Nolan interview: AI is not an atomic bomb, but it is the most dangerous to hold it on the altar

Source: Geek Park

Author: MARIA

This may be the best time for the famous British director Christopher Nolan to release a new film.

After "Tenet" (Tenet) "failed" due to the new crown epidemic, the director's new film "Oppenheimer" (Oppenheimer) is about to start painting in a month.

This film about the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb", focuses on how a charismatic and intelligent man led the "smartest brain on earth" to overcome physics problems while inventing the world's The story of the most dangerous weapon.

The fear of "nuclear threat" that Nolan and his peers grew up with has a new echo in the present.

It's just that this time the atomic bomb has a new name, AI.

ChatGPT technology has made artificial intelligence popular again, and the fear and excitement of new technologies are in the same trend. Hundreds of AI experts issued a joint letter declaring the threat of "human extinction" that artificial intelligence may bring.

Wired recently published a long interview with director Christopher Nolan, in which the director explained his views on the current hotly discussed "AI threat" and the comparison between artificial intelligence and nuclear threats 70 years ago.

Nolan, who once saved mankind with love in "Interstellar", believes that the biggest threat to AI is that human beings have an instinctive desire to hold their creations on the altar and get rid of all the responsibilities they need to bear.

The director pointedly pointed out that compared with Oppenheimer's generation of scientists struggling and resisting between science and those in power, the "seeking supervision" of current AI practitioners is "hypocritical".

At the same time, as an old-school filmmaker who is obsessed with film, Nolan has expectations for the development of generative AI in the field of film and television creation, but what he wants to do is "to give actors a real atmosphere and environment."

"The greatest danger to mankind is the abandonment of responsibility," Nolan said in an interview.

The following is the original text of the interview, edited by the editor without changing the original meaning:

Destroy the world, atomic bomb first

Q: It feels like your work with Emma (Nolan's wife, his longtime producer) has been, in a way, been preparing for Oppenheimer.

Nolan: That's how I feel about the movie.

I feel this way about every project I do. Because I'm trying to build on what I've learned before. Whenever you finish a film, there are questions that remain unanswered. So, in the next movie, you pick up the leftovers.

In Oppenheimer, very literally, Oppenheimer is mentioned in Tenet (Nolan's previous film).

Q: So he's been on your mind for a while.

Nolan: The Oppenheimer story has been with me for years. It's an unbelievable idea -- someone is trying to do calculations to find the relationship between theory and the real world, and then there's a very small chance that they're going to destroy the whole world. However, they pressed the button anyway.

Q: Very dramatic.

Nolan: I mean, it's literally the most dramatic moment in the entire history of humanity.

Q: A lot of people may not know that when we dropped the bombs in 1945, it was not only a terrible moment, it was also the moment when people learned that humans now have the ability to wipe out the entire human race.

Nolan: My feeling about Oppenheimer is that a lot of people know the name, know that he was connected to the atomic bomb, and there are some complicated things that happened in the relationship in the history of the United States, and there is nothing else.

Frankly, to me, that's the ideal audience for my films. Those who know nothing will have the craziest experience. Because it's a crazy story.

Q: Do you mean his personal story?

Nolan: The audience should know, because he's one of the most important people ever.

Nolan's queen actor Cillian Murphy plays Oppenheimer in the film｜Douban Movie

Q: There's a line in the movie where someone says to Oppenheimer, you can make anyone do anything. Something like this. He's a great manager who knows everything, and in that room there are scientists doing X and in another room those scientists are doing Y, and he's a guy who keeps it all in his head.

Nolan: He knows how to inspire people through the drama of his characters, to project his own light. He gave all scientists, officials, everyone a focus.

Q: He has real charisma.

Nolan: Charm, that's the perfect word. It makes everything take shape, and the film is often about that, and it's his fascination that allows these academics, these theorists to come together and build something so huge and so important with their own hands. It's a miracle.

Q: Speaking of building something huge, one of the most interesting sessions I had at the recent TED conference in Vancouver was a series of talks on generative artificial intelligence. Many speakers mentioned atomic bombs and nuclear weapons. The final speaker was a technologist - he spoke about the inevitable weaponization of artificial intelligence.

He concluded his speech by saying that the only way to maintain world order is to have better artificial intelligence weapons. That was a deterrent. That sounds a lot like what people think of the atomic bomb. It feels like your film has found the perfect time for release.

