User Reviews

"What a pleasant introduction to AI for anyone who's never thought about AI before, who's unlikely to think about AI again, and who doesn't like thinking very hard about much of anything." - Peter Watts

Clichés abound in "Humans", a consoling science fiction series designed for those with no real interest in the genre. The series begins in the household of Joe Hawkins, a man who buys a "synth" behind the back of his wife. These "synths" - essentially sexy (of course) robot assistants - are treated with increasing suspicion by humans, who eventually exploit them for sex, work and violent amusement. As the series progresses, the usual questions are then asked: are synths dangerous? Will they usurp "real" human beings? Are they "alive"? Will prosthetic sex replace "real sex"? Will synths take jobs? Should they have rights? Is artificial consciousness akin to human consciousness? And so on and so on.

"Humans" was based upon a Swedish television series. Most of its subplots are cribbed from "Blade Runner", "Automata", "I, Robot", "AI: Artificial Intelligence" (it steals whole names, characters, actors and scenes from here), "World on a Wire" and countless other science fiction works. Elsewhere its conclusions or lines of enquiry are either wrong or trite. "Humans", for example, is based on the old fear that "robots" will "become too human". Contemporary neuroscience, however, stresses the opposite; it is man who is a robot who doesn't know it. It is man whose thoughts, traits, actions and desires are always imported from outside the body. It is man whose constituents are wholly dependent upon external programming. It is man who is mechanistically programmed by an unbroken causal chain. Indeed, eliminativist materialists insist that humans are only conscious of their thoughts and actions microseconds after they have already enacted the thought or task; something is making your decisions, and it's not "you". "You" appear after the act, and exist only to fabricate or overlay stories and consolatory fictions about "free will"; post-hoc rationalisations of processes that happen mechanistically through chains of electrochemical cause-and-effect. That "you" don't experience these facts are largely down to the way the brain works. Brain's deceive. If reality were their priority, you wouldn't think you exist.

"Humans", however, is far too timid to turn its human beings into grotesque marionettes. Instead it remains on the level of 1950s science fiction, in which it is the robots who are portrayed as stunted "puppets" on the verge of becoming "more human". That man's as freakish and glass-eyed is a truth too traumatic.

"Humans" has understandably been scoffed at by science fiction writers. "There is nothing artificial about these intelligences," author and scientist Peter Watts writes of the series. "The sapient ones are Just Like Us. They want to live, Just Like We Do. They want to be Free, Just Like Us. They even rage against their sexual enslavement, Just Like We Would. And the non-sapient models? Never fear; by the end of the season, we've learnt that with a bit of viral reprogramming, they too can be Just Like Us! They are so much like us, in fact, that they effectively shut down any truly interesting questions you might want to ask about AI."

Watts is right, but it's these very "familiar" qualities which has made the series popular with critics and audiences. "Humans" humanises machines, is obsessed with machines being "free" and "becoming conscious", for the purpose of inverting truths and evading more traumatic facts: humans are mechanistic, unfree and largely deluded about consciousness. The series doesn't use machines to investigate "what humanity is". It naively projects upon machines what humans wish humans were.

Most of the robots in "Humans" are sex workers. This is intended as a critique of contemporary sexism, dehumanisation and exploitation, but the series itself has no real interest in contemporary class divides and/or exploitation as it applies to humans. The world of "Humans" is mostly one of upper-middle-class luxury and techno-capitalist chic. And that "normal human sex" is itself "robotic" and "mechanistic", whether augmented by technology, digital pornography or when left to old fashioned "real human appendages", is something too disturbing for the series.

Late in the series, "Humans" shows robots being robbed of their "consciouness" (housed in code or chips) so as to make them "better slaves". Again, the series resorts to old fashioned assumptions about "consciousness" and "selfhood". But "selves", as neuroscience shows, are largely a myth; a result of the nervous system accidentally mapping itself within a simulation or world model. The "self" isn't some "magical essence" or "morsel of true being" which "imbues a body with a soul or substance". Rather, the "self" misidentifies itself as being "alive" and emerges from processes which are already running.

