Data labelling for AI mirrors the act of parenting: Filmmaker Aranya Sahay

Filmmaker Aranya Sahay’s critically acclaimed and award-winning film, Humans in the Loop, was screened at Asian College Of Journalism in Chennai on Monday.

He said that while he had originally thought of making a film about those who moderate violent videos on a daily basis, which could have been an easy way to get the audience’s attention, a story that explores where human beings are in terms of humanity, technology, and nature had a much greater potential.

The film, which stars Sonal Madhushankar in the lead role, tells the story of a Scheduled Tribe woman from Jharkhand, also a mother, working as a ‘data labeller’ to teach Artificial Intelligence models about the world through pictures and videos.

Speaking after the screening, Mr. Sahay said, “The act of differentiating…between a child and the Artificial Intelligence by labelling it (data) again and again for an algorithm mirrored the act of parenting.”

When N. Ram, Director, The Hindu Publishing Group, recalled an article written by computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton on how less intelligent beings may have to control the more intelligent being (artificial general intelligence), and asked him if he had thought about it for a future film, Mr. Sahay said, “A mother responding to a child comes from empathy. But I feel we are on the cusp right now…with AI, which is governed with a lot of our emotions, instincts and biases…if there is an AI…which could possibly incorporate empathy that human beings have, then perhaps it (artificial general intelligence in future) will not see us as a nemesis or as a monster destroying the planet, but as another being that needs to be taken care of.

Mr. Sahay said the film’s subject was difficult to handle. “They say…in your first film, don’t work with children, don’t work with animals. It was quite difficult. And then, to get people to watch it was excruciatingly difficult.”