - which can only seem reasonable to a human - contravene a set of protocols (referred to in the Swedish version as “Asimov” protocols, after Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in his Robot series). But, of course, it took a human to cause her to breach those protocols.
The series seems to have a message for the here and now, and also for the future. Whilst people continue to be treated as second-class citizens in the world, should we really be investigating - as Google is doing (and championing) right now - research into artificial intelligence? Is AI really the threat, or are we? Endeavours into neural image recognition in machines, computers passing the Turing test (Eugene Goostman), and machines exhibiting higher intelligence than humans (Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer, beating the world champion at a game of chess) are all exciting things, and should be welcome. But it still begs the question of whether humans are currently in the right frame of mind to deal with such technology.
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