Wider Than The Sky

SYNOPSIS

What does Sasha Waltz’s contemporary dance company have in common with robots controlled by A.I. at ETH in Zürich? Apparently, nothing. Looking more closely though, we discover how scientists “train” their algorithms with thousands of virtual robots who learn and improve by trial and error, like the dancers. Or just like scientists at the Human Brain Project, trying to create the first complete map of the human brain with the help of a powerful A.I. which is inspired… by the human brain itself.

The film unveils surprising facets of artificial intelligence, from secretive “black-box” corporations to artists creating in collaboration with generative A.I., from world champions racing against A.I.-driven drones to human-like robots that claim to have feelings: as bits and pieces of our “soul” are mapped and transferred, we realize the human brain is no longer the only one to be wider than the sky. In this disturbing scenario, artists and scientists share their dream of growing a truly open, transparent A.I. and work together for a better future for humanity.

DIRECTOR’S NOTES

We have maps of the Earth detailed to the centimeter. Maps of the universe a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. We have precise maps of everything… except our own brains.

Now, for the first time, we are getting closer to creating a 3D map of what is said to be the most complex object in the universe: the human brain.  For years, a large international community of neuroscientists, the Human Brain Project (HBP) has been cooperating on this gigantic task.

Charting unknown territories though, is risky: maps can also be used for starting wars of conquest, establishing possession and exploitations. The development of A.I. owes a lot to what we are discovering about the human brain. But what if we find that this technology helps perfect AI tools for political and social control, giving a privileged few a sort of God’s view on everything? What if it helps concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands? What if it makes war even more deadly?

Artificial Intelligence is already being used to build up a power divide we never saw before in history. Its indiscriminate use could create a dehumanized world of mice and men, where humans who oppose the prevailing power are forced to live underground, deprived of almost everything to avoid being detected. This is not some distant sci-fi prophecy, it’s the recent past: in Gaza, A.I. systems were used for cross-referencing billions of data to locate Hamas fighters and estimating “allowed” civilians’ casualties, in order to kill them without the need for human evaluation on a case-by-case basis.

H.G. Wells once said that our civilization is engaged in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. A black box society, where obscure algorithms and technologies govern our lives, could tip the balance towards disaster. “Wider than the Sky” made me aware of the real nature of A.I.: presenting it just as a technological miracle is part of the lie that justifies its privatisation. The truth is instead where no one is looking, in a completely opposite dimension. A.I. would be nothing without all the knowledge humans created in our history: it belongs to all of humanity, exactly because of this deep spiritual origin. We should stop using the adjective “artificial” and call it perhaps “collective intelligence” instead.

We already have a great model for this: scientists and artists collaborate in international teams by exchanging experiences and knowledge openly, without any other affiliation than that of the human race, without any other purpose than the good of humanity.

As this collective mind blossoms, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Wider Than the Sky” reveals to us the unfathomable dimension of what we are creating. We see artificial intelligences hallucinate, dream, write poetry… surprising us on increasingly human territories. Just like in a mirror.