Nolan: I think that relationship is an interesting question. This is different. But it's the best metaphor—and that's why I use it in "Tenet"—to unthinkingly unleash the dangers of a new technology on the world. This is a cautionary tale. We can learn from it.

Having said that, I do believe that the atomic bomb is unique in terms of technologies that changed and endangered the world.

Q: And the origins of these technologies are not the same?

Nolan: There is a fundamental difference.

Scientists who study the splitting of the atom have been trying to explain to governments that (nuclear energy) is a fact of nature that comes from God, or whoever created the world. It's just about the knowledge of nature that it inevitably will happen. Nobody can hide it, we didn't create it and we don't own it. That's how they see it.

Q: In other words, they felt like they were just revealing what was already there.

Nolan: And I think it's hard for you to make that argument for artificial intelligence. Of course, someone is bound to do that.

Q: You must have grown up in the shadow of the bomb.

I grew up in the UK in the 1980s and we had a series of movements like nuclear disarmament and people were very, very aware of the threat of nuclear weapons. When I was 13, my friends and I believed that we would eventually die in a nuclear apocalypse.

Q: But you didn't, and the world moved on.

The other day I was talking about this with Steven Spielberg, who grew up with the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60s. same same.

There have been times in human history when the danger of nuclear war has been so palpable and palpable to us that we know it all too well. Of course, we can only worry about it for so long before moving on and worrying about other things. The problem is, the danger hasn't actually gone away.

Q: Yes. I mean, I feel like a month ago, we were all worried that some country might actually use nuclear weapons.

Nolan: What I remember in the 80s was that the fear of nuclear war had receded in favor of the fear of environmental destruction. It's almost as if humans can't maintain long-term fear of a single threat, we have a complicated relationship with fear.

Yes, certain countries have been using this apocalyptic threat and this fear to wave the flag. This is very disturbing.

Work photo of director Nolan｜Universal Pictures

Put AI on the altar, it is the most dangerous

Q: As disturbing as the threat of AI doomsday?

Nolan: Well, the growth of AI in weapons systems, and the problems it would create, was so obvious many years ago that few journalists bothered to write about it. Now there's a chatbot that writes an article for the local newspaper and suddenly it's a crisis.

Q: Those of us in the media have been doing this for years. blindly pursue. Some of us are writing about artificial intelligence because it can cost us jobs.

Nolan: That's part of the problem. To me, artificial intelligence is a very simple problem, it's like the word algorithm. We see companies use algorithms, and now artificial intelligence, as a means of avoiding responsibility for their actions.

Q: Please explain a few more sentences.

Nolan: If we accept the idea that AI is omnipotent, we accept that it can relieve people of responsibility for their actions — militarily, socioeconomically, and so on.

The greatest danger of AI is that we get ourselves off the hook by ascribing these god-like properties to it.

I don't know what the mythological basis for this is, but throughout history humans have had this tendency to create false idols, to fashion something in our own image, and say we have god-like powers because we made these things.

Q: This feels very, very true. Like we're at that tipping point.

Nolan: Exactly.

Q: With these large language models, machines might even start teaching themselves as a next step.

Nolan: There was an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times about ChatGPT and OpenAI. It's basically ChatGPT is a sales vehicle and OpenAI is now a private company. They have the greatest sales machine in the world, and it's a very dangerous thing. Maybe we shouldn't push it to the masses because everyone wants an AI assistant these days.

That doesn't mean there isn't real danger here, because I think there is. But personally, and this is just my opinion, I think the danger lies in the abdication of responsibility.

Q: People keep saying that there needs to be an international body to regulate AI.

Nolan: But it’s the oldest political game ever played by tech companies. Right? This is, you know, what SBF did with FTX (the crypto exchange crash scandal); Zuckerberg has been asking to be regulated for years. Because they know that the bureaucrats we have elected cannot figure out these issues at all.

Q: As we've seen from the congressional hearings?

Nolan: What can they say? I mean, it's very professional stuff, the establishment versus the creator and Oppenheimer -- let me bring that back to Oppenheimer.

The problem with Oppenheimer was that he put a lot of emphasis on the role of postwar scientists—the experts who had to figure out how to control nuclear forces. But when you see what happened to him, you understand that was never allowed to happen.

