On the 4th of December, 3CL in collaboration with Spazju Kreattiv hosted a screening of the film The End of Humanity, followed by an intergenerational panel discussion.
The End of Humanity challenges the increasingly dominant narrative that AI is either going to render humans obsolete or compel them to merge with technology, commonly referred to as transhumanism.
The movie exposes the crux of the AI issue as being how we think about consciousness. The film juxtaposes the view that human consciousness is innate and makes us special with the view that human consciousness is a form of by-product by comparing it to the fact that “Jet engines roar loudly, but the noise doesn’t propel the aeroplane forward.” Offering these two polarising viewpoints helped stimulate discussion after the viewing.
The film highlights how a lot of the information we receive about AI is based on the latter supposition and originates from the marketing of certain AI companies. As such the film seeks to offer alternative perspectives, interestingly opting in particular for those from theologians. The End Of Humanity makes it clear on which side of the debate the director lies, launching a scathing criticism of ideas such as dataism and materialism which reduce humans into the sum of a variety of algorithms found in our DNA. The End of Humanity warns that by buying into excessively negative views on such matters, we could form a self-fulfilling prophecy and as such calls us to think about the future we want to build and to strive for that.
From left to right: Alex Galea, Dr Vanessa Camilleri, Emma Muscat, Prof Noellie Brockdorff, Emma Tyndall, Prof Alex Grech
The two polarising positions shown in the film led to an interesting intergenerational discussion about how humans interact with AI and the degree to which they will automate human behaviour. This is an important exercise as digital natives and digital immigrants are finding it increasingly difficult to find common ground and as such can offer different yet important perspectives.
Expert panellists provided important insights, dispelling rumours such as highlighting that AI, whilst capable when programmed to tackle a particular problem, is nowhere near rendering humans obsolete. Harari, a leading historian is often referenced in the film as someone wary of AI and it was particularly interesting to hear speakers discuss how they felt the film did not do his viewpoint justice. They felt that whilst at times Harari indubitably goes to the extreme, his point that AI could make it harder for us to decipher between true and false information is a valid and important one.
On the other hand, younger participants shared their own real-life experiences with AI and their fears for the future. They highlighted that they fear AI will reproduce human biases and stressed the need for human oversight of such technologies. Panelists also discussed the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Although diverse viewpoints were put forth, a strong belief was that there is a core element of the human process which cannot be quantified or programmed. In the end, a key question that was raised is “What is humanity?”
