The intended message
The purpose of this video was to convey to the audience that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence bares consequences for humanity. It was important for me to communicate that although artificial intelligence is intended to only produce positives, the negatives may outweigh them if not addressed soon enough. My argument is put forward by noting the inevitable loss of human jobs that come attached with the advancement of humanoid robots. This was intended to hit home with the audience by directly addressing the instability that this AI could create for their livelihood.
Filming strategies
To ensure that my point was received, I began my video by directly addressing the audience. I used the rule of thirds to place myself on the screen and created eye contact by speaking toward the camera lens in my phone. This worked to be as if I were speaking directly to the person watching the video. The video began by introducing the topic, accompanied by a visually appealing sped-up loop.
I then made sure to address the audience with a video of myself so that they could associate my face with my voice and message throughout the remainder of the video.
I relied on the afternoon sun to produce lighting but unfortunately was met with shadows. An attempt to combat this with made with an industrial light wrapped in a pillowcase. It didn’t turn out too bad, but there is always room for improvement with video-specific equipment.
Editing strategies
The chosen music had an unnerving feel, but the consistent beat allowed for it to not distract from the dialogue and video. The consistency also helped to ensure no distraction when the beat repeated over six minutes.
Each overlay was chosen with careful consideration for the spoken word. For instance, when mentioning that the severity of the situation differs depending on ‘where you sit in the pecking order’, there is a montage of footage featuring workers. It begins with a man sitting at his desk as I say ‘sit’. The montage then continues whilst I list the predicted jobs that will be lost. It finishes by noting that these jobs will likely be lost to robots. This sentence is paired with a humanoid robot in a work appropriate outfit.
This same robot goes on to feature sporadically throughout key parts of the video in an attempt to humanise him more than a once-off clip would. I wanted to give the audience the chance to really visualise the likeness of a humanoid robot to that of a human, before mentioning the most advanced and well-known humanoid robot, Sophia. I hoped to tell a story by introducing this character with juxtaposed dialogue and other imagery. When discussing Sophia’s quote about destroying humans, I included a clip of a robot flipping a seemingly deceased human. This is then followed by the featured humanoid robot sitting and eerily watching his human equivalent.
Challenges and lessons learnt
Gathering ample amounts of creative commons appropriate material is quite difficult when focussing on a niche subject. This is an issue that I didn’t necessarily have when compiling content for a similar (but much shorter) video that only lasted 2.5 minutes. Ideally, this video would feature plenty more content of humanoid robots that dip into the Uncanny Valley, but there just aren’t that many relevant videos to use. Often, I’d find content that wasn’t downloadable, even under a CC BY 3.0 license. I could screen record them, but found difficulty compiling them amongst other videos as they tended to bring with them a glitch that I couldn’t remove. Although initially an issue, this pushed for me to think outside of the box and use an extended clip as the storytelling piece.
Another significant issue that I encountered was the inability to record audio with earphones. This seems to be a learning curve that I keep on hitting. When I first began recording content in July, the audio was similar to that of being under water. I’d told myself that this time around, I would plug my earphones in to ensure clear dialogue. I somehow neglected the fact that I had to record from my mobile phone and that the earphone cord could only reach so far. Using my earphones would severely impact the framing and positioning of my video. To combat this, I attached a gaming headset to my laptop and set it up close to my staging area. I recorded the video through my phone and the audio through the laptop. I then synced the video and audio to appear as if it came from the same device.
REFERENCE LIST
Aquino, J 2012, Nine jobs that humans may lose to robots, NBC News, retrieved 20 September 2020, <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42183592/ns/business-careers/t/nine-jobs-humans-may-lose-robots/#.X3BYuZMzZv5>.
Mende, M, Scott, ML, van Doorn, J, Grewal, D & Shanks, I 2019, ‘Service Robots Rising: How Humanoid Robots Influence Service Experiences and Elicit Compensatory Consumer Responses’, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 56, no. 4, p. 1, retrieved 20 September 2020, doi:10.1177/0022243718822827
Tuna, A & Tuna, G 2019, ‘The Use of Humanoid Robots with Multilingual Interaction Skills in Teaching a Foreign Language: Opportunities, Research Challenges and Future Research Directions, C.E.P.S Journal, vol.9, no.3, p.1, retrieved 27 September 2020, doi:10.26529/cepsj.679
MUSIC
‘Survive’ by Nctrnm (CC BY 4.0) https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Nctrnm/HOMME/Survive129Dm
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VIDEO CLIPS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
‘super-nin.bimbo (loop)’ (https://vimeo.com/157807438) by Switzon S. Wigfall, III, (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Monsterboard – Earth zoom’ (https://vimeo.com/157807438) by MediaMonks Film, (CC BY 3.0)
‘In the spotlight! COBUS image video’ (https://vimeo.com/389200767) by COBUS ConCept (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Employee Communication’ (https://vimeo.com/434397605) by Cornerstone Learning (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Uncanny Valley – Trailer Englisch’ (https://vimeo.com/358043689) by Rimini Protokoll (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Tidal + Processing Visual Live Coding Test’ (https://vimeo.com/160563352) by Atsushi Tadokoro (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Prix Leenaards âge & société 2015 – Effets du programme d’exercice physique à domicile T&E Elderly sur la prévention des’ (https://vimeo.com/146225143) by Fondation Leenards (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Industry 4.0 : ŠKODA AUTO Vrchladbí plant has made use of ‘Digital twin’ (https://vimeo.com/440594391) by ŠKODA VIMEO PRO (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Softimage Face Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/83730854) by Active Black (CC BY 3.0)
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‘The Blind Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/127440786) by Louis-Philippe Demers (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/164578) by wreckandsalvage (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Light Switches’ (https://vimeo.com/69687899) by Astral Studios (CC BY 3.0)
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‘True Love Tinder Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/148041256) by Nicole He (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Momo the robot doing sign language signs’ (https://vimeo.com/265507718) by Teemu Turunen (CC BY 3.0)
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‘andyRobot Training for the Automatica music video’ (https://vimeo.com/244758085) by andyRobot (CC BY 3.0)
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‘GumGum Image Recognition Capabilities’ (https://vimeo.com/188230884) by GumGum (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Uncanny Interviews in Moscow’ (https://vimeo.com/342746524) by Rimini Protokoll (CC BY 3.0)
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‘connected colors / real-time face tracking and 3d projection mapping’ (https://vimeo.com/149727840) by nobumichi asai (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Pattern Generator’ (https://vimeo.com/55542817) by Bonjour (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Person Swiping And Typing On Keyboard’ (https://vimeo.com/328447343) by JGP (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Live-Coding Kangaroo’ (https://vimeo.com/124339367) by Daniel Piker (CC BY 3.0)
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‘Android Test – Development #1’ (https://vimeo.com/48588019) by wayne tindall (CC BY 3.0)
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‘The Blind Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/127440786)
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‘tool-adobe robot’ (https://vimeo.com/53695413) by TRUST (CC BY 3.0)
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‘NOS Iris Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/125257040) by KRYPTON FILMS (CC BY 3.0)
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‘HUANG YI & KUKA – A duet of Human and Robot’ (https://vimeo.com/77566365) by Huang Yi (CC BY 3.0)
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Alex Babic 