This is the very complicated relationship between science and those in power, and it has never been laid bare as brutally as in Oppenheimer's story. I think there are various lessons to be learned from this.

Oppenheimer also had to deal with power and science｜Total Film

Q: For example?

Nolan: So he's trying to work from within the system, rather than turning around and saying, you know, what we need is love, or we don't. His approach was very practical, but he was beaten nonetheless. It's very complicated, and I think these "inventors" now, who say, "We need to be regulated" are very hypocritical.

Q: Oppenheimer wants the science to be shared.

Nolan: He used the word Condor. frankly.

Q: His thinking seems to have changed with the advent of the hydrogen bomb?

Nolan: No, he also believed in the hydrogen bomb thing. It's kind of interesting because, in a way, it's a bit of a spoiler. But on the other hand, that's history, you can Google it.

At this momentous moment, as the hydrogen bomb program moved forward, he began his speech, saying, "I wish I could tell you what I know. I can't. If you know what I know, you'll understand that we all must Share information. Essentially, that’s the only way we can avoid destroying the world.”

So frankness is the most practical means in his opinion. He sees the United Nations as a powerful institution in the future, with real capacity for action. He believed that global control of atomic energy was the only way to ensure world peace. Obviously, that didn't happen.

Q: He didn't foresee what's happening now, the slow decline of democracies.

Nolan: I don't think he saw that at all, and it was a very optimistic moment.

Q: That's why there is a worldwide governing body for AI.

Nolan: Yes. But that's the problem when dealing with tech companies that refuse to be geo-restricted.

Institutionally, technology companies are encouraged and allowed to circumvent government regulation. This has become a "morality".

By the way, this makes me think Silicon Valley is evil and all these people are horrible. I do not think so. It's just the system(), that's how it works.

Q: In terms of security issues, the manufacture of nuclear weapons requires certain elements, but AI does not have this limitation.

Nolan: During World War II, the British bomb program was very complex. They have many great scientists. But Churchill's government realized they just didn't have the resources. So they gave everything they had to the Americans. They said, you have size, you have far away from the front line, and you have an industrial base.

In my research, I read a statistic about the number of Americans who participated in building the first atomic bomb—it was around 500,000. Several companies are involved, and this is a huge physical process, which is why it is easy to be discovered today if a country conducts nuclear tests secretly. So there are a few things that give us a little assurance that this process can be managed.

And I don't think any of those limitations apply to artificial intelligence.

Q: Yeah, not really for AI - especially when we're talking about something in AI that's a "softer" threat. Rapid spread of disinformation, technological unemployment.

Nolan: Exactly, but I'm not too -- I think artificial intelligence can still be a very powerful tool. I'm optimistic about it, I'm really optimistic.

But we must see it as a tool, and the person who wields it must still remain accountable for wielding that tool. If we give artificial intelligence the status of humans, as we have done to corporations at some point, then yes, we will have huge problems.

AI is good, but stick to tradition

Q: Do you see beauty in artificial intelligence, especially in filmmaking?

Nolan: Oh, of course. The entire machine learning is applied to deepfake technology (Deepfake), which is a remarkable advancement in visual effects and audio. In the long run, in terms of environment creation, such as creating a door or window. If you put a lot of data about how things look, how reflective things are, and so on, into a database, it will be a very powerful tool.

Q: Will you use AI to create?

Nolan: I'm a very old-school "Analog" filmmaker. I shot on film, trying to give the actors a complete reality.

My stance on technology, as it relates to my work, is that I want to use technology to its best advantage. For example, if we do a stunt, a dangerous stunt. You can do it with a more prominent coercion and then erase it in post, stuff like that.

Q: Meaning this will improve the convenience and efficiency of visual effects.

Nolan: This is not an empty-handed white wolf, it starts from a more detailed and data-driven idea. It might finally break down the barrier between animation and photography, because it's a hybrid.

If you tell an artist to, say, paint a picture of an astronaut, they're inventing it from memory or reference. With AI, it's a different approach, you're actually using the entire history of the image.

Q: Use real images.

Nolan: Using real images, but in a completely, fundamentally recreated way — that of course raises major artist rights issues, and that has to be handled properly.

