“Those who are too much on the internet, lose the world,” Werner Herzog once tweeted.
At least, I think it was Herzog. The account has been inactive since December 2010, he’s tweeted only four times in two years. One of those tweets declared an ambition to shoot a 3D porno.
So perhaps it was Herzog. Or perhaps it was someone pretending to be him? Or perhaps it was a bot? An AI simulacrum that had analysed the director’s diction and tone, then formulated tweets that seemed like they were written by him? That would explain the long gap between posts, the grandiose (if potted) philosophy and the jumbled syntax.
What’s real? And what’s false? It’s easy to get lost down the rabbit hole with Herzog. His documentaries – Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Cave of Forgotten Dreams – have always slipped on the line between fiction and reality. It’s likely his new one, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, follows their lead.
Lo and Behold is about technology and the internet. It’s about robots and AI. It’s about our relationship with tech and how – perhaps – in a few generations our kids won’t need each other, because they’ll have their machines.
The first trailer for the film highlights how far we’ve come – and how quickly. In an archive clip, a TV reporter introduces a radical new idea: using a computer to read the newspaper. Another talking head brings up the advantages of being able to highlight what’s on screen and save it too (“to paper!”). “This is an extraordinary moment in the life of human beings,” Herzog says. “The beginning of connectivity we have not dreamed of a few years ago.”
But this connectivity is fragile. The internet, young and full of potential still, is vulnerable. Villains wish it ill and threaten our peace and security daily. Without the protection of “guardians” (“A group of educated, talented, dedicated people that have a shared vision,” according to one contributor) we could all be irreparably disconnected. Might it be that these educated, talented, dedicated people stem from the internet security company that is funding Herzog’s film? It just might.
Less conflicting and more interesting is a second trailer, which introduces us to an even stranger world. A robot called Chimp is “testing its limbs, on its own”. A dishwasher has fallen in love with a fridge and refuses to wash up any more. A man says he can not only imagine AI developing independently on the internet, but he isn’t certain it hasn’t happened already (“It wouldn’t necessarily reveal itself to us”). Twitter “Werner Herzog” – you may finally be undone.
