US Special - Part Three Click - Short Edition

This is what happens when you let an artificial intelligence get

creative. In a future with mass unemployment, young people are

forced to sell blood. That's something I can do. You should see

the boy and shut up. This is a film whose script was written entirely by

an AI chatbot, one that's been trained to mimic science-fiction

movie screenplays. Well, I have to go to the skull. I don't know what

-- it's a fun watch, but only if you are in on the joke. Yes, it seems

writing a gripping or even coherent narrative is beyond AI at the

moment. But what if you were to give it the words and let it be the

director? What if you gave an AI complete creative control over the

costumes, the camera angles? What if you let it chews the cast? What

would happen then? -- choose. That was what Sachi and Sachi

commissioned this LA -based glad to find out. It is a real experiment.

Out on a limb kind of experiment for film. Now, they decided not to make

a full-length feature film, but instead to embark on a more

manageable project. A pop video, which is something that many new

directors cut their teeth on. A French dance group gave them

permission to interpret one of their songs. The lyrics would form the

script, but the interpretation would be completely down to the machine,

more accurately machines. A director's job is a lot of different

disciplines and specialties, so given that there is no one beat

artificial brain somewhere that can do that, we assembled the best and

most progressive pieces of television in a collect it to do

that job. And what a collective it was. The -- first up, IBM's Watson

was used. The humans could ask the next AI questions about what the

video should look like. For that, take to the director's chair. I came

up with a series of questions you might ask somebody like me, like,

who are the characters? If I said day and night that's non-sequitur

and random. But it is quite creative. I can't imagine a creative

type coming up with that. She is a Japanese Twitter chat bot that

appears to be a 17-year-old Japanese girl and was asked a whole lot of

questions about who the characters in the lyrics were, what actions

they should perform and what outfits they should wear. Do you have any

kind of understanding about how it came up with those answers? Day and

night. Night as the main character? From what we understand, this

particular AI has been programmed by having conversations with fans, it's

a Twitter handle. It has millions of conversations and it is relating in

a way that a 17-year-old girl relates on Twitter. Next, casting.

How does the director choose the right actor for a role? Well, it is

probably someone who feels emotionally connect to the work and

can transmit those emotions to the audience, but really it kind of

comes down to a gut feeling. That's something that computers don't have.

But what computers can do is measure the Performa's brain activity using

and EEG, like this. In a very unusual casting session, ten

unsuspecting actors were asked to perform the song while their facial

expressions and brainwaves were compared to that of the song's lead

singer when she performed it. The guy with the best emotional match

got the gig. They said, what will you do with that? We said the

director needs that to make the joys and whoever we choose has a matching

emotional intent to the scene. -- choice. Did they know at this point

that the director was and AI? No. When do they find out? Michael does

know now. In fact, when the cast him, we brought him down to the set

and explained this process. We said it would be a little weird because

we will give you directions based on artificial intelligence, as an

understanding of what this song is and what your actions are supposed

to be. On the day of the shoot even the camera drones followed flight

parts that were based on Watson's emotional analysis of the song. And

when it came to the editor, choosing the shots and cutting it together,

the AI build a brand-new editor, AI. This started by creating random

assortment of shots and then learned from feedback on the human sweet

shop they liked. And where. After many iterations the finished video

was given a visual treatment that was itself a type of neural art,

adding a day and night style to the -- character's scenes. How did turn

out? Good and bad, really. The result is a pop your that's not

going to win any. In fact, the band, whose videos are usually very highly

produced, have distanced themselves from the whole thing. And I'm not

really convinced that and AI has actually been the director here. --

an AI. Are you? Got a hold different lot of sAI to do different jobs,

including asking what this guy should wear. But then the people at

the lab I'd really saying otherwise. Are you happy with the results? Yes.

The exercise we went through the vibe a lot of great learning. The

output itself with the video, it could be better, as a human. But for

a first attempt a worthy effort. As the director, behind the scenes I'd

like, that super intimidating, because it won't be long before this

technology evolves where that editor that we've created becomes

absolutely able to interpret like, oh, that shot's running and it has

emotion, I should use that. And if that cuts to the concept of this

emotional expression it will understand how one crates with

another. All of a sudden we will have really emotional cutting from

artificial intelligence. It's going to happen.

Like most American cities, LA is a driving city, but it can take ages

to get across town because of, well, take a look at this. So if you're a

parent who has to take their kids somewhere, two or three hours before

picking them up again, it might not be worth your while coming home in

the meantime. So what you do if you are a parent who is too busy to

ferry their kids around the city? Kate Russell has taken a pop, skip

and drive to check this out. He would be a teenager? Lots of

homework, hectic after-school activity schedule, Dean ferried

around by time poor parents. -- being ferried. Hang on a minute,

that looks pretty good for the teenager at least! Juggling work

commitments with school runs and extra curricular activities can be a

nightmare. For some parents are taxi is the only option. But how did know

your children are safe getting into a car with a stranger. That is the

question Hop, Skip, Drive set out to answer. Three of us created the

company. We all have kids, we have six kids between us. Every kid

activity known to man is participated in. We just couldn't

manage it any more. Carly loves to dance, and she's pretty good at it.

We originally lived somewhere different. Then we moved here and we

couldn't get her to class on time, coming from work, all the way back

here and so we put in a local dance studio, which wasn't the same. Hop,

Skip, Drive says it runs background checks on all its drivers, including

fingerprinting. They also told us applicants must have at least five

years childcare experience. Really it is caregiving. So for my son,

Jackson, the caregiver will Parker, go into the school, sign him out,

there is a booster seat for him because he is not eight and I can

track the ride as a parent the whole way. Rides are scheduled ahead of

time, with clearly branded cars and drivers and have a secret password

to give to the children on pickup, so everyone can be sure they are

getting in the right car. What happens when they pick you up? First

I get a text message on my phone and then they come up to the door, they

tell me the password and we go in the car and make conversation. For

the drivers, many of them mothers themselves, it's a much more

rewarding job than just driving a taxi. How is it driving lots of

different kids? What approach to you use? It depends. It depends on the

child. My main objective is just too obviously be friendly and some kids

just get in and they have their headphones on and they have their

music trading, you know, and they just need to chill out. -- music

playing. Because they have just come from school or at times. At other

times the kids are really chatty, so I just have to take the emotional

temperature. Now Carly can go to the dance studio she loves and Jennifer

can manage her life more easily. I don't have to leave work early every

day, because you know that's good I need to earn to pay for dams. Hop,

Skip, Drive plans a careful expansion into more regions in the

future. They also added carpooling to reduce the cost and this should

help ease congestion around school drop-off points as well.

That's it for the shortcut of Click for this week. Much more in the

full-length version on iPlayer online and on Twitter. Thanks for

watching. See you soon.