I just watched don’t look up.
So I recently watched Don’t Look Up. This post has spoilers on the movie so if you want to watch it, stop reading because spoilers are ahead.
I couldn’t help see the parallels between the asteroid and Global Warming or The AI Apocalypse. I think the creators actually meant for this to happen which means they have reached their goal.
Because some people might not be interested in watching the movie I will provide a little bit of background on the plotline of the movie. The movie starts by two scientists discovering that a comet is heading towards earth and it will cause an extinction of all life on earth. The scientist try to meet with the president of the United States to tell her about this. However, she seems very disinterested in the fact that this is happening. She is more worried about getting reelected even though if the comet hits there is not going to be an election to be worried about. The reasoning for her is that she deals with “World threatening crysises” all the time and that most often than not it is not really what it is. After that the scientists leak the whole thing on the media but the reaction in the media is very mild. Which causes the PhD student to lose her shit and start shouting in the TV (Gretta Thumberg anyone?). After a long time of trying they manage to convince people that this is happening after that they devise a plan. However the plan is canceled at the last minute because the CEO of a big company says the comet includes a lot of rare earth minerals that can be mined. (130 Trillion dollars worth). They decide to let the comet come close and then break it down so that they can mine the smaller parts. It is shown that according to peer reviews this plan is not going to work and most scientist agree that this is not worth the risk. However in the end greed prevails and they manage to use media to control people and tell them to “Don’t Look Up” and ignore the comet. To my surprise the movie ended in a tragedy in the end the comet hits and everyone dies.
I liked this movie. It gave me lots of chills and something to think about. The main question that I have is that “Why didn’t the scientists band together?”. If most scientists agree that a certain threat is eminent and that everyone needs to do something about it, why didn’t they band together like a giant tribe and make a plan and execute it irrespective of what the government or anyone else was doing?. I mean the true power lies at the hands of the scientists not the government!
Then I thought why isn’t this true for the AI apocalypse or global warming? Why isn’t this talked about? Why is this so out of the question?
There is a huge difference between an obvious and confirmed extinction threat (in this case a comet on a collision course), climate change models (note that climate change is not an extinction-level threat and is not considered to be one by the experts), and conjectures that are being hotly debated by actual subject matter experts in the area (AI extinction risk). If there was anything like a way to test and verify models of AI-caused extinction, the debate would be unnecessary. In general, the movie, while capturing a lot of salient points of the sadly polarized modern discourse, is a left-wing propaganda, where the outgroup is portrayed as a caricature.
I really like the way you explained “If there was anything like a way to test and verify models of AI-caused extinction, the debate would be unnecessary.”Can you say more about how you define propaganda? I see this word used a lot and I’m often underwhelmed by its applicability.
That’s a good question! I guess in the local parlance it would be something like arguments as soldiers, where we try to convince the other side that we are right and they are wrong. Where accuracy matters less than “your side” winning. In this particular example, the movie writers/directors/producers stuck with the standard left anti-establishment anti-capitalism anit-billionaire ideology, without going into any nuanced analysis. Which is fine for a satire/parody, the way the film was apparently intended. I am by no means a film studies expert though, maybe I got it wrong.
Thank you for taking the time to explain that! I agree with your assessment that accuracy mattered less than the framing and conclusion of the movie. You’ve convinced me that propaganda was appropriate here.
Well, it’s fiction. There’s no information content about what did or would happen except some indication of what’s in the mind of the writers. The scientists didn’t band together because it wasn’t written that way.
It’s obviously intended as a very thin metaphor for climate change, and to the extent that there are other topics which you consider a civilizational risk and most people aren’t taking seriously (like AI), it applies to just as well.
Sadly, “just as well” is a pretty low bar—there are MASSIVE differences in visibility, timescale, and certainty between the movie asteroid and whatever risk you’re comparing it to. Enough that even if it weren’t all made up for entertainment purposes, it still wouldn’t teach us much about real behavior or options.
It was pretty funny, though.