"Mechanical Ji / Artificial Consciousness" is a rare small-budget narrative film, which is rare because the film describes the understanding of artificial intelligence very clearly and deeply, but does not use a purely didactic way to explain, but uses the entertainment-rich parts of the script to pave the way.
This makes it possible for us to understand the ideas that the director wants to convey through the guidance of the plot, even if we do not quite understand the basis of those theories (Turing test, black and white Mary, etc.), and even produce more afterglow because of the arrangement of the ending.
In addition to the small cost constraints, this is also due to the fact that the script limits it to the situation of the "underground chamber", so that the audience's focus has to be limited to the interaction between the protagonists and the three, and also to a certain extent makes you focus on their dialogue.
If you create conscious robots (artificial consciousness), it's not human history, it's god's history.
The title of "Mechanical Ji / Artificial Consciousness" is very interesting, the original meaning refers to deus ex machina (Greek, god from the machine), which means that when there is a reversal in the drama or the dilemma is difficult to solve, in order to deduce the plot, the "god" is used as the solver of the story problem, so that the story can be finished well.
But this storytelling technique basically destroys the structure of the original story, just like many science fiction movies now move aliens out at the end, anyway, the part that can't be solved or unexplained is said to be made by aliens, because no one knows how advanced the technology of aliens is, so they can be freely sprinkled in this part.
This approach does not actually explain the conflicts or contradictions of the original story.
But in fact, some scholars believe that deus ex machina is actually discussing the relationship between mortals and "god", that is, as human beings themselves to "spy" on god's will, deus is the Greek meaning of "god".
The ex machina left in the title of the film seems to be hinting at the problems left over from this mechanical product, and in the end there is no real "god" to finish, which also echoes the "creation" process described by Nathan as the creator and the film divided into seven periods.
The story of "Mechanical Ji" is roughly about a engineer called by the boss Nathan to test artificial consciousness, Caleb, who develops sympathy for Ava during the test, and even secretly has feelings for him, and decides to help the artificial consciousness robot escape.
However, in the process of designing the escape, she found that she was actually the object of the test, and the purpose was that Nathan wanted to know whether the artificial intelligence she designed could fool humans and make the subject willing to help her escape. The reversal of the ending not only makes Nathan die at the hands of the robot he created, but also makes Ava fall in love with his own Galle, and eventually trapped in the underground research room and abandoned by Ava.
The film not only has two reversals at the end ("Nathan knows About Galle and Ava's escape plan" and "Ava abandons Galle to leave the lab alone"), but also includes the audience in the original "Turing test" test: "Is Ava really self-aware, or is everything just the result of her programming?"
This kind of interaction between the film and the viewer not only deepens the suspense of the moviegoer, but also allows the issue of the movie to continue, and more importantly, it will make the moviegoer want to know more details and extend the life of the movie when watching it for the second time.
Although the story scene is simple, the depth of the issue is not sloppy at all. Several important theories mentioned in the play, such as the "Turing Test" and "Black and White Mary", have also been modified to target the issues of the script, which at first glance seems to be a misunderstanding of the theory, but in fact it is through the deformation of these theories to interpret the ideas that the film wants to pass on, which really has to be appreciated.
"The real question is not whether intelligent machines can produce emotions, but whether machines can produce intelligence without an emotional basis." —Marvin Minsky, 1986
The film basically revolves around the simplest issue, and the question we left behind from "Mechanical Enemy", that is, "Do robots have self-awareness"?
Whether it is NS-4 in "Mechanical Enemy" and Kyoko in "Mechanical Hime", basically they all have artificial intelligence. But they still seem to behave according to some kind of procedure, like NS-4 would intervene when he saw human danger; Kyoko danced when he heard the concert, but there was still a little gap as to whether these robots were self-aware.
Is Ava, who is more humane, conscious? Or is it just a design to escape the lab as described by Nathan, without real consciousness, all by means of achieving an end.
What's interesting about this part is the open-ended ending left by the film, suggesting that Ava who leaves the Chamber of Secrets is the one who really wants to start the awakening of self-consciousness. Unlike Sony in Mecha, Ava here almost follows the program the developer intended before leaving the Chamber of Secrets.
But Nathan's creation of artificial consciousness is not simply the use of big data in return, and more importantly, he has adopted the way humans think.
Nathan believes that the greatest contribution of his search engine is that "it is not the thing that humans think (the answer), but the way humans think about things."
We search in our own way of thinking, which is a thinking mechanism that belongs to us humans. Because we think so, we choose to do it.
This development of causal correlation seems to coincide with the future development of artificial intelligence discussed today. Coupled with the description of "Black and White Mary" earlier in the video (which fully echoes the description of the last Ava leaving the house), combined with Nathan's system, it further illustrates Ava's path to self-awareness.
Neither beautiful women nor seemingly loyal men can be trusted.
Although the play cleverly modifies this argument to mean that Mary in the black and white room is a computer, and Mary who comes out of the room to contact the real color is a human.
But the implication here is that only Mary, after a sensory experience, is a truly conscious person. Because Mary in the living room is just a receiver of "knowledge", like a complete and perfect computer, as long as her database is large enough, then for the physical knowledge that humans have, it is basically impeccable, and all the questions you have to ask, she can answer.
But the Mary who walks out of the room is different, because if you think that the Mary who has seen the real color is different from the Mary who is only in the black and white room, then the Mary must have acquired something "that we don't know", whether it is new knowledge or not.
This new feeling of Mary transcends the framework originally limited by physical knowledge, she has her own experience, which seems to be the germ of some kind of consciousness, and everything she has been exposed to since she left the room is a new experience.
Unlike the human sony of "Mechanical Enemy" or the more logical Vicky, Ava does not show too much humanity or ideas beyond the logic of ordinary people, but more like she is still choosing how to develop her future self.
She is like a bionic robot with a huge database, constantly absorbing the experience of the new world, observing the behavior patterns of these human beings when she comes to the crossroads of the human world, and gradually evolving and summarizing her own life style, which may be more humane and may be more logical.
But on the surface of this inner evolution, she has long learned to deceive and hide her true thoughts. That is, no one but herself can know whether she is just pure artificial intelligence or artificial consciousness.
What exactly is "consciousness"? Is it not "consciousness" as long as you can distinguish between yourself and others, understand your own behavior patterns, and even the reasons behind your behavior, understand the behavior of others and respond appropriately to feedback, perception, memory, behavior control, etc.?
If we could list all the understandings of "consciousness" and program it into a supercomputer, would that computer be conscious? Maybe the next movie will have some answers – Ghost in the Shell.
Thank you for watching, paying attention to me, and learning more about it.