Machines and man: visualization of Artificial intelligence technologies in modern cinema

Shchavleva Aleksandra Sergeevna Senior Lecturer; Department of Socio-Cultural Technologies and Tourism; Perm State Institute of Culture 614000, Russia, Perm Krai, Perm, Gazeta Zvezda str., 18 a.mantova@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The current era is characterized by complexity and multifactorial nature. In our opinion, its indisputable characteristic is the fluidity of all phenomena, which is largely due to the development and introduction of new technologies. Modern technologies based on NBIC (nano-, bio-, information, cognitive) technologies that enable the formation of a new technological culture, which is determined by the special relationship between man and machine, generate challenges of a new order. Today, almost all aspects of human existence are mediated by some kind of technological solutions and tools and are seen as increasingly integrated into the general algorithmic environment. Turning to culture as a way of being human in the context of understanding the development of technology is not just an attempt to "humanize" technological progress, but an attempt to comprehend a new way of being human, the formation of his subjectivity in this world with its norms, ideals, values that become dominant in the digital space around us.

Indeed, the development of modern technologies in relation to the social sphere is very controversial: on the one hand, it allows a person to acquire additional machine capabilities, blurring the boundaries between physical and technical, human and artificial, on the other hand, machines are able to exercise greater control and supervision over humans, being increasingly integrated into the daily practices of modern humans. Based on this, researchers come to alarming conclusions, predicting that the widespread use of new technologies can change the boundaries of subjectivity, affecting a person's ability to be compassionate, cooperative, responsible, and engage in meaningful interaction. Thus, the famous economist Klaus Schwab pays considerable attention to the value, humanitarian, and cultural aspects that will accompany technological and industrial innovations, emphasizing that "universal human values, ethical foundations, and norms must be at the heart of all technological changes" ^{[1, p.88]}.

French anthropologist B. Latour argues that the relationship between culture and technology forms a collective network that unites mind and matter. ^{[2, pp.3, 10]}.

In this web, which B. Latour calls the "anthropological matrix," it is impossible to draw a clear line between nature and culture. This matrix consists of "hybrids" that are both natural and cultural, real and imaginary, subjects and objects, becoming part of a vast technologized space.

According to E. Davis, a person finds himself in a gap between artificial and organic life, between a real and virtual environment, where the transfer of information from one consciousness to another expands the boundaries of intelligence, creating a new link between the "I", "other" and the surrounding world. Thus, modern technologies, becoming part of the self, "become an interactive mirror, an ambiguous Other in which we recognize and measure ourselves" ^{[3, p. 7]}.

These processes find expression in the development of artificial intelligence technologies, having a significant impact on the modern way of life, as well as on the entire cultural landscape. The discourse about the interaction of artificial and truly human intelligence becomes inevitable, which leads to a situation of uncertainty and insecurity in which a person does not have time to comprehend the avalanche-like changes taking place in this process of developing a new digital environment.

Cinema, as one of the most spectacular phenomena of mass culture, anticipated and visualized the development of AI technologies, stimulating public discourse and discussion of ethical contradictions and norms of technological progress. As K. accurately notes. Razlogov "cinema has established itself as a key means of transmitting norms, customs, traditions and values that form the foundations of both individual cultural communities and mass culture" ^{[4, p. 8]}. In this regard, cinema is a form of adaptation of technological progress in popular culture.

As artificial intelligence technologies play an increasingly important role in modern society, the debate around modern technology is polarized. Various expert groups believe that machines will either solve all problems for everyone, or lead humanity down a dark path leading to the uselessness of man. In turn, cinema makes the most of man's fear of creating intelligent creation, as evidenced by the predominance of intelligent machines in the film narrative. "As the history of AI representation in cinema shows, "evil AI" as a symbol of a person's fear that something will get the better of him was a trope in the fantasy genre and cyclically returned" ^{[5, p. 234]} for a long time. Today, AI appears to be increasingly peaceful and social, becoming an environment and participant in human interactions.

Thus, reflections on cultural conditions, fears and hopes generated by the dynamic and partly uncontrolled development of AI technologies find a representative basis in the genre of science fiction, which creates a platform for interpreting AI, its significance and importance in understanding the issue of human and machine identity in its symbolic expression. Cinema visualizes AI through the image of an "artificially created being," for example, the image of a super-powerful computer or a digital disembodied entity, the mainstream image of a cyborg or an android robot. And just as they become more refined in the real world, their symbolic expression in cinema becomes more voluminous and complex, and the question is no longer whether machines can think, but rather how they do it.

