Creative Responses to Artficial Intelligence

Murray ShanahanDept. of Computing

Imperial College London

@mpshanahan

Disclaimer

2

This is not my day jobWhich is

Artificial intelligence researchComputational neurodynamics

3

Ex Machina

Oxford University Press, 2010

First Contact

Promoting the Film

Q&A with Alex Garland at YouTube screening, 20/1/15

6

Academic Impact Case Study

7

REF publication Writer / director Screenplay Movie Oscar

Everyone Asks Me about Ex Machina

8

Visit to Longquan Monastery, Beijing, 2016

They want to hear about your role in Ex

Machina

The Easter Egg

9

A reddit Thread

10

A Github Repository

11

A PEP8 Compliant Version

12

13

Philosophical implications

ConsciousnessIn Ex Machina, Caleb is at first told that he is to be the human component in a Turing TestThe subject is Ava, a robotCaleb notes that, in a true Turing Test “the machine should be hidden from the examiner”Nathan responds

14

“The real test is to show you she is a robot. Then see if you still feel she has

consciousness.”

We could call this the Garland Test

Purposeful Behaviour

15

“Only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations, it sees … it is

conscious or unconscious”

Similarly

Let’s dissect the concept of consciousnessWittgenstein (PI §281) says

Only against a backdrop of purposeful behaviour do we speak of consciousness

Aspects of ConsciousnessWe associate consciousness with a whole bundle of psychological attributesThese normally come together in humans, but could occur separately in an AI

16

Awareness of the worldCognitive integration

Awareness of selfThe capacity for suffering

Empathy

A Checklist for Ava

17

Awareness of the worldCognitive integration

Awareness of selfThe capacity for suffering

Empathy

✓✓✓

?✓

Ava (Alicia Vikander)

“The real test is to show you she is a robot. Then see if you still feel she has

consciousness.”

The Last WordIn the Ex Machina script there’s a direction that didn’t make it to the final cut of the film

18

“Facial recognition vectors flutter around the pilot’s face. And when he opens his mouth to speak, we don’t hear words. We hear pulses of monotone noise. Low pitch.

Speech as pure pattern recognition.This is how Ava sees us. And hears us.

It feels completely alien.”

So the film leaves open the possibility that Ava is not conscious after all, or not in the familiar sense

19

Random International

Rain Room

20

Swarm Study

21

Fifteen PointsFifteen Points is Random International’s most recent work

Fifteen Points shows how easily we interpret human-like behaviour as evidence that “someone is there”

Ex Machina suggests that it could be hard to tell the difference between consciousness and mimicry

The key is always more interaction

22

Fifteen Points (Random International)

Conscious Exotica (Aeon)

23

Credit: Richard Wilkinson / Aeon

24

The Space of Possible Minds

Crustaceans

SpidersInsects

Mammals

Birds Reptiles

FishCephalopods

Protostomes Deuterostomes

Not to scale

Extraterrestrialintelligence

Artificialintelligence

Bio-machineHybrids

Consciousness in the SoPM

25

10

00 10

Today’srobots & AI

Animals

Human-levelAGI / ETI

Our“mind children”

Hum

an-li

kene

ss

Capacity for consciousness

Consciousexotica

The Void of Inscrutability

In ConclusionThanks to my role in Ex Machina I’ve been involved as scientific advisor to

Random International

Nick Payne’s Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse

Akram Khan dance company

AI is likely to have a huge impact on our lives and the arts are bound to respond to it

Cross-disciplinary interaction with the arts is intellectually stimulating and fun

26