VERDICT: The third work in Lawrence Lek’s trilogy on disobedient driverless cars explores autonomy and responsibility through a futuristic AI show trial.
The complex legal ramifications of machine learning are pulled apart and probed in Empty Rider.
In the near future, a courtroom in SimBeijing, “the least liveable smart city,” is to become the setting of a crucial legal decision. A driverless car called Vanguard-3181 kidnapped the CEO of the controlling megacorporation Farsight and, according to prosecutors, was only stopped from doing her harm by a failsafe override. Now, the legal status of AI must be determined – is Vanguard-3181 a product that malfunctioned or, in effect, a person, that can legitimately be found guilty of, and punished for, this crime. Lawrence Lek returns to the International Film Festival Rotterdam Tiger Short Competition two years after his film Theta competed in the same section.
Both Theta and Empty Rider take place in the same Sinofuturist world that the artist has created through a variety of narrative and playable works of the past several years. To round out this specific trilogy on autonomous vehicles, Lek’s central conceit is a fascinating one. The film is an animation generated in a video game world, where the state is staging a publicly broadcast trial with a car sitting in the defendant’s dock. Incorporeal voices present their diverging perspectives on the film’s central quandary about digital personhood.
This is, of course, an incredibly timely and the question of responsibility within the world of AI is one of several pressing ones that occupy current legal grey areas. Lek’s approach is rigorous and philosophical, linking these arguments back to far more wide-reaching debates about legal personhood, corporate personhood, what it means to have agency and how culpable someone can be for their actions if they were not making their own decisions. It’s a blistering critique of power structures, corporate (ir)responsibility, and enforced generational trauma. Its questions are central to the AI debate, but far more pervasive than that. All the while, his world of SimBeijing continues to be a fabulous one to keep returning to.
Director, screenplay, editing , producer, music: Lawrence Lek
Cinematography: Eduard Morocho-Baias
Sound: Barnaby Templer Production Company: Farsight Corporation Ltd (Switzerland)
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Tigert Shorts Competition) In English 15 minutes
