Earth's Passengers: AI's Titanic

Not every film you see at the cinema is going to win Oscars. Sometimes you just want an evening out, some entertainment and pure escapism. Even if the reviews don’t appear that favorable in advance, you can usually trust Hollywood to provide an hour or so’s entertainment. It was with that in mind that my son and I headed for our local cinema on a cold winter evening. Passengers offered more than we bargained for. Sometimes a diverting tale can reveal serious undercurrents when you reflect afterwards.

Chemistry and asteroids

If the onscreen chemistry between Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt didn’t remind you of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Hollywood seemed be dropping other hints. Hibernation pods that couldn’t possibly go wrong? Think unsinkable Titanic on her maiden voyage - just replace the iceberg with an asteroid.

Implausible v. plausible

Yes, the plot is probably full of holes. No doubt, any knowledgeable scientist would tear it apart. We don’t have the science to make 5,000 people hibernate for 90 years until they reach a distant new colony on a remote planet. I hope that we would possess the technology to communicate with Earth in real-time by the time we can make people hibernate.

References to the Homestead company sent shivers down my spine. The idea that the safety of thousands of lives would be placed in the care of a private timeshare company with greedy shareholders was unnerving. It seemed so plausible.

Chris Pratt, initially the only human awake on board, is reminded of the astronomical bills that he is running up. The Titanic similarity is further underlined when he discovers the nutritional difference between a third-class and first-class breakfast. By that time, he’d been eating the former for a year with all the other 5,000 passengers asleep. Their lives end up depending on the out-of-the-box thinking of this third-class engineer.

AI's Limitations

Our hero engineer also spends a year trying to break into the hibernating crew’s quarters. All the spaceship’s controls are designed to keep passengers out. The ship is designed to repair itself. It’s a warning for the direction that artificial intelligence (AI) is currently taking. The Internet of Things is already poised to take control. Humans design machines to deal with any risk or worst case scenario that they can dream up. How they are supposed to design spaceships to go into the Unknown beats me.

We still can’t get cinema/train ticket machines, Wi-Fi, computers or printers to work 100% reliably without human intervention. There’s a risk that we will stop training basic engineering skills or out-of-the-box thinkers and dispense with capable human standbys.

The robot barman highlights the serious issue with AI. He’s programmed to handle cheerily all the normal human soul-searching associated with the role. He’s happy endlessly polishing glasses even in a life or death crisis. His inability to handle the complexity of human ethics puts the only two humans awake on the spaceship in near-murderous conflict. He isn’t programmed to deal with the complex set of circumstances before him. It isn’t supposed to happen – like the Titanic sinking.

Pure Hollywood fiction?

This is just a Hollywood film. I wonder. If you worked in total secrecy at NASA and were uneasy about some of the ethical decisions and directions being taken, how would you handle it? Get the US President to speak to the people like they do in the alien and apocalypse movies? It always causes widespread panic and rioting.

Gracious. The President-elect is causing enough worldwide consternation by his very appointment. If I were in NASA, I would get Hollywood to explore scenarios. Come to think of it, there’s quite a glut of space movies of late.

The New World

Space exploration is exciting. It’s the new frontier, the New World all over again. Leaving planet Earth even with thousands of first-class passengers would mean leaving billions of ‘second- and third-class’ human beings behind.

We still don’t know enough about the long-term health effects on astronauts - usually the fittest among us. I noted that an astronaut died of cancer at Christmas. We do know that the best international scientific expertise and resources are devoted to exploring how we could live and survive in space.

Space colonies sound like a Kennedy PR exercise given that the world’s problems are piling up. Why are the world’s best brains working on them?

Priorities?

What about making global warming solutions and feeding an ever-growing world population on Earth the major international priorities? The World’s population is estimated at between 7.4 and 7.5 billion as I type. The United Nations predicts that it could reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and over 11 billion by 2100. In a March 2016 article for the BBC, David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London said:

“It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – 

but the number of consumers and

 the scale and nature of their consumption’.

What about sorting out the United Nations or creating a new global body so that no rogue nation can threaten global security with the technology that we have already got?

I know, I know. I’m daydreaming. Passengers is just a Hollywood movie. 

Still, it’s alarming to be a Passenger on Planet Earth in Third Class locked out of the cockpit. People are questioning the new Captain’s suitability and motives to handle the dark times ahead. Artificial Intelligence may end up rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic*.

*rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic
Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Thesaurus definition: used for saying that someone is wasting time dealing with things that are not important, and is ignoring a much more serious problem.

Karen Andrews is a freelance French to English translator, transcreator, content writer and editor. She has a strong background in marketing and project management.

Email Karen for further information via karenanglicityen@gmail.com in French, German or English.

