??Humans?? is a top-notch show about artificial intelligence
Source: Rob Lowman
Pixie Davies as Sophie Hawkins and Gemma Chan as Anita - Humans _ Season 1, Episode 1 - Photo Credit: Des Willie/Kudos/AMC/C4
Summer continues to bring new provocative and entertaining series, and AMC’s latest could be the best of them. On the surface, “Humans” may seem like just another story playing on our fears of the rise of artificial intelligence.
We’ve heard that plot before, but it’s not simply science fiction. Late last year, even Stephen Hawking, one of world’s greatest scientific minds, told the BBC, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
All you have to do is look at the past two decades to realize technology is moving so quickly today (and accelerating) that it’s almost impossible to understand the changes it is bringing, both on a simple scientific level and more profound psychological and social ones.
The cleverly conceived “Humans” subtly speculates on where mankind might be going within an absorbing thriller-mystery. Set in a parallel world to our own, it envisions a nearly imperceptible rise of artificial intelligence, unlike, say, “Terminator,” where androids make a violent jailbreak and try to wipe out humans.
In the series, “Synths” (short for synthetics) have become the new luxury appliance for the home. The AIs have already taken over many of the jobs in the service sector, from fruit pickers to in-home care providers, like the one that William Hurt’s Dr. George Millican has named Odi (Will Tudor).
Once an engineer on the original Synth project, the retired George has kept Odi well beyond his past-due date, and the “nanny police state” wants him to upgrade to a new model that will monitor his diet and give him a fitness regime. (Don’t we have watches for that now?)
But George, while understanding Odi is a machine, can’t bring himself to part with his Synth because they share memories of his deceased wife. Oscar winner Hurt brings a lovely nuanced performance to George, illustrating the complicated, conflicted nature man has always had with machines.
George’s story is only one thread in “Humans.” The driving point of the plot is the hunt for a handful of Synths who appear to have achieved humanlike consciousness.
One of them is Anita (Gemma Chan). She has been purchased by Joe Hawkins (Tom Goodman-Hill), a working parent, to help take care of his family when his wife, Laura (Katherine Parkinson), extends her business trip.
By the time Laura returns, Joe and the rest of the family ― teens Mattie (Lucy Carless) and Toby (Theo Stevenson) and the youngest, Sophie (Pixie Davies) ― have grown to enjoy Anita’s efficiency. Laura, though, is a bit resentful, having been replaced in some ways, though you sense the responsibilities of parenthood weigh on her. She also may have hit the “uncanny valley” with Anita (beautifully played by Chan). It’s the theory that says people’s responses to robots will shift from empathy to revulsion the more closely they resemble humans.
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Mattie, though, sees Anita as simply a reminder that Synths can do things better than humans. Why bother studying seven years to be a brain surgeon, she bitterly reasons, when there will be a Synth by then to do it? Kind of like why learn math when we have calculators, only on a grander scale.
Meanwhile, Professor Edwin Hobb (Danny Webb), a Synth scientist, is on the trail of this core group of Synths, whom he fears because they have become unpredictable by showing emotions and having free will. Trying to protect the Synths is Leo (Colin Morgan), a mysterious figure who seems to be in love with Anita.
Another of the AIs who has achieved human characteristics is Niska (Emily Berrington). She is hiding out as one of the providers in a sex club.
Read about emerging technologies, and a lot of things in “Humans” don’t seem that far away; certainly it’s a more plausible future world than genetically reintroduced dinosaurs or comic book aliens.
The show even brings up “the singularity,” a concept first mentioned in 1958. Somewhat simplistically, it is the point where artificial intelligence surpasses the ability for humans to comprehend it. Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts the singularity will occur around 2045.
It’s likely that many of us may be too busy looking at some screen or watch or hologram to notice. However, before that happens, check out “Humans,” adapted from a Swedish show by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, the writers of the British spy series “Spooks.” “Humans,” which already has been a smash in England, is top-notch television.
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