Human’s Star Gemma Chan Presents A.I Documentary For Channel 4
Channel 4 today announced it has has commissioned a one off, 60 min, documentary presented by Human’s Star Gemma Chan, exploring the world of A.I., and examining how close we are to real synths.
Called ‘How to Build a Human‘ the show actually went as far as to create a ‘Gemmabot’ – a unique experiment to create a ground-breaking robot that thinks, talks and looks just like the Humans star… And I can say from personal experience, it’s quite convincing…
In order to create ‘Gemmabot’, you will see the real Gemma undergo a gruelling range of cutting edge procedures including an entire head cast to build the machine to her exact dimensions, as well as 3D scanning to determine her facial speech patterns and hours of voice record recognition. Her simulated ‘brain’, body and voice, each created by individual pioneering A.I experts in their field, are then be combined to create the finished android and revealed to Gemma. She then goes on to attempt to convince journalists that they are interviewing her, and not in fact the Gemmabot, at a fake press junket… I mean… Who would fall for that… *ahem*… Moving on…
As part of her journey Gemma also ventures further into the ambit of A.I and while everyday autonomous technology like Siri, and online shopping apps continue to govern our lives. She will also be investigating progressive advances, such as driverless cars and breakthrough medical procedures, which are on the cusp of infiltrating them too.
Along the way she meets many of the most renowned names in the business and the greatest minds of our generation, including Demis Hassibis, the founder of DeepMind, (bought by Google) who sit on both sides of the moral and ethical artificial intelligence debate.
Is it a safe and foolproof path to a bright and booming future? Or by pushing machinery that can eradicate many of our most human reasons for being are we sleepwalking towards a dangerous threat to our very existence?
If you’re a fan of Geektown, you really should watch… (i’d say more but i don’t want to get in trouble with the synths…) ;)
How to Build a Human will air on Channel 4 later in October.