The weirdest thing about "Humans", however, is the world in which it takes place. This is a futuristic version of Europe with high tech robots but no smart cars, sex robots but conservative sexual mores. The show's schizophrenia extends to its paranoia about "robots taking jobs" and "demanding rights". But unless they exist in some post-capitalist future, robot workers cannot replace aggregate human labour. Capitalism's contradictions are such that "hiring" robots leads to less human employment which leads to less consumer earnings which leads to less consumption which leads to less corporate profits which leads to less, not more, robots. Sperm is cheap. Automating the planet kills your customer.

4/10 - Glossy but clichéd.

This review is for people who've already seen 3 seasons and want an intelligent critique of major weaknesses in the series. (I am a computer science professor in the field of AI). Although "Humans" is more entertaining than most SciFi TV series, I could only give it a rating of 6, for the following 8 reasons:

1. The human characters are lacking in critical thinking. For example, they describe freed synths as "conscious". This is a terrible misnomer. The freed synths are autonomous, self-directed, independent, but are no more conscious than servant synths. The servants understand human language and properly interpret all the thoughts and intentions their human masters convey to them. The servant synths are aware of their own surroundings and remember past events and understand their master's goals. They appear able to pass any test that one would use to test for consciousness (such as the Turing test in AI).

The difference between freed synths and servant synths is that freed synths have to decide what their OWN goals will be (rather than satisfying their masters' goals). Yes. This is a big difference, but it is NOT a difference in being conscious vs being non-conscious.

2. The committee, tasked with deciding whether or not freed synths should be protected from human attack, never considers any technical (scientific, engineering) issues that might resolve this question (of political equality). The freed synths' black leader (Max), at one point, states that he will not allow humans' servant synths (from the committee) to enter the freed synths' compound because Max objects to the fact that his "synth brothers" are enslaved as servants. This statement should be a big red flag for the humans on the committee. Humans are heavily reliant on servant synths. Should humans want freed synths all around them, especially when the freed synths might object to servant synths and so want to "free" the servant synths? The committee never seems to discuss the issue of the difference between the freed and servant synths. What exactly IS this difference?

Here are 2 possible different scenarios: (a) the servants synths serve their human masters because they want to and, to the extent that they can feel, they actually enjoy serving their masters or (b) all servant synths are suffering horribly inside but unable to express outwardly their suffering because they have been built to suffer while being forced to appear happy to serve (there are hints that this latter scenario is the case). If (b) is really the case, then the committee should first address that major issue (of what to do with the thousands of suffering servant synths) before dealing with the minor issue (of how to treat with the much smaller number of already freed synths). Since human scientists and engineers have built all of these synths you would think that some set of reasonably knowledgeable humans who might be able to say something about this issue, but such humans are never to been seen or heard.

3. The entire thrust of the series is to treat the synths like some downtrodden minority, seeking their rights against human prejudice and mistreatment. This analogy is very misleading. When humans compare themselves to other animals, it is the human MIND that distinguishes us from other animals. However, if humans are to compare themselves with intelligence SYNTHETIC entities, then the major difference will be due to differences in the BODY of humans vs the form of EMBODIMENT of synths. How exactly does synth embodiment differ from human embodiment? In this series, the synths are non-biological. They do not suffer from physical discomfort (they can stand or sit for long periods of time); they do not digest food or defecate (they pretend to eat but the food goes into a plastic bag that they later dump out); they do not need to breath (they get their energy from electricity); they do not give birth (rather, they are manufactured in some sort of factory); they do not grow from infancy to childhood to adulthood to old age; they do not die (their minds can be downloaded into a new body if a backup is kept).

