What would happen if there were a machine that looked human, but could remember every word you ever said? AMC’s new show “Humans” offers us a chance to find out.
—
One reader will win $2,500 by commenting on this or the other GMP “HUMANS” articles! See the bottom of this post for the Rafflecopter button – leave a comment and then confirm by clicking through on the Rafflecopter button.
We all know human memory is selective. What we remember—and how closely it reflects the truth—is affected by many factors, including our awareness level, our biases and our emotional state at the time. When objectivity and perfect accuracy are required, as they are in the sports arena or the courtroom, we rely on cameras or recording devices for instant replay and multiple perspectives. But in our homes and our personal relationships, we don’t have referees or court reporters, and we don’t have cameras filming and recording our every move. We have only our (mostly) well-meaning flawed human ability to recall and retell.
Now imagine your home has a new inhabitant—a robot. An artificial intelligence embedded in a human-like form. You’ve brought the robot in to help with housework, cooking, all the chores that take away from time you can enjoy with your family. The robot is programmed to do what you ask, but it—or more like she or he—is more than a machine that completes your tasks in the most efficient way possible. Your robot thinks, reacts, and responds. She asks questions and anticipates your needs. “Do you have anything that needs to go to the cleaners today?” She has conversations with you about the weather, current events, your health, your kids’ homework. She even seems to have a sense of humor.
But what if your robot also had a perfect memory and stored an accurate recall of what you and the other members of your family say and do in front of her? You could ask her if your son promised to do his homework yesterday when he denies it, or whether your daughter said she would be home by ten o’clock when she insists it was eleven. In the game of “he said, she said” with your partner, you could turn to the robot as the arbiter of truth.
In AMC’s ground-breaking new eight-part drama series, Humans, you will meet Anita (uncannily played by Gemma Chan), a highly developed, artificially intelligent servant called a Synth, and watch as the Hawkins family learns how to interact with her. Joe Hawkins (Tom Goodman-Hill) introduces Anita to his household to give him and his wife Laura (Katherine Parkinson) the time they desperately need to reconnect and reignite the passion in their strained marriage. But Laura quickly realizes there’s something different about Anita—something not right.
Humans explores how a new human-like presence affects a family and their dynamic. It asks us to imagine having something that is supposed to be near-perfect in our homes.
How would they change our parenting and our marriage or relationship?
Would Synths hold parents and partners to a higher standard, given the robot’s ability to call them on their lies—intentional or accidental? Would we modify our behavior knowing we’re effectively being watched? Would our memory improve and our brains work harder to piece together what actually happened? Or would the robot serve more as a memory aid, the way a calculator frees us from performing mathematical calculations, causing our memory to atrophy because we no longer need to use it?
Given a Synth’s intelligence and her ability to learn, would she remain completely objective, or would she begin to form opinions and judgments about one or more family members that influence the narrative she presents as fact? She might, for example, learn to characterize a couple’s argument in a certain way to give an advantage to one partner or the other.
In creating Humans, AMC takes us into a futuristic world that is also a parallel present, a world that seems far away but could be just around the corner, a world that forces us to confront what defines our humanity.
We’ve often heard people use the expression, “I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that house.” Robots like Synths would be much more than flies. They would be flies with eye-cameras and the ability to speak. Knowing how humanity uses technology, it’s hard to know whether the robots we’re talking about here would encourage us to be more honest, forthright, and direct, or whether we would use our own intelligence to find new ways to manipulate and outwit the robots or simply use them to our own personal advantage. AMC’s Humans helps us explore these very questions.
–
Watch the series premiere of Humans Sunday, June 28 at 9/8c on AMC.
This post was written in partnership with AMC
–
Readers also have the opportunity to win $2,500 during the week of June 21 to June 28. Fans are encouraged to post their thoughts here, on the four HUMANS posts on The Good Men Project, and one comment will be chosen at random for the grand prize.
Read the rest of our authors’ thoughts and insights about HUMANS and the future of robots, and see more exciting trailers from this groundbreaking series:
Synthetic Love, Could a Human Fall In Love With a Robot? by Lisa Hickey
Do Androids Dream of Informed Consent? by Harris O’Malley
Could a Race of Highly Intelligent Robots Teach Us About Our Own Prejudices? by Anne Thériault
I can’t wait for humanoid robots. I never thought I’d say that, but having seen the premier of ‘Humans’, and watched ‘Ex Machina’, I welcome their arrival.
Some of us suffer from very bad loneliness, through no fault of our own, and this could be a wonderful thing for people like me. I also think of all the elderly folks who live alone. A robot could really improve their outlook.
I look forward to more episodes of this show, and exploring it’s world more. It is, thus far, a world I wouldn’t mind living in.
