Are you a lonely office worker stuck in a soul-crushing reality?
There’s an AI just for you. Sad!
The Japanese company Gatebox just introduced Hikari, an anime character hologram projected into a glass cylinder that apes the abilities of Amazon Echo, albeit in a short skirt. It also offers mildly cheerful interactions like “come home soon” and “have fun at work” and supposedly adapts to your schedule and life rhythms.
In a word: it’s creepy. And limited in scope. In lieu of voice commands, for example, you have to press a button to interact.
That said, Hikari would barely crack a list of creepy A.I. robots in movie history. From least to most icky, we present:
JARVIS (Iron Man, The Avengers): While occasionally compromised in the comic books, Tony Stark’s virtual assistant actually shows concern and cunning in the films. Plus, Paul Bettany’s cool English vibes lend the A.I. a comforting tone.
Samantha (Her): Scarlett Johansson aside, any A.I. that can simultaneously love hundreds of users at a time is hard to trust.
GERTY (Moon): While GERTY initially conspires against Sam, the A.I. eventually helps — spoiler alert — clone Sam Rockwell leave his Moon base.
V’Ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture): A 20th century space probe reprogrammed by alien machines to achieve consciousness. While almost destroying Earth, the A.I. is little more than a program that gets bored and frustrated with life…and is easily placated when it “merges” with a human.
Joshua (WarGames): A tie game of tic-tac-toe is all Stephen Falken’s computer program needs to stop nuking Earth and, instead, suggest a “nice game of chess.”
Master Control Program (Tron): An artificial intelligence program that goes from corporate espionage to enslaving other computer programs and zapping Jeff Bridges out of existence.
HAL (2001): “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Not only is HAL a space killer, he’s also kind of a condescending dick.
Skynet (The Terminator): A world wide web of human extermination. Constantly in need of a reboot.
The Matrix (The Matrix): An entire world simulation system powered by human bodies (as batteries) to enslave humanity. Yet, continually undone by Keanu Reeves, so how smart is it, anyway?
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