iHuman – Film Review
Technology, advertisements, and media, in general, are all around us even if we don’t notice it sometimes. Billboards are all around us and are in virtually every city in the world. We use smartphones on a daily basis, whether its to play games or talk to/call friends. But, that’s really nothing new. The first-ever iPhone developed by Apple was released to the public in 2007, and even before that, we had the iPod which was released all the way back in 2001.
What is different in today’s daily life though, is how much we rely on these devices and how much further they have been advanced since their debuts. When smartphones were initially released to consumers, a lot of people used them to simply do two things. Play a game or call/text a friend. However, nowadays, that is not the case. We can do those do things, yes, but now we can pay for things with the tap of a button with services such as Apple Pay, there are built-in GPS maps that we can use, and all of that is nice, but you have to ultimately ask “How much is too much?”.
Ever since it was first announced several years ago by Apple, many consumers have been skeptical about their new Touch and Face ID services on new products. Sure, having the ability to unlock your phone by simply using your fingerprint on the home button is extremely easy and convenient for people, but if you stop and think about it, it becomes downright creepy. Now, the government has your fingerprint and has easy access to it at any time. What’s even creepier is the Face ID. Instead of using your fingerprint, your phone camera will try to detect your face and, if successful, will unlock your phone.
The ideas of technology and electronics advancing too fast for us to comprehend are further boosted with interview footage with various different psychologists and technology experts such as Michal Kosinski, Hao Li, and Jurgen Schmidhuber. All of these people are experienced with technology and/or human behavior, and getting to understand their viewpoints on the electronic-driven world was much welcomed.
It’s evident that technology is advancing faster than we can comprehend, and Tonje Hessen Schei’s iHuman does a remarkably great job at presenting these ideas of technology advancing too far. It explores the dangers of the ever-growing world of artificial intelligence while also talking about the good that it has brought to us. But, there is still no denying how frightening this sort of thing can be sometimes, and thankfully, Schei’s film serves as a bold and thought-provoking example of how we have to be careful with our usage of technology on a day-to-day basis.
Rating: 8/10