Ghost in the Machine review – entertaining AI polemic delves into its dark history in racial politics and eugenics | Video

DIrector Valerie Veatch made her name with writings such as Beloved Child (about an online gaming family whose son died of malnutrition) and Me at the Zoo (about American vlogger Cara Cunningham), films that explore the intersection of real-world communities and online communities. His latest in this way, although his self-made investments are big, fast and smart for everyone at the moment: the search for artificial intelligence, his dark history in eugenics are things that can be discussed today (even if the market bubble pushes the company’s price half a dozen into the stratosphere).

The plot of the film is very complex, which leads the viewer to AI-doubt one persuasive sound at a time. However, it also serves as a very useful, straightforward introduction to the history of AI, involving a wide variety of brilliant, often insane figures, including the Victorian British theologian Francis Galton, Silicon Valley founding father and racist William Shockley and today’s jillionaire Elon Musk. Sadly, the film wasn’t so recent that it focuses on Musk and his former friend-turned-nemesis Sam Altman in a recent court battle, but that doesn’t detract from Veatch’s opinion and interviewees.

As a group, the interviewees are a strange group, from philosophers such as Johnathan Flowers, who question in detail whether we need AI at all, to the linguist Emily M Bender, who explains the origin of the word AI, (I really like) the historian of Silicon Valley Becca Lewis, who explained a little better about the history of Silicon Valley. That said, sometimes it’s all a little tight, like a university lecture with old folders instead of PowerPoint slides, and sometimes it would work better for a longer piece of journalism, with more information in key areas. For example, interviews with employees at an LLM company in Nairobi do not clearly describe how their work affects them.

A very interesting tool is to have large, Helvetica-font letters in the upper right corner, letting the viewer know if what we are seeing is AI or NOT AI, because, Veatch saysmost people can’t tell the difference anymore.