Will artificial intelligence save us or destroy us? According to a growing band of thriller scriptwriters, we should be very afraid indeed
M
aybe the “H” in Line Of Duty will turn out to stand for “hard drive”? After all, AI has become TV’s go-to villain, as proven once again in last week’s penultimate episode of BBC stablemate The Capture. Sinister puppet-master Simon was unmasked at long last and – spoiler – he wasn’t a person.
“Wait, Simon’s a computer?” asked a baffled agent. “He’s a bit more than that,” replied a smug army bigwig. “We’re using AI to support, map, execute and command ops. Simon factors in more risks and variables than you lot on the ground are capable of knowing. Tell him your objective and he’ll calculate your mission and recalibrate it for you in real time. The stats don’t lie. Simon saves lives.”
That’s right, they call him Simon because they do what Simon says. The third series of the slick surveillance thriller has seen swishy-coated, pensively pouting Met detective Rachel Carey (Holliday Grainger) promoted to acting head of counter-terror unit SO15. Our abrasive heroine has continued her crusade against the dodgy digital practice of “Correction”, which hacks CCTV feeds with deepfake images to incriminate those deemed an enemy of the state.