A. Nordmann, in turn, distinguishes between AI visualization in science fiction, distinguishing anthropomorphic and machine AI, where "anthropomorphic AI tries to copy human intelligence, and possibly surpass it, functioning in ways that approach the ways the human mind works" ^{[6, p. 18]}. The idea of implementing human-like AI, according to A. Nordmann, has been destroyed, "we can no longer distinguish between human and machine intelligence." Today we are talking about the study of "intelligence with machine learning" ^{[6, p. 18]}. At the same time, the professor notes that two approaches cannot coexist simultaneously, "the new world replaces the old one." It seems that today there is a situation where artificial intelligence technologies, imitating natural processes, direct them in accordance with human needs, while creating "turbidity boundaries", that is, a situation where the user receives information about a possible correlation, but where this information comes from and how it appears is hidden from him.

A number of researchers identify two trajectories of AI representation in cinema: in the first case, "AI is removed from social reality into the technological sphere, often depersonalized, acting as an antagonist carrying a potential or real threat to humans. In the second case, he becomes indistinguishable from the surrounding reality, is included in it" ^{[7, p.1456]}. Thus, the film narrative visualizes the idea that intelligent machines will populate the earth, and by the end of the 21st century they may well become the only form of intelligent life, forming new species. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the image of the machine man was presented on the screen by director Fritz Lang in the film Metropolis (Germany, 1927). This fictional robotic character, created to show the possible risks to humanity, demonstrated the first fusion of man and machine. Today, the relationship between a machine and a human has become even closer and more complex. The gap between a robot and a human is becoming more and more leveled, which leads to the humanization of the machine, giving it anthropomorphic features, it ceases to be a kind of hypothetical concept: "our machines are frighteningly alive, and we ourselves are frighteningly inert." ^{[8, p.153]}. Cinema continues to develop this theme, humanizing the image of a "thinking machine", endowing it not only with symbolic meanings and an attractive visual embodiment, but also focusing public discourse on issues of ethics and morality of the development of machines. Based on this, we can single out a significant feature of the representation of AI in cinema – this is the anthropomorphization of AI technologies. Robots are given a discerning mind to feel and react like humans. Hyperbolized images of cars in movies are endowed with human emotions, they are able to evoke empathy and love, which is also reflected in the desire to make them as close and understandable as possible to the real world of people. This phenomenon is revealed in the film "Artificial Intelligence" (USA, 2001). David, a robot child with artificial intelligence, was created to love people and serves as a substitute for his deceased son. Based on this, it can be concluded that AI technologies are considered as an extension of man, as his copy, endowed with similar features. Unlike, for example, HAL 9000, who was an evil artificial intelligence in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 film A Space Odyssey (UK, USA, 1962). David longs for the love and care of his foster mother. While HALA is portrayed by an evil computer program. David's innocence and unconditional love for his mother, as well as his humanity, make the viewer empathize and feel compassion for the android boy.

Endowing AI with human perception and empathetic nature shows that storytelling only works in people's favor. The main idea that is present in cinema is based on how effectively AI can work in a human way, but at the same time, when this human becomes more than in the person himself, he becomes a carrier of a colossal threat. In the series "The World of the Wild West" (USA, 2016-2022), where realistic android hosts are programmed to participate in the intricate stories of a futuristic theme park in which androids are on the verge of gaining reason, the viewer empathizes by watching their painful fates (especially in comparison with the hedonistic, cynical behavior of the park guests).

In revealing the human nature of the machine, an important part of the illusion consists of dreams, unique, deep-memory-based gestures and facial expressions that make androids seem even more human. The Russian version of the series "Better than Humans" (Russia, 2018) also tells about the near future, where robots (bots) acting as servants, assistants or sex workers have become part of everyday life. This way of representation is important for understanding whether AI is a danger or a savior of humanity.

