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uk Tuesday 02 January 2018 Advertisement The Machine: director interview Ian Douglas talks to Caradog James, the director, and Caity Lotz, star of a new British film, The Machine, that explores the consequences of sentient artificial intelligence The Machine The Machine Ian Douglas By Ian Douglas 7:00AM GMT 21 Mar 2014 Follow Caity Lotz is an artificial intelligence in the process of coming alive.
 There are guns and disasters throughout her turn in new release The Machine, yet she’s optimistic about a future where the robots live among us.
 "I think artificial intelligence is not just possible, but inevitable.
 I don’t think there will be robots like my character straight away, but rather humans will slowly start to merge with computers and technology cyborg style," she says.
 The setting for the film is the near future, in a military laboratory staffed by scientists working hard for a better future for wounded soldiers.
 Amputees and brain injury patients mill about in the background, responding to their new neuroprostheses.
 "We already see people running marathons with prosthetic limbs, next instead of Lasik we’ll pop in new eyeballs with x-ray vision, print out organs to replace a failing one, have Google and a smart phone installed in our brains," says Lotz.
 "We invented cars and planes to break past our physical limitations, so it seems logical we will break past our mental limitations as well.
" The scientists had reached the limit of what they could do with implants and additions so they create The Machine, Lotz’s character, an AI created from a scan of a human brain that I can’t tell you about for fear of dropping spoilers.
 The conflict between this new intelligence and the military urge to exploit it are what gives the film its tension, but Lotz and Caradog James, director and writer, agree that the real life version of events is likely to be more peaceful.
 "I spent almost a year reading every book that I could on artificial intelligence, robotics, I even struggled through a couple of books on quantum mechanics," admits James.
 "All of which was groundwork for what was the key to the story which was a meeting with a scientist who was actually building a mind machine.
 Related Articles 16 Mar 2014 16 Mar 2014 15 Mar 2014 25 May 2014 11 Mar 2014 "Because I’d done so much reading on the subject he opened up to me during the day we’d spent together he could see I wasn’t trying to make another fantasy movie but base it in the science.
 He explained that their AI project began by mapping a worm brain, then a mouse brain, and when I spoke to him they were in the process of mapping a chimp brain.
 "Obviously my writer’s imagination said if they’re mapping a chimp brain then a human brain is next.
 If there’s an exact copy of a human brain that shares information in the same way, that plans and thinks and hopes, what’s the difference between the organic computer and the virtual model that’s an exact copy.
 "The other thing he said that I found fascinating and helped me find the emotional heart of the story, their AI, now, currently, they’re helping that to interact with the world in a very similar way to they way severely brain damaged or severely autistic kids are being taught to interact with the world.
 "When I came to work with Caity I had a clear idea in my mind that there should be an accelerated progression of the machine’s age.
 She should be a young child, six or seven, in the early scenes, then rapidly go to say 12, then 16, then a slightly more jaded adult character, and feel that journey through the film.
 During rehearsals with Caity we spent a long time with me charting that growth.
 I’d say I want you to be this age and how that could be expressed, how she could play it, how trusting she’d be or how suspicious she’d be and it was her reaction to the other characters.
 A computer’s never going to be like a human three-year-old but in terms of their understanding of other people, it was filtered through her reactions.
 "My personal feeling is that the idea of the singularity, the moment when machines start designing machines and we get left behind, the reason why I’m hopeful about all that, when we get to that stage the line between machines and people will be very blurred.
 It’s not a giant leap from Google Glass to something that clips behind your ear and gives you a better memory.
 Then a quick operation and it’ll be under your skin and no one will see it.
 This technology will fuse with us in subtle ways.
 If someone said to me we’ll give you this perfectly safe little chip that goes in the base of your neck and then you’ll be able to speak ten languages, I’d seriously consider that.
 Perfect recall?
 Sign me up.
 It’d be fantastic.
" Lotz agrees.
 She said: ‘I think AI won’t be something separate from us but integrated into us.
 Or maybe that’s just what I’m hoping so machines like my character don’t annihilate the human race with a blink of a laser beam eye.
 But if it is the case, here’s hoping that the machines are kinder than we have been to the lesser intelligent beings we share the planet with.
’ The Machine is in cinemas and video on demand services on March 21 and on DVD/Blu-ray March 31 March Technology Topics In Technology» Galaxy S4: Samsung launches new smartphone that takes the fight to Apple Galaxy S4 in pictures Read more from Telegraph Technology Home-made in China Fifty-year-old farmer Chen Lianxue with his homemade plane on the roof of his house in Qifu village of Pingliang, Gansu province, China.
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