Interview with William Hurt for Humans

Explain a bit about the concept of Humans.
The basis is humans living with humanoid robots in domestic situations. It’s about Artificial Intelligence.

You play George. What’s his story?
He’s a retired scientist – an engineer – who was instrumental in developing the first iterations of these robots. His speciality was mechanics and hydraulics, not AI. It’s his job to make the body do what the computer is telling it to do. Then he retires from that, and goes and lives with his wife until she passes away. Then he lives with a first iteration domesticated robot named Odi (played by Will Tudor).

George himself then has a small stroke, which cuts him off from memories of her. He was utterly devoted and in love with her. They had a great relationship. Odi plays the role of being their kid, but really he’s a storehouse for memories of his relationship with his wife.

So he’s using Odi as a way of maintaining that relationship with his wife, because Odi doesn’t forget any of the stuff that happened. And then the state starts insisting that George gets a new model of robot. Her name is Vera (played by Rebecca Front), and she’s a newer iteration.

What was it that attracted you to the project? Why come over to take part in a British TV series?
I’ve been interested in computers since I was 17. I’m passionate about them, about the future.

This thing called Artificial Intelligence – for the potential for the singularity arriving at us, in the technological format – is equal, in terms of importance, to things like global warming. We are looking at a convergence of elements which, in macro and microcosm, make essential questions about our future imminent. We’re on the verge.

So you would hold with the scientist who recently said that Artificial Intelligence will overtake us and pose a real threat?
It will overtake us… It will be our child. It will either be our child that surpasses us or it will be our child that gets mad at us and does away with us. It’s like Zeus and Athena. Zeus created Athena, and it backfired. He made the most beautiful, artistic warrior you could make, and she doesn’t like him.

Interestingly, the story goes that Zeus created her from his forehead. I perceive the computer as a development of evolution. And the computer is a rather immature but absolutely definitive exoskeleton, a form of the brain that’s now wrapping itself around us and within us, in ways that are so intimate, so intrinsic. I really don’t think it’s going to be any time at all before your phone’s going to be subcutaneously installed under a flap of skin.
 
This project is so exciting to me. It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve done in my life, and I wish I wasn’t finished filming it.

This is the latest in a long line of cautionary tales about humans creating these machines that rise up…
It goes way, way, way back. Mary Shelley was a genius. Pure genius. The Golem – pure genius. All of it. There have been so many previews of this, so many seers who have helped prophesy this… I don’t think people appreciate history enough, or give the past enough credit.

You’ve spent a lot of time in this country over the years. How has it been, being back filming in London?
For lots of reasons, just a joy. I have not had a better time on a film set. I’ve made about a hundred movies, and this is easily in the top five of them.



Over the years, what are the projects that have meant the most to you, and where does this sit within that?
This sits with the very highest, because of the combination of events that made me feel like I was useful as a human being. I was engaged in a subject that truly interested and intrigued me. Not as a person who’s seeking attention, but one who feels best when he’s fully paying attention. I can only do that in certain environments. I can only release my full attention when I trust something.

The first criteria of trust is “Am I doing the right thing? Am I working on the right topic? The second one: “Am I working with informed, interesting, honest people? And am I working in a way that accentuates the intriguing questions we came here to deal with?” When I feel like that, when I feel that kind of trust…I can pour myself into the work.

It allows me to be an actor, which is what I enjoy. I see it as an interface to lots of interesting things. Things I’m interested in. In this particular case, the future of the human race interests me.