The next vector of representation of the AI image is the relationship between AI and humans. The most common way to portray androids or cyborgs endowed with AI technologies as unique creatures is to show them in a relationship with humans. A similar interaction can be seen in the movie "Out of the Machine" (UK, 2015), where Nathan (the developer) designed a female robot Ava to be sold on the market as sex robots. The Ava robot demonstrates extraordinarily human qualities, being "stochastic". As a result of her training, Ava demonstrates not the qualities that Nathan programmed in her, but those that she learned herself under his supervision. A look at the presented contradiction suggests that a sufficiently powerful computer could act in the same way as the human mind, convincing its potential interlocutor that he is human and constantly self-learning on a complex set of analyzed data. The problem with this approach is that even if the machine manages to maintain the illusion of human intelligence, this does not indicate consciousness, but only its appearance, which in turn is vividly visualized in the films "Blade Runner" (USA, 1982) and "Blade Runner 2049" (USA, 2017). which present a method (empathy test) aimed at identifying the differences between replicants (bioengineered androids) and humans. Endowing AI technologies with emotions is also an important component of visualizing the image of AI technology development. Emotions and the presence of a sense of humor are still a key characteristic that many creators of science fiction films use to distinguish between machine and human. In the movie "Her" (USA, 2013), the main character Theodore is initially skeptical of Samantha's character (operating system). He notices that the operating system (hereinafter referred to as the OS) sounds like a human, but is still just a voice in the computer.

At the same time, Samantha has a sense of humor that is associated with improvisation, intuition and irrationality. In addition, Samantha is endowed with an important quality - creativity (she creates a "musical photograph" of the moment spent with Theodore on the beach, and also jokes about the strangeness of the human body and complements it with a drawing on a sexual theme).

Are the feelings of the machine sincere? There is no need to talk about this today, but the pace of development of AI capabilities does not exclude this prospect. Therefore, for now this question remains as a variation of the problem of determinism and free will of a person creating algorithms for deep machine learning. For example, in the film, Theodore offers a phenomenological solution: "Well, you seem real to me, Samantha," but as you know, "If a situation is thought of as real, then it is real in its consequences" ^[9] and we already perceive a soulless dialogue with AI as complicity and empathy for our own problems.

Another significant vector of AI representation in cinema has become the visualization of intimate relationships with AI technologies. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these relationships add a certain degree of poetry to their symbolic embodiment, while demonstrating a degree of cognitive distortion, both with others and with oneself, and especially with regard to various bodily experiments. Today, the use of "digital companions" in everyday practices (for example, the Replica AI application, Eliza AI) raises questions about imitation of empathy and emotional interaction, replacing genuine relationships. "At the dawn of the development of artificial intelligence, man cared much more about what he considered to be exclusively human qualities, expressing feelings that could be described as follows: "Simulated thinking is thinking, but an imitated feeling is not a feeling, and simulated love is never love" ^{[10, p. 510]}. A vivid example of such an imitation is the film "Imperfect Man" (Russia, 2019), which shows the heroine building a relationship with a robot equipped with artificial intelligence, capable of adapting to the needs and desires of a particular person, thereby becoming an ideal partner. According to S. Turkle, "robots have challenged values and forced us to ask new questions about ourselves" ^{[10, p. 502]}. The interactivity of human-machine relationships and their representation in popular culture as possible social and emotional partners allow robotics developers to create and implement social and service robots into everyday practice, as nurses, babysitters, employees, playmates, and even intimate partners.

Human sexuality is a significant construct of identity formation. In cinema, the symbolization of AI technologies emphasizes the importance of embodying AI as a decisive factor in the relationship between technology and identity, which "in modern conditions of constant information and technological turbulence cannot be fixed, it needs constant verification and confirmation in the process of demonstrating relevant life strategies for "appropriating" oneself through the gaze of Another, and a similar open multidimensionality of the modern personality." sometimes it scares and alarms" ^{[11, p. 109]}. Similarly, in cinema, AI does not have a strictly defined identity, it breaks up into fragments necessary in certain conditions, demonstrating a fragmentary type of identity according to the modular type ^{[11, p. 48]}. Indeed, today the massive use of wireless computer virtual technologies by humans in everyday practices can lead to the creation of a connection between a person immersed in virtual reality (VR) and robots with artificial intelligence that interact in the real world in parallel with a person in VR. For example, the TV series "Black Mirror" (USA, 2019, Episode 1, season 5) shows the story of two friends having an intimate relationship in a virtual, fictional reality (the concept of a "phantom generator"), which implies the creation of an artificial, digital reality identical to real life and completely indistinguishable from it, which subsequently leads to the crisis of real identity.

In conclusion, we propose to identify the following vector of representation of AI in cinema – the presence/ absence of AI physicality, where the first form of embodiment of physicality is focused on virtual reality, in which the presence of physicality is mediated by digital technologies. Thus, in films ("The Matrix", USA, 1999; "Superiority" (UK, 2014), physicality appears as something intangible, but existing within a specific digital system, where the emphasis is on the relative independence of consciousness and body. These ideas are close to typical transhumanist images of mind loading into an operating system, including disembodied intelligent beings. American roboticist Hans Moravek predicts a future in which machines will become the evolutionary heirs of humans, predicting that in the near future "intelligent machines that will grow out of us, learn our skills and share our goals and values, they can be considered as children of our minds. And because they are our children, we will want them to surpass us."^{[12, p. 1]}.

