More Human Than Human (2018)

Directed by: Tommy Pallotta, Femke Wolting | 79 minutes | documentary

‘More Human than Human’ is the tantalizing title of this ode to the robot, as it apparently takes more and more possession of our lives. The latter has been described somewhat skeptically because, as is argued in this documentary, the robotization of society has been discussed in this way since the early childhood of director/narrator Tommy Pallotta (1968).

Pallotta has a typically American, open attitude. Can he be called a pro-robot? Pallotta sounds enthusiastic about the assumption that robots are getting more and more human qualities. Does he have an eye for the offending algorithms of social media? Barring the casual mention of Cambridge Analytica. I’d rather have a human robot modeled after Brad Pitt, or a chess computer that can beat Garri Kasparov.

The narrative style of ‘More Human than Human’ is a bit boring, as if the late Chriet Titulaer is recounting where the wonderful world is going – like an ‘introspective’ robot. Wow! But the robot is already inside us, in the smartphone that has become an extension of the human being, or in the desktop with its webcam. Devices to which we entrust our deepest secrets. With the best will in the world, R2-D2 from Star Wars can’t compete with that, no matter how much the makers of ‘More Human than Human’ might want to.

The main point of criticism, however, is the lack of convincing criticism of the alleged robotization. Either it must be Kasparov who says that ‘technology kills jobs’, or an experiment in which Pallotta has a failed discussion with a computer. Does autocomplete on a word processor really make a person happy, or does it just lead to laziness? We would like to see this discussed. We already knew that technology is capable of a lot.

The fact that the film ‘Her’, in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his speech computer, asks questions about our love experience, can even be called an open door. It is funny though, asking a speech computer developed in real life: “What means happiness to you?”. “Joy and pleasure”, is the answer of the computer in ‘More Human than Human’. “Have you experienced joy and pleasure?”. Answer computer: “Would you explain to me what that is?”. Long live man.