David Hasselhoff Stars in a New Short Filmand All His Lines Were Written by AI – Singularity Hub

Last year, an AI named Benjamin wrote a weird and entertaining science fiction short film called Sunspring. Now, Benjamins back in a new film titled Its No Game. Like its predecessor, the short is a surprisingly effective blend of human and machine talentplus a healthy dose of the surreal.

Watch the film below to see David Hasselhoff, compelled by nanobots, reel off algorithmically mashed up lines from Knight Rider and Baywatch scripts.

Artificial intelligence is perhaps a bit overhyped currently. Rapid progress in a variety of difficult AI problems has us, at times, confusing future possibilities with present capability. The AI timeline tends to go missing, and human obsolescence in the face of superintelligence appears imminent.

Because AI competes with our proudest assets, such as intelligence and creativity, the response is fearful. What exactly is our value in a world where were outperformed by algorithms at basically everything? Its a fascinating and important question. There is no answer. But we have time to figure it out.

AI is still the narrow type. Most algorithms are excellent, even superhuman, at the task for which they're designed, but ill-suited for anything else. And there are yet some tasks just beyond AI's reach. Writing is one of them.Its No Gameis self-aware enough to call out the worrywriters replaced by robotsright next to the still glitchy (but awesome) output of an artificial neural network.

Benjamins writing relies on whatever content is fed into it. In this case, instead of X Files scripts (as in Sunspring), were treated to multiple segments inspired by Shakespeare, Golden Age Hollywood, Aaron Sorkins fast-paced politics, and of course,Baywatch and Knight Rider.

The output tends toward the nonsensical, but mostly, that's okay. Quick, dense lines from Aaron Sorkins work, for example, can be as much about the emotional sense communicated by the actors as they are about content.

"People will watch a Sorkin movie and not take in whats being said, [but] understand the thrust of the scene and know whats going on," says the Walking Dead'sThomas Payne, who plays one of the screenwriters in the film.

Which is basically why Benjamins stuff works here. Its up to the cast and crews sense of timing and delivery to make the lines meaningful. David Hasselhoff time travels to make those disembodied 80s snippets into an unmistakable resurrection of the Hoff himself. And the freaked out, confused scene at the end ironically echoes our larger existential worries.

We may be headed into a world of artificial general intelligence, and that world may arrive faster than conservative guesses suggest. But make no mistake, even narrow AI is very powerful. And artists, entrepreneurs, and researcherswill no doubt continue to work with such algorithms to make surprising new creations, from the purely useful to the bizarre and fascinating.

(Check out Annalee Newitz's article in Ars Technicafor an excellent and comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the making ofIt's No Game.)

Image Credit: It's No Game/Ars Technica Videos/YouTube

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David Hasselhoff Stars in a New Short Filmand All His Lines Were Written by AI - Singularity Hub