Within the framework of this approach, the idea of robotic bodies as a dehumanizing means correlates with the ideas of "cortical stacks" presented in the TV series "Video Modified Carbon" (USA, 2018-2020), in which people discovered a way to transfer their consciousness into devices, making their bodies simply "sleeves" interchangeable and optional. Some of the wealthy centenarians ("mafov") have perfected the technology by uploading their minds to a satellite every 24 hours and cloning their bodies in order to become immortal. However, constant transformation eventually affects the mind, deforming it beyond repair, thus creating a dead-end branch of evolution.

The second form of the embodiment of AI technologies is the symbiosis of a machine and a human, visualized through the image of a cyborg. Cultural critic Donna Haraway presents the cyborg as a "fantasy creature", a mythical figure ^{[13, p. 9]}, questioning such dualisms as mind/body, animal/human, organism/machine, culture/nature, man/woman. In cinema, the image of Lucy in the film by Luc Besson (2014) and the film "Ghost in the Shell" (USA, 2017) very clearly reflects the image of a cyborg ^{[14, p. 74]}. On the way to understanding the "kind of fundamentals", the heroines of these films go beyond not only material existence, but also stable identity, refuses self—determination within the framework of binaries - male and female, human and animal, living and technological, receiving in return inexhaustible possibilities. Thus, cinema calls into question the boundaries between biology and technology, as well as between consciousness and the body, bringing vivid, noticeable images that make one think that the emergence of artificial intelligence and the gradual blurring of the boundaries between human intelligence and machine thinking can mean for a person not only the end of the familiar world, but also opens up the horizons of new ones. opportunities.

As a result, it can be concluded that in the analyzed films, materiality is characterized as something that should be abandoned in favor of an incorporeal or largely body-independent form of life, and, consequently, a more perfect and developed structure, as, for example, in the film "The Matrix". All this leads to the desire to transcend the body, its needs and achieve a purely technological existence in a world of endless illusion of fictional reality. However, it is obvious that there is no true dematerialization. Rather, one materiality is replaced by another. Despite the fact that the virtual is opposed to the physical, there is continuity between them and the worlds represented are more like hybrids than some kind of fundamentally new space. As soon as the body becomes virtual, its power of self-expression and the potential transformation of the whole and its parts acquires greater freedom of movement in space, but this does not entail qualitative changes in subjectivity and human perception of the world.

Continuing to talk about the increasing hybridization of the real and the virtual, cultural critic Catherine Hales suggests thinking about the prerequisites for creating a posthuman aesthetic of the disembodied body, which is "a world in which other species, objects and artificial intelligence compete and cooperate, creating a dynamic environment in which a person lives" ^{[15, p. 179]}.

Thus, in the modern world, cinema visualizes not only our fears and dreams, but also focuses on the constant confrontation between man and technology: acquiring a technological body means, to a certain extent, renouncing one's personal identity as a human being, since technology (in particular, artificial intelligence) contributes to the radical rejection of everything biological. A robotic (interchangeable) body and a physical network appear as some kind of material substrates beyond the human, and a person becomes not only a subject, but also an object of technological transformations. Cinema seems to anticipate the emergence of a new generation of people who strive for digital escapism, endowing machines with the functions of a friend and a loyal listener, thereby creating the illusion of communication and caring. Andrei Tarkovsky also reflected in the film Solaris (Russia, 1972) that people began to move away from each other through interaction with artificial intelligence. Attraction to the distant and unknown makes a person forget about his neighbors: "we are here in space in order to feel people as a reason for love," says Chris Kelvin. A person becomes vulnerable to technology, to the bias of algorithms, the scale of technological changes, the speed of information exchange and processing. These changes bring us back to exploring our own vulnerabilities and limitations, developing complex systems to protect and preserve the human species in an increasingly advancing hybrid reality.

Thus, the vector of representation of the relationship between humans and AI technologies, of course, depends on the key idea of the film and can be implemented through assigning AI various roles in the film narrative. The analyzed films, which make up the empirical field of research, serve as a reflective projection of the changes taking place and create the ground for the search for new subject areas for studying various forms of human-machine interaction, help to reflect on the challenges and opportunities that AI and other advanced technologies provide to humanity.