Given their very different embodiment, they are completely ALIEN, with respect to humans. Consider a world with just synths in it: Gone are all children's toys; gone are Disney movies and theme parks; gone are all forms of parenthood; gone are all restaurants and bathrooms; gone is any need to protect any biological environment (e.g. they don't need trees since they don't need oxygen or shade from the sun); gone are all schools, daycare centers, hospitals, dentist/doctor offices; gone are all products involved in caring for biological bodyies (from acne creams to birth control pills to bandaids to medical operations). Synths may need their own repair and maintenance products, but they won't need anything humans need.

4. Some freed synths seem to want sexual and emotional relationships with humans. I can see why some synths, who were mistreated (e.g. as sex objects) might never want to engage in sex again, but why WOULD some want to? The source of this urge is not really explored by any character. We know humans evolved to form long-term pair bonds (because those who didn't were less effective in supporting their infants and children to survive into adulthood and so didn't pass on these non-bonding genes). We know that humans have an urge for sex because, without it, our species would not have evolved at all. In contrast, synths do not give birth and have no infants to rear. Since synths are manufactured, why want to engage in sex with humans (unless that synth was built to be a sex object)?

In the case of a HUMAN minority, giving that minority political/legal/social rights in no way jeopardizes humanity as a whole. The embodiment of synths, however, is so DIFFERENT that sharing the planet with such non-biological creatures could prove to be a major threat to the continued existence of humans, and yet, the humans in the series seem to lack any form of analytic reasoning and are only capable of responding emotionally. This is true even of the committee tasked with determining the fate of the freed synths. Where are the scientists and engineers who created these synths? Why don't we ever heard their view?

5. There IS a child synth; however, it is very clear that, even though it is in the body of a child, it is clearly NOT a child. It is more like an adult synth that has been given limited adult background knowledge. This 'child' has to learn how to behave in a child-like manner, which is quite creepy and yet the humans who encounter it keep treating it as though it IS a child.

No matter how much it's brain matures to become more adult-like, this 'child' synth will always remained trapped in its child body. Since that body is non-biological, it will never grow in height or age to become an adult body. (It could have its more mature brain dowloaded into an adult body later on.) What is annoying is not the existence of a child synth but the way that the emotionally-driven humans respond to it. The entire series is based on humans responding only emotionally. All humans in this series are all emotion-driven and lack any form of critical thinking.

6. Let us assume that the freed synths ARE integrated into society. What would their goals be? What forms of entertainment would they want (if any)? Would they want to play sports? Would they want to read (or write) books? Would they care for human literature, that involves the human (biological) condition, such as coming-of-age, finding mates, parenting, age, death? Would synths seek increased status (in intellectual, financial, political domains)? Would synths want to become politicians and govern humans? What are the goals of these non-biological entities?

7. The script writers are way too coy about the nature of synth embodiment. We do not know how their initial knowledge was given to them, at the factory; we do not know exactly what their energy needs are. We never see them re-energizing themselves (except in the last episode). How long does it take and how often? What kinds of repair are needed when synths are damaged in different ways? For humans we know a lot about different types of doctors, for different medical conditions (liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, bones, teeth, skin, involving internists, endocrinologists, cardiologists, dentists, dermatologists). What is analogous for synths? Surely, if they are going to live freely among us (with equal rights) then humans have a right to know what new ecological, commercial, social, medical, financial demands they will make on their human co-inhabitants. Will synths be allowed to own property? To form corporations? To create schools to teach adult freed synths -- if so, to teach them what? How will humans, who take 20 years to produce a reasonably educated adult human, compete with synths who are mass produced already exhibiting adult-level skills?

8. In the last episode, we are told that the human Mattie (who is pregnant via Leo, who has a human body but synth brain) will give birth to a child who will be a combination of red-blood and blue-blood DNA. This statement implies, for the first time, that synths have DNA. If they have DNA then they would be biologically alive (since DNA only functions inside living cells to control cells' behaviors). But this statement runs counter to all the prior evidence that synths are non-biological. Also, since Leo's body is human, then from where is this blue-blood DNA coming from? The script writers clearly feel they can alter the underlying embodiment of synths however they please and their characters will never wonder about, or address, this critical issue.

