Artificial Intelligence in Free Guy - Reel or Unreal Episode 12

Reel or UnReal Logo appears
Episode 12 appears
Introduction – Orbax begins speaking.  Orbax is middle aged, bald with a ponytail at the back. A long curling moustache and a goatee. He is wearing a 3-piece grey plaid suit. Orbax is joined by Kevin a middle aged man with short dark hair and glasses. They are situated in a Physics lab at the University of Guelph and speak directly into the camera.

[Orbax] - Hello!

I'm the great Orbax! And today we're going to discuss the science of artificial intelligence in pop culture.

We're here today with Kevin, the managing director for the Center for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence. Welcome!

[Kevin] - Thank you!

Video switches to a close-up of Orbax wearing goggles and twisting his moustache, then a text bubble over most of the screen, saying, “What is artificial Intelligence?” Then a switch to Kevin and Orbax in the lab. 

[Orbax] - We hear the ideas of artificial intelligence.

We see it on the web: A.I. art, A.I. Chat Bots.

What is artificial intelligence? What's the actual definition of it?

[Kevin] - Well, I think there's a number of different working definitions of artificial intelligence, but it dates back to the 1950s 

Video cuts to a series of a black and white stills with people working on various projects in computer labs, then switches back to Kevin and Orbax in the lab. 

[Kevin] - where people look at it as machines or computers that are mimicking the analytical thinking or decision making of human beings.

[Orbax] - What is it in terms of the internet and how it exists now?

[Kevin] - Well, certainly the major changes as you alluded to, is the increase in computing power and also a different in terms of methodology.

Video cuts to a large server room and then a timeline showing the increase in computing power, then back to Kevin and Orbax in the lab.

[Kevin] - So the big thing is, so now you have machine learning, which is essentially a subset of or subfield of artificial intelligence.

And this is where you're not explicitly programing computers line by line, feature by feature.

You're essentially using data to train the computers to perform these decisions.

Even more recently, deep learning is essentially a subset of machine learning where you're adding multiple layers of these neural networks and that is really what's causing the major explosion in terms of computer vision.

A slide appears explaining Computer Vision; What is Computer Vision? A field of AI that trains computers to interpret and understand the visual world. Then to a video clip of autonomous vehicles driving under a bridge, and then a diagram indicating where the computer is situated in the car. 

[Kevin] - You know, autonomous vehicles, many of these things are based upon the concepts of deep learning.

Video switches to a close-up of Orbax wearing goggles and twisting his moustache, then a text bubble over most of the screen, saying, “How does AI work in Free Guy?” Video switches back to Kevin and Orbax in the lab

[Orbax] - So how does a character in Free Guy come to represent what we understand machine learning to be?

Cut to the Free Guy movie poster, short film clip and then back to the lab

[Kevin] - Well, I think the way it represents machine learning is the fact that you're getting thousands and literally millions of interactions that's building training data, which is helping the character evolve, and that's driving the behaviour of the character That improves their behaviour, it normalizes it. 

The interactions are more normal and more predictable based on what one would expect.

So similarly, this type of training behavior, it's seen in sort of in your everyday life, and sometimes you notice it, sometimes you don't.

So in terms of recommendations when you're getting the next thing, the next song you should listen to on Spotify, or the next TikTok video you should see or any of these types of things.

[Orbax] - You can look at something like in Free Guy, that character is experiencing thousands of generations of lifetimes to adapt and learn and improve and change.

[Kevin] - Right, that's a very good point that you are able to make that sort of change, the evolutionary change that would normally take place over such a long period of time, you're able to essentially retrain intensely over very short periods of time, which makes that happen.

Video switches to a close-up of Orbax wearing goggles and twisting his moustache, then a text bubble over most of the screen, saying, “How is U of G moving that research forward?” Video cuts back to Kevin and Orbax in the lab

[Orbax] - So while machine learning and artificial intelligence are exciting in movies and pop culture, what's the real science of it that's happening here at the University of Guelph?

[Kevin] - Well, lots of exciting things are happening at University of Guelph!

Obviously, our CARE-AI is focused on doing responsible and ethical artificial intelligence and I think we're seeing that manifested in the type of work that our affiliated faculty are doing.

And that ranges from financial risk models to look at how make sure that those are performing accurately, to veterinary oncology, where we're looking at the impact of cancer treatments on dogs and cats and making better predictions using machine learning.

Stretches into things like the food price report, where predicting the rise in food prices which we are trying to do that accurately because obviously food prices impact, you know, everybody to such a great extent.

So it's really such a wide range of: environmental financial, medical, veterinary, agriculture.

Across the whole realm of activity there's lots of activity in the University of Guelph.

You know, even really small areas like nanomaterials.

[Orbax] - Well, with the help of people at CARE-AI and guys like Kevin, we're going to make sure that we're always in the range of being a J.A.R.V.I.S. and never an ULTRON.

Thanks again for another episode of Reel or Unreal, Artificial Intelligence edition!

Video switches to a video clip from Free Guy and then Reel or Unreal logo appears, followed by the University of Guelph logo and tag, “Improve Life.”