"Transcendence" revealed: Johnny Depp to play supercomputer
By Liza Foreman | Reuters – Wed, Dec 12, 2012- Enlarge PhotoReuters/Reuters - Actor Johnny Depp poses at the gala presentation for the film "West of Memphis" at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival September 8, 2012. REUTERS/Brett Gundlock
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Johnny Depp will play a scientist whose brain is uploaded into a supercomputer in the highly anticipated film, "Transcendence," the movie's producer told TheWrap exclusively.
"Transcendence,"
plot details of which have been shrouded in secrecy, comes from the team
behind the time-bending thriller "Inception": Christopher Nolan is executive producing, and his longtime cinematograher, Oscar-winner Wally Pfister, will direct "Transcendence" as his first feature. The story is by Jack Paglen.
According to a
recent script summary obtained by TheWrap, the plot involves a scientist
whose brain is uploaded into a supercomputer with the aim of creating
the world's first machine that can think for itself.
The film's producer, Andrew Kosove, confirmed in an interview with TheWrap on Tuesday: "It is true Johnny Depp's brain is uploaded into a computer."
Kosove also confirmed that singularity, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence are important to the script.
A spokesman for Alcon, which is producing the film, cautioned that any script summary might be outdated and is subject to future revisions.
Both Warner Bros., which is distributing the film
domestically, and Lionsgate, which is distributing internationally,
referred questions to Alcon. A spokesman for Warners Bros. declined to
comment on what he called "speculation."The summary obtained by TheWrap has many details about the futuristic story. In it, three scientists - Max and the husband-and-wife team of Will and Evelyn - have been developing a programming code for the world's first fully self-aware computer.
Depp will play one of the lead scientists, Will. The other two roles have not yet been cast.
However, a swirl of
potential cast names have been circulating around the project. Kosove
told TheWrap that Ewan McGregor had passed on an early draft, and that
Tom Hardy - a friend of Pfister's - was not available due to scheduling.
He said that despite published reports, Noomi Rapace is not in the
running for a role, and that Kate Winslet is not available.
According to the summary, a group of anti-technology
terrorists assassinate Will, and Evelyn uploads his brain into a
prototype supercomputer. Although she at first finds that the experiment
seems to have gone wrong, before long, Evelyn finds Will responding in
computer form.
She goes on to
connect Will to the Internet so he can help make further scientific
breakthroughs. Will asks Evelyn to connect a microphone and a camera to
the computer so he can see and speak to her as well.
Will creates a
backup of himself to every computer in the world, and furthers his work
through accessing online indexes. (Kosove told TheWrap this plot point
is no longer in the script.) When the anti-technology organization finds
out, they try to steal the supercomputer and destroy it, but Will no
longer needs the computer to survive.
Kosove is producing
the film with Broderick Johnson, Kate Cohen, Annie Marter, Marisa
Polvino and David Valdes, with Nolan and Emma Thomas executive
producing. The production is by Alcon Entertainment and Straight Up
Films.
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I'm not sure completely about this but the term "Transcendence" has lately been used a lot around the concept of the coming "Singularity" popularized by Ray Kurzweil while predicting that "The Singularity" and "Transcendence" would occur by 2045.
The concept basically is that once Computer intelligence gets far ahead enough of humans intellectually that they will be so far beyond humans in intelligence that everything will change. Since what happens next cannot be predicted, it is called a Singularity because literally all previous norms disappear from normalcy.
We are as humans experiencing this increase and "speed up" in technological change as a part of the increasing "Culture Shock" being experienced by most everyone on earth. As things speed up in even more exponential ways it is difficult to predict even for humans what this will do to humans in general over the next 10, 20, or 30 years.
I suppose if one looked at just how much cars, planes, radio, Television, home computers, Cell phones, tablets like Ipad, music like Ipod and all the other changes including Social Media online have changed the world since around 1900 and then just geometrically increase the level of change where the kind of change we experienced from 1900 until now might happen every 10 years, then 5 years then 1 year we might get an idea of what "approaching the Singularity" as we are now doing might actually mean as we look forward through time.
If I look as an intuitive at the future it is many things. However, in the end it is every thought, word and action every one of us makes. All technology is only a reaction in the end to what we do and create every day of our lives individually and collectively. In other words, everything each of us does affects all of us. Understanding this one concept humanity might survive the Singularity and make it a good thing hopefully ongoing.
For example, as a supercomputer becomes as smart as the intellectual capacity of 10 to 20 billion people at once, this computer would write it's own programs so it was capable of the intelligence of 50 or 100 billion people combined. Then at this point it could further evolve to the combined intelligence of 1 trillion people. What would it do and what would it design at this point? Would we as humans be useful to it as slaves? Would we be sort of like ants to it? Or would we start sort of like Apes to it and then to Gazelle's and then to wild dogs before we became like ants to it's level of intelligence.
Yes. It is true that computers don't have instinct and intuition. But what if someone cloned all the actions and responses of an intelligent human brain including instinct and then the computer digitized that and multiplied that by 1 trillion. What would that do? Those of us still alive in 2045 or before will see what it does.
For example, as a supercomputer becomes as smart as the intellectual capacity of 10 to 20 billion people at once, this computer would write it's own programs so it was capable of the intelligence of 50 or 100 billion people combined. Then at this point it could further evolve to the combined intelligence of 1 trillion people. What would it do and what would it design at this point? Would we as humans be useful to it as slaves? Would we be sort of like ants to it? Or would we start sort of like Apes to it and then to Gazelle's and then to wild dogs before we became like ants to it's level of intelligence.
Yes. It is true that computers don't have instinct and intuition. But what if someone cloned all the actions and responses of an intelligent human brain including instinct and then the computer digitized that and multiplied that by 1 trillion. What would that do? Those of us still alive in 2045 or before will see what it does.
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