Let’s start with the premise that in our age old quest to reduce the time and energy it takes us to complete redundant, unpleasant but necessary household tasks there is great perceived value in a Synth addition to any family. Imagine complete delegation of all drudgery! Adoption of this technology would be high (although whether or not the market would PREFER human-resemblance is uncertain.) Based on our historical adoption and dependency on fragile but powerful technology I predict post-adoption DEPENDENCE at all-time highs when it comes to physical labor. But the question makes the extraordinary assumption that this tech will… Read more »
Whoa. The craziest part is, while we’re all watching this show of humans watching robots watching humans, we are totally being watched, too!! … where does it end?! oh where does it end!!!???!! : )
AI is problematic to the exact extent it resembles humanity, with all of our vices and prejudice.
The mind is like a computer, we just don’t know how to harness our potential, yet….
It’s an interesting concept…..Could you imagine? Before you have ‘real’ relationships [relationships with other homo sapiens sapiens] you go through training with synths to iron out all of your eccentricities?
This show most definitely looks intriguing.
Show definitely has an interesting premise. I liked the point in this article about memory atrophy when we become dependent on technology to perform tasks or store information. I can definitely attest to that when it comes to phones. Used to have everyone’s phone numbers memorized by heart and today, with the advent of cell phones, I couldn’t hardly tell you anyone’s numbers. Phones, calculators, computers and other technology has made life more efficient but also seemed to work against us in people figuring things out for themselves.
I have a hard enough time with people in my house remembering MOST of what I say … not sure it’s a good thing for them to remember EVERYTHING I say!
This would be an interesting way for the robots to be used, but I feel like this would be entirely too logical. I don’t think humans would react to having the things they said and did presented to them with perfect recall like we think they would.
This answer to this question is always, always, always yes.
A synth would be a great addition to our house. We’re both in wheelchairs, both work full time professional jobs – and there is one truth… everything takes twice as long in a wheelchair. We have all the same household chores (shopping, laundry, yard work, cleaning) as everyone else.
Unfortunately, day-to-day living leaves us little time for each other, for our grown daughter or our teenage granson. A synth would go a long way towards solving the problem of “not enough time or energy”.
I have not seen the show, but I really dislike how robots are always put in very stereotypical roles. Robots that do work in the home look female, military robots look male, … I really wish we could get past the stereotypes, and why does the robot have to look human at all? I have little faith in humans, those designing synths may have the greatest intentions but there will always those that will use the technology for unsavory purposes. There would be individuals that would hack the synth, load it with malware, … Who would have access to the… Read more »
Yes, please.
I have become a bit fascinated about the potential of AI in our lives, first after seeing “Her,” which raised issues of what it means to be human, what we mean when we talk about love and intimacy, what sex is, and yes, how we can be so connected to and dependent on technology — especially technology that responds in loving ways and gives us exactly what we want — that we actually can have a romantic relationship with it. AI expert David Levy, author of “Love and Sex With Robots,” says that robots may not only be more lovable… Read more »
While I haven’t seen it, I already have an eerie feeling of foreboding. The state of being human is being imperfect, making mistakes, listening to lies and exacting our intuitions to discover these lies. With this automaton recording everything, it plays to this incessant need for people to want to keep and hold onto everything “just in case”. We lose our instincts, thinking everything is recorded and saved, and this can ultimately be lethal. This in itself, promotes mistrust as no one wants to say anything for fear of having it thrown back at them. I would say nothing in… Read more »
I think the concept is fascinating but likely a bit into the future. Still, it provides a glimpse of what the future may be.
I’m already banning all robots from my home.
A robot, as advanced as it could be, would only be a distorted reflection of what we are. Only if they would possess compassion, charity, love, emotions to understand and the capability to accept errors as a probability: Errors, faults and accidents will happen probability wise; you cannot avoid it. Do the least of them and learn the most from it, as that is the only real success.
is it bad that I am thinking on the dangerous side of it? I mean… don’t take e wrong… would AWESOME having a robot doing all my bidding etc… but have you not watched Terminator or any of it?!?! XD
Think there’s a series I might get hooked on soon…. 🙂
Very interesting concept
I just watched the 2nd episode and I really love the direction the show is going. I love the entire cast but I relate very much to Laura because I would feel exactly as she does if my family purchased a synth today (i.e creeped out).I’m not married so I couldn’t care about a synth disrupting a marriage but i’ll be worried the synth would diminish my role and “popularity” in the family amongst my siblings (like Anita does 😀 ). But it would be nice to have a synth help my Dad with his meds though!
As someone who values truth in 99% of situations, I think I’d be supportive of this change. I like being right, but also am fine acknowledging when I’m wrong. Having someone around who maintains an accurate record of a number of things could really help eliminate miscommunication in many instances and compel humans to tell the truth.
It is an interesting concept and closer to a reality than people think, I believe. I think the challenge is more regulation than anything. Once you have brothels full of these things, the government will want to make sure they are gettin scheduled oil changes and what-not.
This series gives us a lot to think about. What comes to mind is, “Be careful what you wish for.” While robots may be in our future, I think they’re probably best relegated to doing simple tasks that humans would rather not do. I can only imagine what would happen if they were to get involved in emotional intelligence. I believe they’d be a hindrance to our deeper relationships.
I’ve actually been curious about this concept for quite some time. Excited to see how the show unfolds.
Agree!