Understand why Elon Musk wants you to see this documentary

One of the wishes of Elon Musk is to spread this documentary to the world. This is because it is normal to assume that science is agnostic. Whether nuclear fission, bioengineering or cryptography, they have no character. It is the intentions of the people who use a technology, not some inherent characteristic of the technology itself, that determine its nature.

However, artificial intelligence is an unprecedented technology. Along with that, the predicted end goal of its main developers is superhuman intelligence. This will likely be beyond human control soon.

Do you trust this computer?

This is the backdrop for the new documentary by Chris Pane “Do you trust this computer?”, the same creator of the famous “Who Killed the Electric Car?”. The director chose to map the current state of artificial intelligence with a focus on the ethical consequences of a technology that may one day be beyond human control.

Paine's film features the main names in this area of ​​computing: Elon Musk, the futurist Ray Kurzweil, the main developer of Watson da IBM, David Ferrucci, the director of Open AI, Shiv Zilis, Andrew N.G., and more than a dozen other academics, authors, and CEOs who are pursuing artificial intelligence across multiple domains.

At just under an hour and a half long, the film is surprisingly broad, spanning everything from robotic surgery to self-driving cars, autonomous weapons, and humanoid robots. The documentary's overarching theme is adequately captured in its title, even if Paine fails to answer such a question satisfactorily.

The film sacrifices any chance to engage with the issue of artificial intelligence and its implications at something deeper than the surface level. Paine doesn't give AI researchers enough space in his documentary.

The viewer is taken to a handful of research labs in the film, but is only given a few minutes for each – enough to make an encounter with the artificially intelligent humanoid robot, but not seriously explore its implications with the researchers who develop it.

The dangers of AI

Of course, the documentary was meant to be a warning about the dangers of AI. The film is dedicated to Stephen Hawking, who was quite vehement about the threat posed by AI. Elon Musk, who also insists on the dangers of unregulated AI, even co-founded an ethical AI nonprofit (which he left shortly afterwards).

Fortunately, the AI ​​pitfalls we're all familiar with were addressed in the film. Paine considers how the Cambridge Analytica used AI to manipulate the 2016 elections; he recognizes tay.ai, Microsoft's chatbot, which the internet turned into a Nazi within 24 hours of its launch; he describes the emergence of autonomous weapons. But by the same token, Paine does not encourage respondents to explain how they are ensuring that this kind of artificial intelligence doesn't come true.

While the risks of AI are acknowledged in the film, there is hardly any accountability or criticism of how it is being developed at the moment by these people, aside from some light criticism of Google and Facebook.

Instead, most subjects discuss the topic as an inevitability. What is going to happen is discussed, but what one wants to know is why it should happen this way. Respondents do not tell the viewer how AI can quickly overtake our control. They are the people who are in the best position to do something about it.

a disturbing conclusion

The only thing artificial intelligence cannot develop on its own is the ability to set goals for itself. This must be determined by its creators, most of whom aim to maximize profit. But that's not what this movie is about.

At the end of the movie, before the credits roll, the screen goes black and displays a weight message. In it we can read:The pursuit of artificial intelligence is a multibillion-dollar industry with almost no regulation".

The questions that remain in the viewer's mind are complex. Why didn't Paine ask industry leaders how effective AI regulation would be accomplished? Also, what are their own companies doing to avoid the future they describe?

Despite the film being broadcast on a paid basis (about 6 dollars in Vimeo) it is possible to find it in the Youtube. Below you can check out the entire documentary. Take the opportunity to draw your own conclusions about Paine's approach to this very current and controversial subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43GuZP5PYeg