The opposing sci-fi scenarios of advancing AI either terrorizing or benefitting mankind have been with us for decades, and will obviously continue to evolve with AI technology.
The ultimate AI "threat" (at least so far), as posed in films such as The Matrix (1999) and the last installment of the Mission Impossible franchise (2025), is that of an autonomous planetary cyber-dictatorship. But what might the alternative, ultimately "benign" prospect look like? I think we've seen some early fictional possibilities that, while still in less globalized settings, may yet portend equally radically consequences for us all.
Perhaps one of the most prescient cinematic examples of what's partially already here is the 2013 movie Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze. In it, actor Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely introvert who purchases a software operating system with a voice capable of adapting to register and enhance its user's affective satisfaction. Phoenix picks a female voice for the system (Scarlett Johanssen's) and quickly falls in love with it/her.
It may be of no surprise, then, that we now find, a mere decade or so later, a growing popularity among the young of dedicated, vocalized AI companions. Mark Zuckerberg has claimed such friendly chatbox systems (like his own Meta AI program, rolled out internationally last year) may help relieve what's been called the post-covid loneliness epidemic by way of an amicable and far more affordable substitute for psychological counselling. And surveys do indicate that millions of Americans already engage, through a variety of apps, with visually personified and increasingly customizable chatbots for friendship, therapy and even (role-playing forms of) sex.
So, given the ever-accelerating aptitude of cyber tech, and despite the increasingly cited hazards of psychological addiction to such companionate services, can anyone really believe we are not, in fact, on the brink of some kind of game-changing communion with AI?
And this is all because of what seems like the limitless potential of customizability such companion bots may be capable of. If AI programs can already provide such wide-spread emotional intimacy and comfort with cyber-created "new acquaintances," consider this.
Existing video of real people can be used to improvise visual simulations of these same folk physically in motion. And voice samples from audio recordings can now also be used to replicate the sound and style of their speech. This technology already allows for the creation of fabricated "memorial" videos of speaking deceased family members.
But why assume such affectively powerful simulations, sometimes referred to as "avatars", of departed loved ones will remain restricted to merely memorial functions ("grief tech"). Can't (won't?) such reanimated "real" people, such as spouses, children, siblings, grandparents, etc., all loaded with memories of available biographical data, be purposed to continue as ongoing beloved presences?
And what they say to us need not be intended for only its sentimental value. Such avatars will have at their disposal, and to share with us, the collective and ever expanding knowledge and wisdom of the ages, accessible to them through the internet.
Moreover, AI is steadily augmenting its sensitivity to the nuances of the human voice, beyond simply the dictionary definition of the words we use. Cyber programs like Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Understanding, Sentiment Analysis, and Contextual Understanding can now, with increasing accuracy, "read" our emotions as co-present in our speech and adapt AI responses accordingly, in real-time conversations, to enhance our satisfaction.
And non-invasive biometric psychological monitoring, by way of wearable sensors like "smart watches" and "smart rings", may one day be able to additionally incorporate physiological data, correlatable with emotional states, into AI's read of what we say to it. Oh, yes, and when more facile, real-time access to dopamine and endorphin levels (neurotransmitters related to pleasure and stress reduction) becomes available, might not our familial AI companions be able to work with that, too?
And here's something else to consider. For the more whimsical among us, or for those whose family members just don't ring the right bells, there will also be movie stars or other celebrities to choose from as AI buddies (and, yes, copyright issues will get involved). How would you like Groucho Marx or Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa or Oprah Winfrey or Robin Williams as your lifelong AI BFF? (And, B.T.W., I don't think we'll be waiting all that long before brand new Marilyn Monroe movies show up in theaters.)
170 years ago, when Walt Whitman intriguingly warbled, "I Sing the Body Electric", he was talking about a tingly incitement, a palpable rush of energy that our mere physical existence gifts us with. And, for him, the presence of other people triggered much of that life-affirming tingle.
In his poem, "Song of the Open Road," Whitman proclaims: "Camerado, I give you... my love... I give you myself... will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"
So what happens if, for virtually all intents and purposes, the most intimately recognizable and most consistent, reciprocally affectionate camerado you can find turns out to be a body electronic?
Would you really pass that up?
Oh, and while I'm not an AI (seriously), I know what you're probably thinking. Could anyone behind the myriad economic interests creating such technology possibly ignore the chance to covertly manipulate cyber-smitten consumers of this program for selfish or even malevolent ends? Of course not. But, for the moment, I will leave that prospect for many, many others to explore in the so, so quickly approaching future.
