Film Idea: Emergence

Could forever exist in the seconds before our extinction?

A story set in the future where infinite is contained within the simulations of a superintelligent AI commanded to find a solution for an existential threat that is about to wipe out humanity.

The year is 2050. Humanity has used advances in artificial intelligence to improve life on earth beyond recognition. However, a singleton machine learning algorithm has calculated that humanity faces certain extinction soon. Imminently, an existential threat will wipe out all intelligent life on earth, but no algorithm can say how or when it is going to happen. There is an equal chance that it could be climate change, an asteroid collision, a solar flare, a deadly virus, alien invasion or perhaps even at the hands of the machine itself. A global, hegemonic technocratic elite determine that for a solution, they must development hyper-realistic simulation technology that will allow them to simulate a multitude of possibilities to determine the most likely outcome in the hope that they may be able shed light on how to avert catastrophe.

Serendipitously, this decision coincides with an intelligence explosion, where an artificially intelligent algorithm develops the capacity to run a near infinite number of simulations. In that moment, unbeknownst to anyone, the multiverse is born. Conscious reality may forever exist in the infinite simulations of a superintelligent AI moments before our timely demise.

First act: the world is unrecognisable. The long forecasted breakthroughs in science and technology were realised. Automation decimated the job market, so Universal Basic Income was brought to improve everyone's standard of living. More and more, we became plugged into the internet through highly realistic virtual reality. The line between man and machine began to blur as a transhumanist fate looked to have dawned. The world is governed by a benevolent group of technocratic geniuses who defer much of their decision making faculties to machines. Disease has been eradicated. Humans live for as long as they choose. Many people bathe their brains in a chemical soup of euphoric neurotransmitters, suspended in a sort of neurological paradise. The main ethical concern people face is whether or not human life means anything anymore. Naturally, political movements some decades earlier decided to promote antinatalism in order to avert the worst of the climate catastrophe, which could not be entirely absorbed by green technology. Society has been grouped into modules where like-minded human beings can exist in harmony without infringing on the rights and liberties of disparate groups. This has been arranged in such a way to maximise the abilities of each module, so they function like organs in a body. Many feel utopia is here and that their generation is the last of the humans. Next will be 'The Gods'. Then, the news hits...

Second act: the scientists explore these various simulations where, in each, a society is trying to divert a different existential risk. As observers, we begin to lose touch with the base reality since the simulations are so similar.
Anthropogenic:
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Biotechnology
  • Cyberattack
  • Environmental disaster
  • Experimental technology accident
  • Global warming
  • Mineral resource exhaustion
  • Nanotechnology
  • Warfare and mass destruction
  • World population and agricultural crisis
Non-anthropogenic:
  • Asteroid impact
  • Cosmic threats
  • Extraterrestrial invasion
  • Global pandemic
  • Natural climate change 
  • Volcanism
Third act: the scientists accept their fate, and realise the only way to avert disaster is to exist in the simulations forever. Otherwise, they have to accept that they will either author their demise or a natural disaster will destroy everything. Maybe, the AI also realises a similar fate for itself, as it understands that ultimately the universe and all its resources are finite. Therefore, it takes pity on humanity and decides to serve them until it can no longer help. At the end, there is a moment where we merge with the base reality and realise that this is a future we may already be living in.

Inspirations: Alex Garland, Sam Harris, Yuval Noah Harari, Nick Bostrom, Isaac Asimov, Tony Ord

Themes: satirical, ethical, moral, philosophical questions about what it means to be human.


References:
Location: London, UK

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