If you thought creative jobs like acting would be among the last to be taken over by AI-powered robots, think again, as ‘b’, the world’s first film to feature an AI robot in the lead role was just announced.
The upcoming film, which reportedly revolves around “a scientist who discovers dangers associated with a program he created to perfect human DNA and helps the artificially intelligent woman he designed (Erica) escape,” stars Erica, a humanoid robot powered by artificial intelligence which is also conveniently immune to the highly contagious novel coronavirus.
Developed by Japanese scientists Hiroshi Ishiguro and Kohei Ogawa as part of their robotics studies, Erica was taught to act by applying the principles of method acting to artificial intelligence.
“In other methods of acting, actors involve their own life experiences in the role,” Sam Khoze, a producer and writer on the film, told The Hollywood Reporter. “But Erica has no life experiences. She was created from scratch to play the role. We had to simulate her motions and emotions through one-on-one sessions, such as controlling the speed of her movements, talking through her feelings and coaching character development and body language.”
With an advertised budget of $70 million, ‘b’ will likely not be some obscure short film done solely to tick the “world’s first film with an AI-powered lead” checkbox. We’ll have to wait until at least 2021 to see how the movie turns out, but the concept is definitely an intriguing one.
