Artificial Intelligence as a Menace in Minority Report Film

Abstract

Objectives: The present study investigates the role of artificial intelligence in Minority Report film. It traces how the transition from the traditional into the smart-city milieu brings with it technological practices with catastrophic consequences to man. Artificial intelligence is a product of a manipulation occurring to man’s space to attain urbanisation. Thrown into a digitalized world, man witnesses moulds of social and cultural behaviours dictated by technological artefacts. It becomes difficult for man to cope with his reality, because the elements of his reality change into abstractions, confusing as such his sense of humanity.

Method: This study applied Henri Lefebvre space theories to Minority Report film hitting upon the relationship between man and the space encompassing him. For Lefebvre, space is paramount in shaping man’s essential attributes because of its mutual relationship with man. This aspect urges Lefebvre to warn of a vice role played by capitalism crystalized in urbanising human societies. He argues that production of space is essentially a social and cultural process marking urbanisation as a mystifying concept aiming at fostering a capitalist hegemony over human societies.

Results: In the light of these views by Lefebvre, this study showed how the main characters in Minority Report film oscillated between the two extremes of the threat of submitting themselves to artificial intelligence and a need for a life in which they are recognised human individuals.

Conclusions: The study concludes that artificial intelligence can become a cunning entity if exploited by capitalist political leaders to ensure capitalist greed and that it makes the main characters in Minority Report victims to the capitalist pursuit of hegemony through socializing them in terms of the capitalist demands.