Ice and the Sky Review

The cinema was as desolate as the Antarctic wastes in the film. Apparently, London’s expat French community had already headed home for Christmas. I had come to see the Luc Jacquet’s stunning Ice and the Sky at the French Institute’s Ciné Lumière. The quiet cinema only served to heighten my appreciation of the often lonely figure of Claude Lorius on screen.

COP21 release

This film was released to coincide with COP21, the 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris. The French glaciologist, Claude Lorius spent over 10 years of his life in extreme conditions. He went on 22 polar expeditions between 1957 and 1985.

The film's French name is La Glace et le Ciel 

Lorius at all ages

Ice and Sky tells the story of his life and groundbreaking climate research. It combines old film footage with beautiful shots of Antarctica. We see Claude Lorius as an enthusiastic young adventurer. We see teams of scientists drilling into the ice and carefully packing the ice samples for later analysis. We see staged shots of the reflective old man, now aged 82/3.

Eureka

A scientist’s eureka moment is often mundane. An apple fell on Newton’s head. Hawking got his head stuck in a jumper. For Lorius, it was a piece of Antarctic ice dropped into a glass of whiskey. He realised that the air bubbles released might tell a tale. 

Evidence

So it proved. There was evidence of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Evidence of man’s adverse effect on the planet could even be found in Antarctica’s virgin territory. He went on to sound the alarm on global warming and expose Man’s devastating impact on the world’s climate.

Painstaking accuracy

We hear of the scientist’s concern to record his findings accurately even in the bitterest cold. Removing your gloves to write is a painful experience in Antarctica.

Bitter pill

The old man on screen seemed sad and forlorn. His life’s work has been climatic in more ways than one. He has won prestigious awards for his research. And yet, the call for climate action has been hard. Awards become a bitter pill, if your research is not taken seriously.

Lost voice

In the film, he has no voice. His words are narrated or captured in old footage. A voice taken away as his findings were denied for so many years.

Critics

Film critics have slated Jacquet’s shot of Lorius up to his knees in water as manipulative. People only really understand research implications when they are presented visually. I’m sure those who had to wade through flood waters in Britain this Christmas get the picture.

Retrospective

At the end of 2014, I wrote my ambitious hopes for the world in Climate Change: seeking an impossible solution.  I also wrote about the Paris launch in COP21 World's Last Chance. My impression is that the UN climate talks delivered an agreement that was better than anticipated at this time last year.

Beauty and thought

Ice and Sky is a thought-provoking film. It has certainly provoked my thinking. Its cinematography was perhaps too beautifully French for its serious global message.

Epilogue?

The film deserves an epilogue. We should hear from Claude Lorius on camera, and in his own voice, how he feels about his life’s work following COP21 – and hopefully see him smile.

COP21: World's Last Chance

"We are counting on you!" so said the children in a video clip shown at the Élysée Palace. France staged its COP21 launch in Paris today. The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. The COP21 conference is the world's last chance to save the planet.

There was no mincing of words in Paris this morning. No more disputing whether climate change is happening. No more quibbling over how many degrees are necessary to stabilise the planet.

The world must act.

180 nations must commit and act cooperatively together. No more "we'll start next year". "Later" will be too late. Failure cannot be on the COP21 agenda.

COP21 is not about saving pretty little butterflies. It is not about saving cute animals. It is about saving mankind.

Our children will hate us for failure. Our descendants would hate us for all eternity... except if COP21 fails they won't be around to hate us.

The key to success at COP21 is telling the truth about climate change. The refugee crisis has given us a mere taster of the human agony of mass migration.

Climate change will hit the weakest nations the hardest... those with the weakest voice at the negotiating table. It calls on the more powerful nations to be magnanimous. The key word of COP21 must be "solidarity".

Short-term, blinkered, self-interested deals will ultimately rebound. They will condemn us all to share the same dire fate.

All eyes will be on Paris for two weeks in this massive conference at Le Bourget. The French are keen to set the world an example. The conference itself is to be a massive exercise in sustainability. All participants will be invited to use public transport to keep the conference's carbon footprint as low as possible. French gastronomy will be on offer with a keen eye on reducing food waste.

Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, will host 1,000 world mayors. They will seek not only to share local ideas but ways to act together. Their plans and actions should help us to understand what this global conference will mean for us on a more local level.

The most striking comment quoted at the launch came from a Moroccan woman: 

"You are going to decide who will live or die..."

 

If world leaders take short-cuts for short-term popularity at COP21, the consequences will be enormous. They should bear in mind that they will effectively be signing a greater number of death warrants. Every now and again, they should check their consciences by looking at the young conference helpers around them.

There are tough choices ahead - choices many ordinary citizens couldn't bear to contemplate. We have to place our trust in our leaders to become the statesmen demanded by our planet's crisis.

We'll be watching and counting on them.