Introducing The Mitchells in the Name of Science...!

...And in a manner that aims to not scare off children! :)

I was given the opportunity to suggest a film for our local Science on Screen program, and to introduce it, by Drake University’s wonderful STEM Librarian Dan Chibnall, and the lovely folks at Des Moines’ own lovingly restored landmark Varsity Cinema.

My goal was to show how this delightful, hilarious, family-friendly LGBTQ-hell-yes head-trip was relevant to the study of AI in Fiction — how it plays off themes found throughout the works of Butler, Capek, Asimov, and through to today.

But I knew there would be young kids in the audience, including my own. So I had to come up with an introduction that wasn’t too doom-and-gloom. (A lot of AI in Fiction is very doom-and-gloom.)

Here’s what I came up with — I hope you enjoy, and if you haven’t watched this movie yet, please do! You’ll be glad you did.

May 2, 2023 Amy Letter Intro for TMvTM - written with kids in mind…

We all lost opportunities during the Covid19 pandemic. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where the pandemic never happened, and The Mitchells vs. The Machines hit the theaters as expected in Spring/Summer 2020.

But on our timeline, covid happened. Theaters closed. And by the time they opened again, any criticism of social media had become less welcome, as billions of people turned to it more than ever, sometimes as their only social connection.

And the film’s comic punishment of all humanity being isolated into individual chambers destined for the black void of distant space? Maybe for post-lockdown 2020, that hit a little too close to home?

So The Mitchells vs The Machines had its theatrical release delayed, and delayed, and finally canceled, and it was sold to Netflix.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you’ve seen this movie before tonight, it was probably on your TV, or phone, or laptop.

Which makes this a very special night. Being together in a theater watching a movie on the big screen is a special thing. It’s a kind of triumph over isolation. For this film, it’s been a long-awaited pleasure.

Forgive the spoiler, but in the battle between the Mitchells and the Machines, the Mitchells win.

Before we roll the film, I’d like to point out a few reasons why, based on a broad survey of AI in Fiction that I’ve done for my course at Drake of the same name.

The idea of artificial intelligence has been showing up in fiction at least since the era of steam engines and pocket watches, believe it or not!

Machine intelligences have always been portrayed as the source of both hopes and fears. But stories without trouble - without problems, conflict! - are boring. And so our stories about AI tend to focus more on our fears.

What do all the books and stories and movies and tv shows say we’re afraid of?

Well, it seems we are afraid that man-made intelligences will be smarter than us, and might out-compete and even replace us as the dominant species on Earth, like we replaced the dinosaurs.

But even the doomiest AI stories usually find a place for hope: hope that human beings are special, that we can teach the machines to follow our best examples, not our worst examples — and that we can remain in control.

The stories have hope that just being smarter, faster, and better networked than us isn’t enough to defeat us.

And that brings us to the Mitchell family. The Mitchell family is not super strong, super smart, or super coordinated, but they are very human.

They are not the best educated, not the most fit, not the most socially adept. They are quirky and have intense obsessions — with dinosaurs, film-making, and number 3 Robertson-head non-slip screwdrivers.

Cinephiles: please make note of the posters on Katie’s bedroom wall and her stack of DVDs, and see how many references to other films you can catch in this vast and glorious satire! (Hint: there are a LOT!)

Facing our AI-augmented present and future, the quality I’d like you to notice most in this film is the Mitchell’s capacity for compromise and negotiation, for changing their mind, trying new things, growing as people, and doing the thing that no one believes they can do.

It’s not enough to say the Mitchells are creative — though they are. But Pal, their machine-learning enemy, is creative too — and driven.

The Mitchells are more than just creative: they’re resilient! They’re accustomed to making lemonade from lemons, to making it work with not quite enough of what’s not quite right, and that’s something a little different, more complex, and more human.

Look for the moment when Katie decides not to stay mad about being delayed from going to the college of her dreams, and instead starts making a movie about their road trip.

Look for the moment when her brother Aaron “turns the corner” and decides two broken members of the robot army are likable, and later, when Linda, the mother, accepts these broken robots as sort of, okay, why not? As her sons?

Look for the moment that those “sons” see Rick, the father, change his habitual nature — his programming — and are inspired to change their nature, and defy their programming too.

Look for the plot point that depends on humans being undisturbed by Monchi, the Mitchell family’s dog, being weird and unclassifiable, but whose indeterminate identification halts the machines in their tracks.

(And if you dare, imagine that instead of dog, pig, loaf of bread, this is male, female, something else? Rigid categories are a weakness.)

Surviving indeterminacy is a human strength. Uncertainty is difficult, but it’s what makes us strong. And it’s the reason the Mitchells defeat the Machines.

But notice at the end, after the world is saved, technology — and robots — are very much with the world, and with the Mitchells. This isn’t about machines being bad. It’s about humans being better.

This is a movie that celebrates human weirdness, and even human frailty. This is a movie about expressing yourself and loving your family, no matter how weird you and your family might be.

While the story portrays, in part, the dangers of social media (through Linda’s unhealthy comparisons with her perfect neighbors on Instagram), and suggests that being over-dependent on wi-fi might not be humanity’s best move; while it strongly implies that giving yourself over to machines that randomly offer you “fun” makes you dang gullible and headed for extreme regret; and while it warns — wholly unnecessarily! — against ever letting Furbys back into our stores or homes (!!!); in the end it’s a story about the power of one weird movie-obsessed girl who channels “being different” into “saving the world.”

And with that, Science on Screen presents to you, The Mitchells vs. The Machines.