Michael Sheen does a great job with his portrayal of an android bartender aboard an interstellar ship in the currently playing blockbuster, Passengers. In fact, he was my favorite character in the movie and gets overlooked in the reviews.
I loved the scene where Arthur was unable to distinguish the difference between what his patron, played by Chris Pratt, said and what he actually meant. The entire movie hinges on the AI’s inability to correctly interpret the innuendo of human language.
This so perfectly sums up the problem that we’ll have with AI for a long, long time. The inability to interpret things that even a child would understand. It’s not all for naught though. In the movie, Arthur’s company becomes desirable, a commodity which the isolated inhabitants on the ship fight over. His ability to respond with just the right words 80% of the time was enough to assuage their loneliness and keep up the mirage of relationship. Arthur sure beats Tom Hank’s “Wilson” from the movie Castaway.
But is 80% enough to rely on? I don’t think so. It’s fine for frivolous diversions, but in any scenario that entails real work getting done, people won’t be so patient.
In any case, Passengers is a great movie. I love sci-fi and my wife loves romances. It was nice to have a movie that was both of our first choice and didn’t involve the typical runaway alien monster trying to eat everyone.
This so perfectly sums up the problem that we’ll have with AI for a long, long time. The inability to interpret things that even a child would understand. It’s not all for naught though. In the movie, Arthur’s company becomes desirable, a commodity which the isolated inhabitants on the ship fight over. His ability to respond with just the right words 80% of the time was enough to assuage their loneliness and keep up the mirage of relationship. Arthur sure beats Tom Hank’s “Wilson” from the movie Castaway.
But is 80% enough to rely on? I don’t think so. It’s fine for frivolous diversions, but in any scenario that entails real work getting done, people won’t be so patient.
In any case, Passengers is a great movie. I love sci-fi and my wife loves romances. It was nice to have a movie that was both of our first choice and didn’t involve the typical runaway alien monster trying to eat everyone.
RSS Feed