‘Zone 3’: science fiction towards an AI (virtually) indistinguishable from actuality | Cinema: premieres and critiques | EUROtoday

In a sequence of Zone 3, new movie by French director Cédric Jimenez, a specialist in motion, police, political and historic cinema, from the Third Reich to Islamist terrorism, now put in within the science fiction of the approaching future, a police power detains a suspect after a chase and, given the reluctance of the alleged prison to present info, he connects with the headquarters via his high-tech headphones and says: “Can you send me to the Penitentiary Commission of Zone 1? I request an immediate trial by video. It is for an incarceration fast.” In the reality of the movie, those trials don’t exist yet, it’s just a bluff. But the suspect believes it and gives in to the threat. Also today’s viewer, who knows that any ruler will promote this possibility sooner rather than later and that, thanks to artificial intelligence, this will be possible by disregarding any judicial guarantee.

Jiménez, director with Olivier Demangel, based on the novel by Laurent Gaudé Chien 51 (2022), bases his film on the dangers of artificial intelligence, but what underlies it are the far-right ideas of the politicians who are going to apply it: “We want a better, fairer and safer society,” the French Minister of the Interior tells the media in the fiction. They and perhaps everyone want that, but not at the expense of anything. And that, in the world we live in, is when the science fiction film fades to become a realistic work of (almost) next month.

Artificial intelligence has become our daily life, the topic of conversation at dinner parties, the preoccupation par excellence and, at the same time, our third arm and our second mind (in some cases, the first and only one). And, of course, the cinema is echoing this repeatedly. Almost too much repetition, as there is a danger of boredom: only in recent weeks have they been released consecutively Idyll, The residence, No mercy, Good luck, have a good time, don’t die, and this Zone 3. Now, in all of them, although of varying quality, there are terrifying notes.

In that of Jimenez, director of the solvent Marseille connection y November, Paris is divided into three geographical zones that strictly delimit the social classes of the population, life expectancy and opportunities. Zone 3 is that of the poor and the marginalized. The Government has partly privatized the police with a cybersecurity and artificial intelligence program called ALMA, which restricts freedoms. Citizens are forced to live with geolocation and identity bracelets. Facial recognition and the presence of surveillance drones are constant. There is a group of revolutionary terrorists who, at the beginning of the film, kill the creator of ALMA. Luxury prostitution is as entrenched as buying milk, Catholicism has returned as a method of calm and one can go to a karaoke and feel like a participant in Operation Triumph.

Zone 3, With a luxury cast in French cinema, it is a film with clear derivative evidence that can sound obvious in a good part of its story, and that before its effective outcome focuses too much on the physical fight. But things move at such speed in our reality that when it was released Minority Report, In 2002, it was a bit creepy for future generations and now we are sure that there are ballots for it to happen to those of us present as well. And despite the repetitions, and the fact that the production design is far from being attractive enough, the film leaves macabre ideas that should not be ignored. It seems certain that, in terms of artificial intelligence, it is just one more. However, the reality that surrounds us makes it more interesting. In fact, a few days ago, a man tried to set fire to the house of Sam Altman, executive director of OpenAI, with a Molotov cocktail, which led some media to headline their news with the possibility that it was the first anti-AI attack in the history of humanity. Zone 3, a dystopia? The future is already here.