Friday, March 5, 2021

"I'm here, help me, help me!"

Moving into episodes 3 and 4, we see Toby racing through town on his bike to stop his mother from taking Anita back. He reaches her car, and Anita, seeing that Toby is in danger of being run over, steps in front of an oncoming vehicle, sacrificing herself. As it turns out, she seems to be only externally damaged. Joe drives the children and Anita home and checks Anita to ensure no external damage that her self-repair systems missed. The inspection makes Joe uncomfortable, as Anita must disrobe, but he conducts a visual inspection and leaves the garage. In the evening, Sophie says she would rather have Anita put her to bed than Laura. In her bedroom, Anita convinces Sophie to let Laura do it to make her happy. Anita finds a photo album hidden in Laura's room and Laura’s photo as a child with a young boy captioned "Laura and Tom.” Later, we see Mattie plugging into Anita in hopes of finding any irregularities or illegal programming. When Matti runs her program, Anita grabs her wrist and says, "I'm here, help me, help me!" and shows real apparent fear.




Laura meets a client who firmly believes that synths can feel emotions and deserve human rights. Laura shows great interest in this idea, and it makes her think about the concept. Later we see that Joe, feeling lonely and somewhat reluctantly, has sex with Anita while Laura is away. His guilt and remorse can be sensed when he asks Anita to forget everything and never speak of it. Laura and Joe take Anita to be evaluated following the accident and Laura's new intrigue and discover she is around fourteen years old and most likely has been illegally modified.


Pete Drummond and Karen Voss investigate the murder at the brothel. Later, we find that Pete's wife asks him to leave their house for a few days, growing sick of him and increasingly fond of their synth, Simon. Following the disagreement with his wife, Pete goes to stay with Karen. We see them settling into their respective rooms as Karen plugs herself in, showing us that Karen is a synth herself.




Niska meets up with Leo and Max. She has transformed her appearance, trying to drop the standard features of a Synth to gain some revenge on human beings following her time in the brothel. After arguing with them, Niska visits a bar, where a man begins flirting with her, and she and goes to his apartment with him. She notes that is is a married man and wants to cheat on his wife with her. Finding this behavior wrong and reflecting on the men she saw day after day, Niska hides a knife behind her back to murder him. The man tells Niska that he has his daughter for the weekend. As he picks up his child’s belongings off the floor, Niska leaves silently, leaving the man confused to see a knife on his chair.





Niska later finds a "Smash club" where synths are beaten by paying people for entertainment. She pays to "have her turn" and then starts attacking the humans with a baseball bat, and the police corner her. Leo calls her and says he needs to meet with her because he needs her embedded code. Niska threatens to kill one of the officers she is able to capture, and the police let her escape.


George tricks Vera into investigating some windows for possible work and locks her in the room. George uses this opportunity to take Odi out in his car. It is apparent George has a strong familiar connection with Odi. Odi malfunctions when George casually mentions some food, and Odi starts to go get the food by opening the door despite currently driving and the car crashes. Following the crash, George orders Odi to hide in the woods. It is with great hope that George sends him to the woods so he can keep Odi safe.


Matti meets up with Leo in a restaurant, though she hides her identity at first. Leo claims her synth she knows as Anita is called 'Mia.’ After meeting Leo, Matti claims to need to use the bathroom, leaves Max with her purse (it's not HER purse as it turns out), and runs away. Max finds secret entries from Anita's code which they realize is David Elster embedding messages in Mia's programming. They find George, who helps them extract it. Leo connects himself with his laptop and tries to run the program.


Humans is set in London, with the story taking place in an alternate present-day (as of 2015) where the latest must-have technology for any busy family is a Synth. This can be paralleled with the real-life prevalence of Smart Assistants in our culture today. Our major smart technology brands are Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri.




When we use the word “smart,” we are referring to Artificial Intelligence or AI. AI assistants are more and more common in homes. According to a 2018 report by National Public Radio and Edison Research, 8 million Americans own three or more smart speakers. Studies indicate that by 2024, the number of smart assistants will reach 8.4 billion units meaning the number of products will outnumber the global population. It took around 30 years for cell phones to outnumber humans. Alexa, Google, Siri, and comparable companies may get there in less than half that time.


There is a parallel between the Humans show and Human beings concerning technology integration. Both worlds are finding that the integration of their respective technology is more and more common. There are cultural anxieties that come from both worlds as well. Many people believe that smart assistants are listening too intently and are an unnecessary intrusion to our lives. This same view can be found by some people in the world of the show as well. The show Humans expresses anxieties in the insecurity of human beings' jobs and the threat of complacency that could form in homes, communities, and businesses with synths.

Shulevitz, Judith. “Alexa's Most Dangerous Feature Can't Be Undone.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 7 Nov. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/alexa-how-will-you-change-us/570844/.

No comments:

Post a Comment

"Humanity - it's not a state - it's a... it's a quality."

In episode seven, we learn that David Elster built Karen to replace his dead wife, Beatrice. In a flashback of Karen’s,  Leo and the other c...