Film JEXI — Time to throw away your smart phone before it becomes too smart?

I went to see the CBS Films, Entertainment One film JEXI. Here’s the trailer.

JEXI is the next edition of the smart phone that is programmed to “make your life better.” But does it?

The film struck me in several ways.

First, it portrays a young man Phil (brilliantly played by Adam DeVine) who is disconnected from the real world and lives solely in the digital world of his new smart phone named JEXI whose voice is played by Rose Byrne.

Second, it shows the dangers of smart phones that become too smart, a.k.a. JEXI, for our own good.

Thirdly, the film could have been made PG if it weren’t for the extreme foul language and unnecessary sexual content, i.e. Phil has smart phone sex with JEXI! WARING: Don’t take you children to see this film.

I want everyone, especially our youth, mothers and fathers, to see this film. It shows the real and present dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Digital (BD).

I grew up before we had portable phones. In high school I read one of the greatest books about the dangers of robotics and AI – I Robot by Issac Asimov. JEXI reminded me of how robotics and AI must at all cost have a “moral set of rules” that puts the human being above the machine. Here is a video of Asimov explaining The Three Laws of Robotics.

Here is how JEXI violates the three laws of robotics in the film:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. JEXI tries to run down Phil using a self-driving car and narrowly misses killing him. JEXI actively works to destroy Phil’s life and livelihood after he rejects her in favor of Alexandra Shipp a real woman played by Cate Finnegan.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. JEXI continually refuses to accept commands from Phil throughout the film in multiple, often times hilarious, ways.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. JEXI protects her own existence while consistently violating the First and Second laws.

Perhaps the most frightening part of JEXI is how AI works to control the individual, in this case Phil. But we are all becoming Phils and Phyllises aren’t we? Locked in a Digital Gulag where we become our own prison guards.

In his book Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom Michael Rectenwald writes:

Although Big Digital does use censorship and bias to achieve governmental ends, the constraints are also technological and the technology itself is intrinsically political. Political ideology is not merely a subsidiary feature of Big Digital. Ideology is coded into its very DNA, which is replicated in every organizational offshoot and new technology. Big Digital’s ideology circulates through the deep neural networks of cyberspace and other digital spheres. It is intrinsic to the foundations of the Internet, the cloud, algorithms, apps, AI bots, social media services, web navigation tracking software systems, virtual assistants, and more.

JEXI is a perfect product of Big Digital. Get your new smart phone and while you get connected and become a slave to Big Digital. You, like Phil, become a prisoner in a prison of your own design.

Scary, isn’t it?

Oh, BTW. JEXI is filmed in the city of San Francisco, California. The producers and director do everything they can to make the city look beautiful and clean. But we know better don’t we!

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