https://twitter.com/somebadideas/status/807141424030486530
For those who don't feel like clicking the link to watch- the basic premise of the video is that a team of coders and engineers designed a self learning AI to walk and were showing Miyazaki the weird ways in which the AI had achieved that objective.
In the case of this AI (modeled to look like a zombie.) it was dragging itself on the ground using it's head as the moving leg appendage as opposed to the actual leg.
They stated to Miyazaki that the goal of the AI was to run it through multiple times and use it's methods as a base animation standard for zombies, monsters, and other horrors for future horror games.
Miyazaki however took great offense to this. Reminding him of his friend (although he said he hasn't seen said friend recently?) that is unable to do the most basic tasks because he had stiff muscle in his arms.
After a little back and forth with the staff who were trying to redeem themselves in front of Miayazaki- the man then asked the team 'what was their goal' to which another man said "We want to create a robot that can make art".
The video then goes to another scene where Miyazaki is at home or a studio and he remarks how humans have lost faith in themselves.
My personal take on this is that I feel that Miyazaki took the point of the AI the completely wrong way and chastised them for something that the team never intended in the first place.
I won't say his opinion was invalid so much as that it didn't apply to this team all that much.
While they were doing super light ribbing in regards to how the AI used it's head as a leg instead of it's actual legs to move. (which might of set Miyazaki off on that front.) they were generally pretty neutral on how the AI went about things.
Now had the AI of looked like a standard generic human model and not a half rotted corpse I can definitely see the criticism that such experiments like this should be taken care of with consideration to heavily disabled people in that you aren't making displaying these actions as humorous when real people are shunned, made fun of and ostracized due to a disability that was inflicted on them or they were born with and they can't help it.
I also feel that Miyazaki was projecting real hard on what I think was his actual crux of the issue with the presentation was- and it was the fact that it was an AI. It wasn't done by human hands (outside of coding the thing.), it wasn't crafted by flesh beings who spent hours going face to face with real life people with disabilities who HAVE to move this way to get by on some of the most menial daily tasks. There was a detachment there on the most basic human level and that irritated him a lot.
The final nail in the coffin for him was when they said the ultimate goal was to make a robot that creates art. And for someone like Miyazaki that see that as his lifes' passion that peeved him. It's no secret that he sees the life around him and his work as integral parts of the process. It's all about observing and talking to people, traveling, feeling success, feeling failure. An AI at this moment cannot do those things, and he feels that today we spend far too much going on about how GREAT machines are and forgetting that we are pretty amazing too.
I could just be projecting all of this but the tl;dr of that is that this is definitely an interesting discussion to have all on it's own, but Miyazaki was in the wrong for off loading all of that on a team of scientists that never intended what he was accusing them of.
I mean, I think it's pretty fricken awesome that humans designed an AI like this. Surely that's a positive outlook for humanity right?
For those who don't feel like clicking the link to watch- the basic premise of the video is that a team of coders and engineers designed a self learning AI to walk and were showing Miyazaki the weird ways in which the AI had achieved that objective.
In the case of this AI (modeled to look like a zombie.) it was dragging itself on the ground using it's head as the moving leg appendage as opposed to the actual leg.
They stated to Miyazaki that the goal of the AI was to run it through multiple times and use it's methods as a base animation standard for zombies, monsters, and other horrors for future horror games.
Miyazaki however took great offense to this. Reminding him of his friend (although he said he hasn't seen said friend recently?) that is unable to do the most basic tasks because he had stiff muscle in his arms.
After a little back and forth with the staff who were trying to redeem themselves in front of Miayazaki- the man then asked the team 'what was their goal' to which another man said "We want to create a robot that can make art".
The video then goes to another scene where Miyazaki is at home or a studio and he remarks how humans have lost faith in themselves.
My personal take on this is that I feel that Miyazaki took the point of the AI the completely wrong way and chastised them for something that the team never intended in the first place.
I won't say his opinion was invalid so much as that it didn't apply to this team all that much.
While they were doing super light ribbing in regards to how the AI used it's head as a leg instead of it's actual legs to move. (which might of set Miyazaki off on that front.) they were generally pretty neutral on how the AI went about things.
Now had the AI of looked like a standard generic human model and not a half rotted corpse I can definitely see the criticism that such experiments like this should be taken care of with consideration to heavily disabled people in that you aren't making displaying these actions as humorous when real people are shunned, made fun of and ostracized due to a disability that was inflicted on them or they were born with and they can't help it.
I also feel that Miyazaki was projecting real hard on what I think was his actual crux of the issue with the presentation was- and it was the fact that it was an AI. It wasn't done by human hands (outside of coding the thing.), it wasn't crafted by flesh beings who spent hours going face to face with real life people with disabilities who HAVE to move this way to get by on some of the most menial daily tasks. There was a detachment there on the most basic human level and that irritated him a lot.
The final nail in the coffin for him was when they said the ultimate goal was to make a robot that creates art. And for someone like Miyazaki that see that as his lifes' passion that peeved him. It's no secret that he sees the life around him and his work as integral parts of the process. It's all about observing and talking to people, traveling, feeling success, feeling failure. An AI at this moment cannot do those things, and he feels that today we spend far too much going on about how GREAT machines are and forgetting that we are pretty amazing too.
I could just be projecting all of this but the tl;dr of that is that this is definitely an interesting discussion to have all on it's own, but Miyazaki was in the wrong for off loading all of that on a team of scientists that never intended what he was accusing them of.
I mean, I think it's pretty fricken awesome that humans designed an AI like this. Surely that's a positive outlook for humanity right?
