Loneliness has now been labelled a disease for those over sixty, which can accelerate other more life threatening diseases. However it’s not confined to the elderly. So many of us are now living alone, isolated by technology, increased income, breakdown of relationships or simply by choice.
Addressing loneliness on film is something we, in the creative industry must do. It is becoming more and more of an issue in our modern world. The film “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks is a film about the impact of isolation on us. we don’t need to be on uninhibited island, to understand the effect of being alone in our now busy, technological world, but it is that technology, which is the danger drawing us into even more unnatural isolation.
There was an newspaper article I read this week about a new alarming phonomenon – “There are increasing reports of people suffering “AI psychosis”, Microsoft’s head of artificial intelligence (AI), Mustafa Suleyman, has warned.” People interacting so much with their chatbots (ChatGPT, Grok) that they were following advice and having serious discussions with a machine. It is like having another person in your life. An antidote to feeling alone?
So is your machine a blessing, or a curse? And what if the machine is now an option in human form, a humanoid robot?
Currently I am making a film- ANDY- on the subject. I wrote and developed it and we are 60% completed on a micro budget, paused while seeking the money to complete. I play an older woman, who gets a companion after her husband, suffering from Alzheimers, is moved into a nursing home. The companion is an AI humanoid robot, which leads to sometimes humorous, sometimes not, complications. However Andy defintely fills an emotional hole in her life.
There are plenty of films about AI and robots and AI robots interacting with humans. So why another one? Because I do think we have and are creating a great danger to human life, just as Professor Stephen Hawking predicted. With the algorithms and now quantum physics, who will be in charge? AI – or us humans?
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