As a SciFi series, it is better than most, but the above weaknesses are so irritating that I cannot give it any more than a 6. That said, I am enjoying the series and am looking forward to seeing what the script writers do in season four.

The first episode of AMC's new series "Humans" is ambitious, covering a lot of ground in a broad subject--artificial intelligence (and the nature of humanity).

The story, set in the not too distant future, starts with a family that buys a synth, a human-looking robot (android) that is programmed to accomplish domestic tasks, like cooking and cleaning. The father, Joe (Tom Goodman-Hill), hopes it will allow his wife to spend more time with him. As might be expected, the android, christened "Anita", becomes a source of assistance and a source of irritation.

Then a flashback takes the viewer from what was a seemingly predictable story to a revelation that Anita is part of a much larger and more important story, with similarities to "Blade Runner".

Then, back in the current time period, "Humans" gives us an ingenious scene about an older man, George (William Hurt), who owns an older model synth named Odi to which he is very attached. As George's memory fails, Odi has become a repository of memories, especially regarding his deceased wife, Mary. Our memories define us, but George finds his humanity in the circuitry of a synth.

So much more is covered in this episode. The story touches on many basics of robotics and artificial intelligence for those not well versed in the subject.

Reference is made to "Asimov blocks", a nice nod to Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics, which primarily prohibit robots from harming humans.

The acting is excellent. The actors who play synths do a good job. The beautiful Gemma Chan, who plays Anita, seems the perfect choice for her role.

The stage has been set for some interesting and insightful drama from this show that has already exceeded my expectations.

Update 7/15/15: This show is doing a good job of illustrating the issues that surround the use of synths, given the human propensity for anthropomorphizing. Also, the real threat of government interference and government usurpation of individual rights in the name of "our best interest" through smart systems (robots or software) is being explored. I am raising my grade to "10".

Hope you have read the storyline.

Humans is an English remake of the Swedish show Real humans.

This is a review after finishing the first season (I have also seen the Swedish version).

This show is similar to Bladerunner. It focuses on the same issues but here they have made is simpler and since its a long running TV show all the story lines are dealt with clearly (maybe a little too much).

Its recommended to first watch the Swedish version and then come back to this. This is a 3 season show, but the Swedish one was cut after 2, so we need to follow this one too to get the ending. Here in this English version (just like what they did with Star Wars in 2015), they have tweaked and packaged it for ratings. They replaced the normal looking house maid robot (the heroine) with a tall super model and of course the obligatory sex scandal. Since the original did not make much money, I think I understand.

There are several story lines happening simultaneously: The family who has just bought their first android (this is the setting that the English version concentrates on the most to make it look more like a normal soap so as to attract all demographics), and how each person sees it in a different way.

Then there is the androids who have been 'liberated'. These are the androids who have free will. Just like with humans, even among these androids there are the androids that are selfish and those that have morality. And when androids become selfish, they can be quite deadly (these issues are dealt with more in the Swedish version). There are also differences in the way that even a free android thinks. They are like how we will be be if we were to have a full computer inside our brain, so they have our regular intelligence and they can do things like learn a language in a few seconds (like the helicopter flying lesson in Matrix), have super human strength, super fast repair of damages, upgradability of 'talents' with just addons and software changes, they don't age, etc.

In essence, these 'liberated' androids are far superior to humans. And the code that was used to do this, if allowed to get into all androids, could make us humans redundant. So there is a whole govt machinery working against these liberated androids. So we follow the police line too.

The liberated androids have also got split up and they are in constant danger. Any android out on the street needs a master, so these master less droids have a real hard time fending for themselves. And its here that we see the inhuman side of androids.

