How a movie quiz AI played us
What’s the worst thing about online movie quizzes? You have to wait. Making a movie quiz robot seemed like a brilliant idea. And I still honestly believe it is.
Think of a movie, start the machine and answer its questions. What could be easier and more fun for a movie buff?
Well, first off, making this machine wasn’t that easy. Of all the challenges, we thought the technical ones were the toughest: fine-tuning the algo, optimizing the performance, etc. But there’s one more that took some time to realize.
We thought we were teaching it
So, this AI (aka Filmillion) takes a probabilistic approach to guess what movie you are thinking about. It asks you yes/no questions, and each answer narrows down the list of candidates. When there’s a clear leader, the machine offers it as the correct answer.
You’re right, Filmillion doesn’t have a slightest idea what these movies are all about. All it cares about are the answers of those who played it before. So, Filmillion is a sort of generalized reflection of the audience’s mind.
So, there was a problem with initial “teaching” so that it could guess thousands of movies. We did it though, all by ourselves. Or so we thought.
What happened next was not quite expected. Suddenly, we had quite a lot of users from Greece. And from Asia. And it turned out their view on the movies was different. And their answers were different. Ironically, at some point in the past, we thought it would be nice to offer questions about emotions you get while watching. Those “emotive” answers brought even more fun to the table.
Untying the Gordian knot
Of course, we found a solution, a pretty straightforward one: treat answers depending on the country the player is in.
But what really dug into me was: globalization, billions of people speaking English, enjoying the same movies originally narrated in English. I knew some cultural differences, of course. But I wouldn’t want to write a story about them until I saw them in person and en masse.
So, we feel different about what we watch. What you think is fun, some guy from Japan thinks is not. He sees some good in a character who you think is evil, and he feels pity and compassion for him. Godzilla is a good case in point.
And, while geographical segmentation should solve the issue, I felt I wanted to know more about the audiences.
Why Greeks are so cool
I started with Greece. I knew the civilization as we know it — much of it started in Greece. But it struck me again how much stuff we took from them. Apart from words like “drama” and “comedy” (and many more), that’s obviously true for plots and movies and everything in between.
Greek mythology is a source of inspiration for many screenplays (even if we put aside stories about Greek gods, demigods, heroes and mortals). The modern superheroes. You can actually call them a Pantheon. While some of them are direct references to Ancient gods (Artemis), others are less direct but still apparent (Flash, Green Lantern, etc.).
As of today, it’s a fairly rare occasion when a movie based around a Greek myth receives real appreciation (and box-office). Let’s look at Peterson’s Troy, whose critical acclaim is obviously well-deserved. Many blame it for totally axing the Greek pantheon. No gods, only heroes. But hey, maybe that’s what really makes it stand out. Gods would make it yet another superhero movie, but in place of superheroes you’d have cruel and despotic Greek deities. But this story is about people and that’s what makes me sympathetic.
Troy is a bright example how a Greek myth plot that’s thousands of years old passes the test of time, at a whopping half a billion dollar mark. Certainly, this rendition is not a Greek myth enthusiast’s delight. But Greek myth enthusiasts are quite a thin audience, right?
Taking God out of Godzilla
Can’t resist to put a side note that Godzilla stories are a classic Pandora’s Box plot (all hail Greeks!). So, we have yet another adaptation. And here the opposing voices of film’s critics were louder: producer Shōgo Tomiyama and Godzilla: Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura said Emmerich’s Godzilla (1998) “took the God out of Godzilla”. They thought Emmerich was depicting the creature as a pure abomination.
Frankly, I couldn’t see a point here at first. There’s that Greek (yeah!) scientist who saves the day and as a biologist he fancies all kinds of creatures (in a science way) and thinks Godzilla is not a bad guy, really. And Godzilla’s death scene (oops, a spoiler!) is quite sad.
On a second thought, the criticism here may go deeper. Emmerich’s Godzilla is no longer even remotely humanoid. It’s more like an evil dino. And it doesn’t breathe fire, and it’s plain dumb. All it wants — eat and breed. Pure consumerism, no godly nature, no food for thought.
Basically, we deal with box office vs. character and plot authenticity, again. However, the 2014’s Godzilla somehow addresses the concerns of Tomiyama and Kitamura, making the beast something a lot more than just a big hungry lizard. And, this time, it breathes fire!
You have to break eggs, sometimes
If critics think that sacrificing authenticity for box office is butchery, then I assume that directors like Emmerich and Peterson are artisan butchers and very decent chefs. Then, you might drop by for a Godzilla movie and stay for Green Mile. At least, that’s how I see it. All of us — we have to start somewhere. I can’t agree more with Christopher Campbell that global movie industry is largely driven by superhero titles, whether we like or not.
As for Filmillion, I sometimes play it, teach it to new titles and keep a close eye on the recently played movie list. I sometimes think what would a guy from Japan reply to a question from AI in my place.
No doubt, in most gaming sessions people are teaching AI to blockbusters and superhero movies. Which is absolutely okay and it probably makes Filmillion popular. But I see more and more classic and art house titles, and with time that list goes deeper than Fight Club, Clockwork Orange or Citizen Kane. And of course, people are adding new titles to the database.
