Robots are taking over the world. At least that’s the premise of Maxim Pozdorovkin’s new documentary, The Truth About Killer Robots, airing on HBO tonight. Sometimes that title is taken literally, like the robot that killed a fellow Volkswagon factory worker. Other times, Pozdorovkin’s view is wider, more figurative, like the idea that the more mechanized production becomes, the less jobs there are for human workers. And while both ideas are intriguing and worthy of examination, the way Pozdorovkin explores them ultimately feels inadequate.
The film begins with a narration from an AI robot named Kodomoroid. It, or maybe she, speaks about the rise of robotics in the past tense, as something that already happened. It’s a strange choice, but one that makes it seem as if robots have already taken over the world.
It’s meant as both warning and way to strike a touch of fear in the audience and the other sci-fi tropes Pozdorovkin uses function the same way. For instance, the way each interviewee is introduced with faux facial recognition software that gives their name and information is clever and on theme. But mostly, the sci-fi elements blur the line between documentary and fiction and they ultimately make it more difficult to take the film seriously.
Perhaps the most important and effective sci-fi trope Pozdorovkin employs, though, is his constant evocation of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. For those who haven’t read or seen I, Robot, they are basically: a robot may not hurt or allow a person to come to harm, a robot must follow orders unless an order would cause them to break the first law and a robot must protect its existence as long as doing so doesn’t break the first two laws. Pozdorovkin is particularly concerned with the first two here, particularly the way modern robotics seems to ignore them.
One of the most striking examples is the Tesla driver whose autopilot failed to notice a truck turning in front of it on a highway. In brutal detail, through voice over and diagrams, Pozdorovkin shows us how the car hit the truck, killed the driver, and then still kept moving hundreds of feet until it finally hit a pole. Certainly, it’s odd and disturbing that the car not only failed to notice the truck, but kept moving after the accident and after the driver’s death, but Pozdorovkin fails to explain what should be done. The section ends with an interviewee saying that the car should have had more ways of stopping what happened, but that argument simply isn’t as compelling as the the fact that accident rates in self-driven cars are much lower than for human drivers and the driver wasn’t watching the road as instructed.
Still, while Pozdorovkin’s arguments don’t always work, The Truth About Killer Robots does have some really effective moments. Perhaps the most convincing is the 2016 story of a gunman in Dallas who killed five police officers. After the gunman barricaded himself in an office building, the police were unable to reach him without risking injury. So, they attached a small explosive to their bomb disposal robot and detonated it near the gunman, ultimately killing him.
At the time, the incident was questioned as a use of excessive force, but Pozdorovkin pushes the moral dilemma further, questioning what it means that the officers so casually used a robot to break Asimov’s first rule. If we continue to develop robots that prioritize obedience over concern for human life, then how far will we go in using them to push our morality? Pozdorovkin doesn’t provide an answer, but he doesn’t need to, the question is scary enough.
Still, though Pozdorovkin clearly believes increased reliance on robots is a negative, he can’t seem decide which way will better convey that to the audience: science fiction or fact-driven documentary. So, he splits the difference and delivers a film that disappoints on both counts. The sci-fi elements are so extreme that his arguments seem irrationally alarmist and he is so convinced of his premise that he fails to do proper research on the subject by giving the audience a more comprehensive picture of why mechanization is a threat in the first place. Robots may indeed be killing people and on a road to taking control, but The Truth About Killer Robots feels more like the rantings of a recluse in a tinfoil hat than a chilling warning from an informed expert.
Rating: 5/10
The Truth About Killer Robots airs tonight on HBO
