The Thinking Game (film)

There’s a scene in 2010: The Year We Made Contact that has stuck with me all this time. One character, Dr Chandra, is talking to a machine (SAL), and SAL responds in an interesting way about the meaning of a file name.

It’s from 1min 50sec in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2E7sxGAmuo

Chandra: I, er, would like to open a new file. Here is the name for it [types "Phoenix"]. Do you know what that means?

SAL-9000: There are 25 references in the current encyclopedia.

Chandra: Which one do you think is relevant?

SAL-9000: The tutor of Achilles?

Chandra: [Laughs] That's very interesting, I didn't know that one. Try again.

It was perhaps the first time I saw a depiction of a computer that wasn’t just like a Start Trek get-the-perfect-answer-first-time. There was something more interesting and subtle about the response. I felt AI would be more like that.

That memory jumped back into my mind when watching the opening to The Thinking Game. There, and sprinkled through the film, we see  Juliette Love chatting to Alpha (possibly part of Project Astra). Astra is a real-time assistant and, for example, it gets confused thinking it’s at an art museum when looking at pictures. It’s incredibly compelling—no doubt helped by some smart editing.

The whole film is inspirational. It’s not about that assistant: it’s the story of Demis Hassabis and DeepMind, and  the vision is to solve AI, and so unlock scientific progress. Such as finding a solution to the protein folding problem.

Do seek out a screening. I loved it.