Free Guy (film) (2021)
Free Guy is an action comedy film directed and produced by Shawn Levy. This film stars Ryan Renolds as Guy, who is an NPC, or non-player character, in a massively multiplayer online role-playing video game (MMORPG) called Free City. Guy’s whole life revolves around playing the same timeline every day as a bank teller of the game. After crossing paths with the female player Millie Rusk, starring Jodie Comer, he gradually develops awareness of the fact that he is an in-game NPC, along with feelings of consciousness. He begins questioning his reality and those around him wearing the glasses that have been known as the “heroes…[that] get to do anything they want.” Guy manages to acquire his own pair of glasses, opening his eyes to a virtual reality game environment. He becomes a hero of the story as he tries to save his friends from deletion by the owner of the game, played by Taiki Waititi. Free Guy also stars Joe Keery and Lil Rel Howery. [1]
There are ethical issues raised about the future of artificial intelligence technology throughout the film. In the face of AI, the human race must have ethical considerations for free will, artificial general intelligence, personality in AI, human and AI relationships, and responsible AI practices.
Contents
About Free Guy
Character Highlights
These are the notable characters with distinct roles that help shape the ethical concerns raised throughout the movie.
Guy is the main character of the film who is an NPC that gains awareness of his reality and consciousness of his feelings. He displays the ability to feel emotion, reason and solve problems, make decisions, and fall in love. These are qualities that closely resemble that of a human. His development raises questions about the extent of artificial general intelligence and how the human race would deal with it. Furthermore, if AIs are deemed capable of exercising free will, there is debate about whether or not they would be criminalized for their actions, or if their creators would be at fault.
Keys is one of the original creators of the game Life Itself, which includes the non-player characters present in Free City, before the program and code were stolen by the current head of Soonami Studios. In his development of Guy, he decided to project his unrequited love for Millie. Keys programmed Guy to be attracted to Millie’s traits and embody her personal preferences, such as her favorite song and ice cream flavor. Crafting Guy’s personality in this fashion was unnecessary for the functionality of the game. His behavior sheds light on the fact that technological pioneers could leverage private or sensitive data in their creations for a personal agenda without users realizing it.
Millie becomes partners with Guy as they try to find evidence of the corruption inside of the game. Over time, Millie develops romantic interests in Guy and shares two kisses before and after learning that he is an NPC. Despite their relationship only existing in the game, they develop a strong bond. It reached a point where Millie wished that she could meet him in real life. This gives rise to questions around the plausibility and acceptability of having a human-computer relationship in a romantic form.
Antwan is the villain of the story as he is the CEO of Soonami Studios who stole original code for his business endeavors. After Guy develops self-awareness, he gains worldwide traction in the gaming community for his record-breaking achievements. Antwan doesn’t appreciate the amount of power and influence Guy has and makes the decision to reboot the game and temporarily wipe Guy’s memories. In addition, Antwan launches an unfinished prototype called Dude to destroy him in the game. Antwan’s actions point to the improper exercise of power. He affected both the human players and NPC data by dealing with internal issues irresponsibly, without following a set of protocols.
Plot
Free Guydeveloped by Soonami Studios He fights back one day and puts on his own set of glasses, which opens a whole new virtual reality he had no idea about. Guy begins leveling up at record speed and gains massive popularity in the gaming community. The current head of Soonami Studios, who was able to grow his company from stolen code, continues his evil desires by trying to clear the remnants of the original game and marketing a game of violence. Guy ends up teaming up with Millie to gather evidence of his fraud and bring him down once and for all.
Awards
Free Guy won the “Comedy Movie of 2021” on December 7, 2021 at the People’s Choice Awards. Ryan Renolds was nominated for “The Male Movie Star of 2021” and “The Comedy Movie Star of 2021”. The results for the nomination “Best Visual Effects” will be released at the Academy Awards on March 27, 2022.[2].
Ethical Issues
Virtual Reality Gaming
Free Will
One of the earliest perspectives surrounding free will has been discussed by the famous philosopher Descartes. Freedom is a central theme to his beliefs and philosophies. He claims that through freedom of the will, experienced as unlimited, the human understands itself to bear the "image and likeness" of the infinite God. Descartes carried the belief that human actions are motivated purely by their own decisions, and they are able to act accordingly to their own will. Similarly, the Cartesian belief that "the thing that thinks", or the rational being, is fundamentally the existence that is free. [3] These philosophies point to the belief that free will does, in fact, exist. However, these beliefs also introduce problems. Since free will has been viewed as a specific property to humankind, scholars now question if artificial beings can also exercise free will. The film displays how Guy is able to formulate concrete thoughts, decisions, and feelings on his own, and eventually strays away from the storyline he was programmed to follow. His qualities closely mirror what people consider human qualities. Rather than classifying free will as human property, the three-stage model of free will redefines it with this ideology: "an agent is provided with free will if, after having made a predictable choice C, it can immediately make another choice C’ in a random way."[4]
Artificial General Intelligence
Guy, an NPC, is able to gain consciousness, develop desires, make his own choices, feel happy or sad, and even fall in love. These are traits that some would argue allow Guy to deserve moral respect like a human being. The biggest debate that was showcased in the movie was whether or not the game's programming should be reset. Deleting a conscious computer mind could be deemed as murder. However, at the same time, this consciousness will kickstart these computer minds to act on their own, outside of what the creators intended them to do. This potential freedom granted to computer minds can eventually serve as a danger to society. These minds harness a lot of power online and can infiltrate systems when desired. It is hard to guarantee that humans and artificial intelligence could co-exist and work alongside each other. Accepting the consciousness and free will of AIs could lead to a lot of issues regarding rights and safety as well.
Personality in AI
Human and AI Relationship
Responsible AI principles
References
- ↑ "Free Guy". IMDb. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ "Free Guy". Wikipedia. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ Berman, Sophie (2004). "Human Free Will in Anselm and Descartes". Saint Anselm College.
- ↑ Sanchis, Eric (2018) A Model of Free Will for Artificial Entities. University of Toulouse Capitole.