The film tries to restore the exchange scene between Oppenheimer and Einstein｜Universal Pictures

Q: Let's get back to science and your films. In a quote from the December 2014 issue of WIRED that you guest-edited, you said, "I'm fascinated by the relationship between storytelling and the scientific method. It's not really about intellectual understanding. It's A sense of grasping something." Tell me about your love of science.

Nolan: Well, I've always been interested in questions of astronomy and physics. I explored this hobby in Interstellar. When my brother (Jonathan Nolan) was writing the script, he would look at Einstein's thought experiments, and he found that some of them had a particular melancholy quality to them, and that had to do with parts in time.

Like, twins who are separated, one is taken away and the other grows up a bit, you know? Einstein's thinking about physics has very much the same "literary quality" as how you do these thought experiments, how you frame these ideas. The visualization process physicists need is no different than literary creation.

Q: Did you feel that way during the editing phase of the film?

Nolan: I feel that way at every stage of filmmaking. A lot of my work is trying to express intuition and feeling for the shape of things. This can be difficult and complicated.

Q: I find that if I'm creating a story and I don't know the structure, the flow, then there's a problem. I can't talk about this piece in a meaningful way.

Nolan: I think about structures and patterns in a very geographical or geometric way. Over the years, I tried to take a from-scratch approach to structure, but in the end it was a very instinctive process: Does this feeling have a narrative shape, and how does it take shape? I was fascinated to realize that physicists go through a very similar process. Really interesting.

Q: Maybe it's an homage to Interstellar, but physicists always seem to love physics so much.

Nolan: I am passionate about the pursuit of truth and the scientific method. I hate to see it misrepresented by scientists in the media or media speaking on behalf of scientists. The sheer scientific method, and the idea that science is constantly seeking to disprove itself, makes it more capable of elevating the human mind than religion or anything else.

Q: Before this interview, I watched your film with my mother. She felt that your film might have a very anti-negative message. Dunkirk, Interstellar, Batman. Or, is this optimism?

Nolan: The end of Inception, exactly. Someone had a nihilistic view of that ending, right? But at the same time, he's also looking forward, to being with his kids. This ambiguity is not an emotional ambiguity. It's an intellectual ambiguity for the viewer.

Interestingly, I think there's an interesting relationship to explore between the endings of Inception and Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had a complicated ending, mixed feelings.

Q: How has the early audience responded?

Nolan: Some people come out of the movie in an absolute breakdown. They were speechless. Those fears that exist on the historical and factual levels are expressed in movies. But the love for the characters, the love for the relationships, is as strong as anything I've done before.

The director's home in Los Angeles, filmed by his son｜MAGNUS NOLAN

Q: There is also the complexity of the subject.

Nolan: Oppenheimer's story is a collection of impossible problems, impossible ethical dilemmas, paradoxes. There are no easy answers in his stories, only difficult questions, and that's what makes them so engaging.

I think we can find a lot of optimism in the film, but there's this overriding question hanging over the top. I felt it was necessary to ask some questions at the end to get people on their minds and spark discussion.

Q: What was going through Oppenheimer's head before and after the atomic bomb was dropped? What do you think he would think?

Nolan: The answer is in the film. I wrote this script in the first person. This is what I say to Cillian (Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppenheimer in the film): You are the eyes of the audience. He did it. For most of the stories, we didn't go beyond his experiences. This is my best attempt at conveying the answer to this question.

Q: I'm a little nervous about seeing the full work.

Nolan: I think you might have to wait a long time. It's an intense experience because it's an intense story. I showed it to a filmmaker recently and he said it was a horror movie, and I didn't disagree.

It's funny that you used the word nihilism earlier, I don't think my work can be related to nihilism. But as I started to finish the film, I started to feel this color, not in my other films, pure darkness. It's there, and the movie fights it.

Q: Does it affect you? did you sleep well?

Nolan: I'm sleeping well now, and I'm relieved to be done. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. I think when you see this movie, you'll understand. Being attracted to something scary is a complicated feeling, you know? This is how the horror space unfolds.

Q: Has your child watched it?

Nolan: Yes.

Q: Did they know anything about Oppenheimer before?

Nolan: When I started writing the script, I told one of my sons, and he literally said to me, “But nobody’s really worried about that anymore, nuclear weapons.” Two years later, he stopped saying that. The world has changed again.

This is a lesson for all of us, but especially for young people.

The world is changing fast.