Getting railroaded by the traditional justice system is bad enough. Getting railroaded by a justice system powered by “artificial intelligence” would be worse. That is the concept of Mercy, Or that’s what I hope is the concept of that movie coming out today (technically last night).
Chris Pratt stars as Detective Christopher Raven of the Los Angeles Police Department, who championed the use of A.I. judges. Then he’s accused of murdering his wife, presumably falsely, so he’s strapped to a chair and given ninety minutes to prove his innocence to an A.I. judge (Rebecca Ferguson).
At least one critic, Kieran Fisher writing for Slash Film, is saying this movie is already a contender for the honor of worst movie of the year. At the time he wrote that, he had only seen trailers, such as this second official trailer.
Any man who thinks he wants a future like that has failed to understand a few key concepts of the United States Constitution.
On paper, "Mercy" sounds like a film that aims to warn viewers about the dangers of AI's rapid advancement while lambasting the surveillance state — but that's not what the trailer promises. The teaser actually shows Pratt's character harmoniously cooperating with Rebecca Ferguson's AI judge while trying to uncover the real villains. Moral quandaries about AI aside, though, "Mercy" simply looks like a terrible sci-fi thriller.
We are certainly aware of criminals who have been released whom we know to be guilty. That’s not good. We are also painfully aware of criminals who do go to court and are even convicted of a relatively small felony (e.g., 34 counts of falsifying business records) but escape punishment, and who will never be in court for their more serious and especially heinous crimes (e.g., wonderful secrets).
But we are also aware of innocent people being sentenced to death. In an ideal world, the Innocence Project would not exist because there would be no need for it.
The Innocence Project has represented innocent people who were wrongly convicted of murder and condemned to death in cases that were compromised by police and prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, eyewitness misidentification, unreliable forensic evidence, racial bias, and more. In some instances, our clients have come within days of execution. [emphasis mine] These cases powerfully establish that — notwithstanding legislative and constitutional guarantees of increased scrutiny for and oversight of such cases — the capital punishment system is deeply flawed and poses an unconscionable threat to innocent people. For these reasons, the death penalty must be abolished.
And we haven’t even gotten into race yet. The Mercy trailer shows a white defendant, David Webb, and the trailer practically invites us to assume that he’s in fact guilty, is found guilty and is executed. There are white exonerees in real life, and official misconduct figures in more than half of those cases. But for some other races, the proportion of official misconduct is much higher, according to the Innocence Project.
How do we truly know someone’s guilty? Because they confessed? Well, you might want to read up on the Central Park Five, now referred to by the Innocence Project as “the Exonerated Five.”
I certainly wouldn’t rely on A.I. in its present incarnations to determine guilt or innocence. Today’s A.I. has a lot of trouble making basic determinations of fact. Maybe A.I. will evolve to always make correct determinations, but ninety minutes sure doesn’t sound like enough time for human review.
Even if there was a way to know for certain that a defendant is guilty, we should not just trust that the guilty will be automatically executed and the innocent will be automatically released. The system must always be examined to guard against abuse. The principle of “innocent until proven guilty“ is not “red tape,” it is an assurance that the state can’t simply dispose of inconvenient people by falsely accusing them of notorious crimes.
I do not want the future depicted in Mercy. None of us should want that future. I hope the movie makes that point.
If you go see this movie, please write a review and let Movie Review Group know so we can reblog it.
Also coming out today, war drama Border 2 and drama H is for Hawk. Best bet for purely escapist entertainment might be The Dreamer Cinderella… no, wait, the title refers not to Tara Reid’s character but rather to a fruit vendor named Xochitl who maybe comes to America after navigating the capriciously labyrinthine immigration system? There are also a couple of horror movies coming out.
In other movie news, F1 has been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. According to Kevin E. G. Perry for the Independent, the nomination is a waste. It could have gone to more deserving movies, like maybe Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident. This is not to say F1 doesn’t deserve some Academy Award. Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects would be very plausible wins.
Melania comes out next week. I ask people all the time to write movie reviews. But with this one, I’m asking you to not buy tickets for this movie and don’t write a review about it. Unless you’re a Daily Kos staffer specifically assigned to write a review. And maybe that review should be titled “Our staff saw the Trump bribe movie so you don’t have to.”
