“The meaningful difference,” argues Silverstein, “comes down to our lifespan. For humans, our mortality defines so much of our experience. If a human commits murder and receives a life sentence, we understand what that means: a finite number of years. But if a UI with an indefinite lifespan commits murder, what do life sentences mean? Are we talking about a regular human lifespan? 300 years? A thousand? Then there’s love and relationships. Let’s say you find your soulmate and spend a thousand years together. At some point, you may decide you had a good run and move on with someone else. The idea of not growing old with someone feels alien and upsetting. But if we were to live hundreds or thousands of years, our perceptions of relationships and identity may change fundamentally.”
“One of the best” because — in addition to having a well-crafted, suspenseful, and heartfelt narrative about love and loss — thoughtfully engages with both the technical and philosophical questions raised by its cerebral premise: Is a perfect digital copy of a person’s mind still meaningfully human? Does uploaded intelligence, which combines the processing power of a supercomputer with the emotional intelligence of a sentient being, have a competitive edge over cold, unfeeling artificial intelligence? How would uploaded intelligence compromise ethics or geopolitical strategy?
“Underrated” because was produced by — and first aired on — AMC+, a streaming service that, owing to the dominance of Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and Amazon Prime, has but a fraction of its competitors’ subscribers and which, motivated by losses in ad revenue, ended up canceling the show’s highly anticipated (and fully completed) second season in exchange for tax write-offs. Although has since been salvaged by Netflix, […] its troubled distribution history resulted in the show becoming a bit of a hidden gem, rather than the global hit it could have been, had it premiered on a platform with more eyeballs.
Still, the fact that managed to endure and build a steadily growing cult following is a testament to the show’s quality and cultural relevance. Although the concept of uploaded intelligence is nothing new, and has been tackled by other prominent sci-fi properties like Black Mirror and Altered Carbon, is unique in that it not only explores how this hypothetical technology would affect us on a personal level, but also explores how it might play out on a societal level. Furthermore, take is a nuanced one, rejecting both techno-pessimism and techno-optimism in favor of what series creator Craig Silverstein calls “techno-realism.”
