Film ‘Upgrade’ — The Deadly Dark Side of the coming A.I. Apocalypse

I went to see the new film “Upgrade” and came away convinced that artificial intelligence (A.I.) is both deadly and has a very dark side. Here is the official “Upgrade” trailer:

Elon Musk. Photo: Pinerest.

Three years ago Elon Musk began warning about the possibility of technology, like A.I., running amok stating,

I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this.

After watching the film, I think the creators of “Upgrade” based their script on Elon’s vision of technology, specifically A.I.

In a CNBC article titled “The ‘father of A.I’ urges humans not to fear the technology” Andrew Wong wrote:

Artificial intelligence will one day be smarter than humans, but there’s no reason to fear the technology, according to a pioneer in AI technologies.

Jurgen Schmidhuber

“I’ve been working on [AI] for several decades, since the eighties basically, and I still believe it will be possible to witness that AIs are going to be much smarter than myself, such that I can retire,” Jurgen Schmidhuber, who is now co-founder and chief scientist of AI startup NNAISENSE.

He has been dubbed as the person that robots will most likely call “father.”

But dire warnings about AI have been repeatedly sounded by Tesla’s Elon Musk, who went as far as to claim that the danger of AI far surpasses that of nuclear warheads at a conference this year.

“I’ve talked to him for hours and I’ve tried to allay his fears on that, pointing out that even once AIs are smarter than we are, at some point they are just going to lose interest (in humans),” Schmidhuber told CNBC’s Nancy Hungerford, on his conversations with Musk.

Read more.,

So who is right, Elon Musk or Jurgen Schmidhuber?

Both are correct. Jurgen’s idea that A.I.s “are going to be much smarter than myself” and Elon’s claim that the danger of A.I. far surpasses that of nuclear warheads.

In the film A.I. does replace Gray Trace (played by Logan Marshall-Green) but in a horrible way. You see Trace’s brain and his soul gradually be taken over by an implant named Stem. Stem is A.I. taken to the ultimate logical end. Implanting chips into humans in the name of progress but when the chip takes over the end comes quickly.

Stem has no moral compass, no human qualities, but Stem is on a mission. A mission to become human. To make the human smarter but to eliminate what is truly human about each and everyone of us.

The question that those involved in technology must ask themselves is not can we do it but should we do it.

The film reminded me of this Steven Spielberg quote:

“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”

I highly recommend seeing “Upgrade.” You will learn much about where A.I. is heading.

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