Superintelligence is a comedy that is easy to watch and not stressful, but it also provides insights into the lives and perspectives of people in the present era.
Humans blame the world for changing and ruining so much because of the technology being incorporated into our daily lives, using it in the wrong way, until finally it slowly destroys our world. It’s like they forget that the people who created technology and the people who use it in the wrong way are humans.
Superintelligence
This film was released in 2020 and directed by Ben Falcone, the director of famous films such as Tammy, Thunder Force and many more. Although this film seems to be a film title that is more likely to be in the genre of technology, robots or sci-fi fantasy than a comedy with morality, this film uses technology such as AI to insert humanity (that humans should have) in an interesting way.
The film has symbols inserted and hinted at us little by little, so that the viewers can think along and try to find the answers to those symbols. If you look at the characters, dialogues, and presentation, you will clearly see that this film is not a science fiction fantasy film at all.
Synopsis
The main character of the story is a woman named Carol, played by Melissa McCarthy. Carol used to work in a high-ranking position at Yahoo. Although she was making a living in her career, she felt that she was not happy at all. She left because she thought she wanted to do more in the world, something that would help society and have real meaning.
“Working for a non-profit, even if you don’t get paid, you’ll get to meet good friends.”
After she quit, she chose to do social work, non-profit work, whether it was teaching underprivileged children or finding homes for stray dogs. When she went to interview for a job at a company her friend recommended, they weren’t even interested in her social work, because they were only interested in how to make the most profit. She just thought that they were too different from her, and that this wasn’t what she wanted.
The next morning, she wakes up to a call from someone. Shockingly, it’s not a human. It calls itself Superintelligence (SI) and is voiced by James Corden. It can insert itself into all of Carol’s electrical devices and tells her that it’s based on Carol’s consciousness. It wants to study humanity to decide whether to help it lead to a better world, enslave it to control it better, or destroy it all and reset the world back to the beginning.
“Humans are obsessed with thinking about what is right and what is wrong simply because it is an artificial social law.”
SI (in this article, we will use the abbreviation SI) gave Carol $10 million, paid off all her debts, bought a house, bought a car, and established a foundation in Carol’s name. Although Carol didn’t want to accept any of the things it gave her because she thought these things were wrong, she couldn’t argue when it asked her why they were wrong. These were rules that humans set up themselves, and they decided that they were wrong, bad, and couldn’t do it. If you ask why they were wrong, it’s probably because of the laws, customs, and traditions that they set up.
“Don’t mind me, but you don’t seem to have anything special.”
A well-dressed clothing store clerk tells Carol when she arrives at his store: How funny is it that by saying “please don’t mind” you can say mean things to anyone without getting mad at them? It doesn’t make you look polite, and it makes you look like a coward to criticize someone but not admit it.
“With enough inspiration and enough money, we can do almost anything in a few hours.”
SI gives Carol the money, the socialite status, the clothes and the luxury cars to make her think she’s good enough to go back to her long-lost boyfriend, George (Bobby Cannavale). She nervously walks into a supermarket, says hi to him and asks him out for dinner. Of course, she’s always wanted to do this, and the money gives her the courage to go for it.
“A nice apartment, expensive shoes, or a fancy car are not necessary for me.”
When things are going well between Carol and George, she finds that she can’t keep him with her. He’s leaving for Ireland for his dream job, and she’s really happy for him. When things seem so far out of control, she tells SI that all she has right now is useless, and that she has to let George go for himself.
“To let him spend his last moments as happily as possible.”
On the day it decided to destroy the world after knowing that many governments and militaries were working together to eliminate it, it knew what humans were like from their actions. But Carol was the one who misled it. When the world was going to be destroyed in a few hours, she chose to run to George’s house, talk, dance, help pack for the trip. She didn’t even tell him about the end of the world. Instead of dying in fear, she wanted him to have the best time before he died.
What we learned from this story
In fact, this movie has been giving us hints since the character selection. They used a plump female character as the main actress to drive the story. She wants to change the world, change society, which led to the creation of SI because it is her own “awareness” that feels that our world is now a mess. The character hints from this movie are not finished because they still chose people of color and LGBTQ+ to be successful and classy. In this story, a woman becomes president with the right to decide and issue all orders.
Another clue that if you listen carefully, you will often hear the word “Old Fashion” from military, president, police, anti -SI factions . Old Fashion means old-fashioned, outdated, and obsolete. It means that these people are old-fashioned. They are not ready to adapt or change their perspective. They hold on to what has been practiced as good without ever questioning whether it is really good or not.
“First, we need to make sure that everyone has a minimum living wage, then we can advance racial and gender equality, and then we can create opportunities for the disadvantaged.”
Carol’s desire to change the world is the clearest message the film tries to convey. She answers SI when it asks her what she would do with the world as it is. If SI really inspires our world to change as Carol thinks, our world would definitely be a better place now.
“The world has enough resources to feed all the people in the world, but fools don’t share them properly.”
SI tells Carol when she complains about the price of the clothes he bought her. Nothing should be out of reach. People price things because they are rare, difficult to make, rare, or something that makes them feel limited edition. Everything in this world is made from existing resources. When there are many different prices for different things, humans use those prices to manage things.
“Money is just a figment of human imagination that determines the value of things.”
SI tells Carol to understand when she sees expensive things and thinks she doesn’t fit. People spend money to buy suitability, to look good, and yes, we judge based on that. But in reality, money is what people are made of.
“Now, money doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
Some people may say that money can’t buy everything. It can’t buy happiness. This is not entirely true because many people use money to buy entertainment, to buy things to satisfy their needs and be happy. But when the world was ending, money, cars, houses, Carol discovered that none of them meant anything because all she wanted was for the people she loved to be happy.
“Why don’t we choose the best for ourselves? Why do it for others?”
In her final moments before the world collapses, SI asks Carol, genuinely confused, why she always chooses to do things for others?
“Love,” was Carol’s response. Love is what separates us from technology, and it separates us from each other. Our world doesn’t need the kind of love Carol has for George.
But our world needs the kind of love that Carol has for everyone. It will change the world for the better. And this is why Superintelligence says, “Carol is the most human of all.”
Conclusion
In today’s society where everything is driven by technology, it makes humans seem even further away from being human. This movie is just an AI, a fictional role that realizes the truth about humans on Earth, their existence, actions, and distorted ways of life. When the world changes, it will be a good thing only if it changes in a progressive way.
But if we change in a retrograde way, we will have to find technology to help pull us up a bit. When we realize this, don’t think that we are just a small dot on the world that we can’t see. Because many small dots can create changes in this world as well.
“We should be human, worthy of being born human.”
Source:
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/superintelligence-movie-review