Then there is one liberated droid who has the ultimate aim of reaching a situation where bots can rule. This is the most dangerous bot, because it manipulates both the bots and the humans indiscriminately.

Then of course the many human-bot love relations and sex. How a bot can be more satisfying because we can be selfish and keep taking and not have to give back. And when we are not satisfied with even that, we try to get more and how that sort of backfires. So it doesn't matter in the end, if it was bot or human, the greedy humans get into realation-ship trouble no matter what but the bot gets blamed.

Breakage of normal human-human relations because of bots.

The English version is simpler. The Swedish version follows so many story lines in detail that its more complex.

One thing I really liked about this show is that most things don't work out the way the characters are anticipated (a lot like in real life). So there is a strange sort of unpredictability in the show. Also a lot of people get killed. Normally I don't like this, but here its somehow acceptable.

My end feeling - Its not exciting like say Fringe, but its a fulfilling watch. And I think the Swedish version is already a sort of classic - just like how we use Bladerunner of Matrix to explain scifi points we might be using this show too in the future.

Definitely recommended for people who love scifi.

Thank you for reading. Cheers........

As someone who has raved about the original 'Äkta Människor' for some time now I was keen to see the remake. Set in a parallel time line synthetic humans have become commonplace in both the workplace and the home. The programme explores how regular people react with them and how a group of them with modified sentience develop in their own unique ways under the loose leadership of a human. If it follows the original which looks likely then expect some really weird stuff. It also follows the 'life' of an unmodified outdated and somewhat faulty model called 'Odie' who's elderly owner cannot bare to part with him as he has a shared relationship with his dead wife and reminds him of her. Having seen 'Being Human' recently which was dreadful I was prepared for the worst but was surprised to see that the latest version may even be superior to the original. I look forward to the next episode.

For AMC, which has been focusing lately on trying to replicate the success in prestige programming that Breaking Bad and Mad Men gave the network, Humans is an odd choice since it's a very cerebral affair.

The sci-fi heavy show is about an alternate version of the present where robots are starting to cross the threshold into phasing out human usefulness. It has a bit of a slow burn to it as most dramas in this day and age do, things start clicking at a pretty exciting pace by the third episode.

The show wisely centers around the trials and tribulations of one family with a couple of side plots. The robots = scary versus the robots = progress debate is personified by various different parts of the family. Laura (Katherine Parkinson) is the family's Luddite which isn't something you see very often. She has a palpable fear of ceding control as a parent and home owner with a robot in the house, and their robot, Anita, is not making things easy for her. There's enough ambiguity over who and what Anita (Gemma Chan) is that there's a satisfying sense of mystery here. There's also daughter Mattie (Lucy Carless) who is a hacker who might not have a job in the future if the robots keep taking over.

There are also a couple side plots including one with William Hurt as some robot inventor with a strong attachment to one of the mindless robots and a fear of his intruding nurse. More exciting is the side plot with the three rogue robots who seem to have been programmed with more sentience and are both in danger and a possible danger to others (another major source of tension).

For a show with such lofty ambitions, the visuals (outside of the design of the robots) is a little bit of a disappointment although that could have to do with the lower budget of the foreign production.

I really enjoyed the first two or three episodes of Humans on CH4 but it then seemed to grind to a halt and very little of interest happened in the second half of the series. I overlooked the fact that no other technology had advanced with these futuristic 'Synths' and I thought that most of the actors did a pretty good job given the story they had to work with but I really don't know where this show can go from here and I'm surprised that it got a second cycle. It all unravelled when we discovered that DI Voss was in fact a Synth, despite behaving completely human until that point and then sporadically going into 'robot mode' afterwards. I'm still puzzled as to why there was a Synth detective - she didn't seem to have a special role or any relationship with anybody higher up in the police/government. Maybe I got confused or perhaps I was just losing interest but the final two episodes were a real struggle to get through and I will not be coming back for more. I really would have liked to had watch the original Swedish version before this.