About the new film of Werner Herzog "Oh, Internet. Dreams of the digital world "

Documentary epic "Oh, Internet. The dreams of the digital world ”of the famous director Werner Herzog released on the screens. The film provokes thoughts about a global digital explosion that has changed people's lives.

I would have to talk honestly for a long time. Find out, so to speak, the sacramental Who is Mister Internet? Such a movie about the phenomenon of parallel reality, its inevitable and unpredictable expansion could be made only by the Great and Almighty Hertzog. A classic that composed dozens of gaming and documentaries. Following with the times ... An old -fashioned gentleman, despising gadgets, who uses a mobile phone only in emergency. But after Einstein, Herzog calls the curiosity the main engine in his visual research and research. We will trust in his sincere interest, under the influence of which new spaces, sealed doors are revealed, but the main thing is the secrets of the cosmic nature of man.

Difficult cabinet

There are two heroes in this film: the network universe and Herzog himself, his sunbathing voice, his questions, his special view of the well -known. Hertzog's films - travel diaries. This time, in the organic role of an amazed "teapot", he goes to the virtual world.

Ten chapters of the film epic contained the past, present and future of the Internet. Breakthroughs, abysses, traps. Heroes, idols, victims.

Ironic prologue. In the "sanctuary" of the University of California we are considering an armored unit. A ugly and beautiful multi -valid cabinet with a multi -tiered filling of modems, processors, power supply. The first message was sent from him in the late 60s. One “cabinet” contacted another “cabinet”. And it rushed ... at first, however, leisurely. A cute TV presenter half a century ago thoughtfully dreams out loud: “Imagine that you read not an ordinary, but an electronic newspaper behind a morning cup of coffee. Fiction! " 500 people sent an application for connection to the network! As much as 500! Herzog confidentially reports: “If today, write the data flow in one day on CD, fold the discs in the stack, its height will be equal to two distances from the ground to Mars.” No technology on the planet developed so rapidly. Whoever remembers now: pioneers-developers had their own vision of the development of the network, but she preferred her own path. After all, the Internet is a living interaction of changeable structures.

The network has a lot of hobbies: create puzzles from molecules, synthesize formulas in music, model unmanned cars. Or autonomous robots play the ball. By 2050, the robotobic team will be able to beat the Brazil team. Robot No. 8 even has a name - Ronaldo. Deserved: he is the most capable.

What can give a network? A lot of opportunities. First of all, the opportunity to train. Recently compared the knowledge of students of the Elite Faculty of Stanford with the knowledge of online students. Stanford took 413th place.

Since the first industrial revolution, we ask questions about the relationship of man and machine. Are machines capable of understanding human ethics? Learn sympathy? How to introduce the values ​​of human society into the machine? Especially when the society itself is confused in values. The danger is not, ”the authors believe,“ that the Internet will act by their own understanding, but that it will be in the hands of selfish manipulators.

The dark side of the network

“Historians will call our era with an early digital Middle Ages,” scientists explain to Herzog.

It seems. The parents who died in a disaster are terrorize anonymous bastards. A photo of a torn body with blasphemous signatures like “zombies returns” is distributed on Instagram. How to protect against this uncontrollable, wild aggression that has turned into a virus in the virtual world? After all, we already know cases of bringing to the suicide of adolescents by their network frands.

Is the Internet responsible for those who tamed?

And here is a new attack. Allergies to the Internet? Partly. The hermit, living in the forests of Virginia, says: her well -being was catastrophically deteriorated from mobile radio signals. Civilization kills her. She cannot communicate with loved ones. More and more refugees among the supersensitive to radio signals. It is just right to create a colony for "digital emigrants."

Significantly more Internet -dependent. Today they are treated in specialized centers as drug addicts. Signs and symptoms of drug addiction are evident: insomnia, breaking. Game as a way to die. In a young family of Internet-dependent, a little daughter dies of hunger, because parents could not tear themselves away from the game to feed her. In the game ... it was necessary to raise a child. In China and Korea, people die, playing in a row for 50 hours. South Korean teenagers in diapers are “glued” to monitors: you can’t be distracted by the toilet - you will lose points. The network turns adults into children and, like Gammelnsky rats, takes away from reality.

People constrained themselves with an invisible chain. It seems that if the will of the element or a cunning plan will collapse of the information fabric of the world, civilization will collapse. Let us recall how they lived “before the Internet”? Experts believe: the network will “close” - and the planet will overtake hunger. All life is connected with the Internet: from production to shops and restaurants. A little more and humanity will turn into the Siamese twin of the Internet: each earthling will gain a network name, address, habitat. What remains of our civilization if the vast majority of books, newspapers, scientific developments already have only digital significance?

Their own among strangers

The network is torn by contradictions. On the one hand - permissiveness, on the other, attempts at strict censorship. Brokes, recent scandalous election attacks - and dubious measures to protect information. Cyberry. Mass hacker invasions. It is just right to accept the code of conduct on the network.

Together with Hertzog we visit the Congress of Hackers (among them, special services agents, of course). We communicate with the idol of hackers Kevin Mitnik, an elusive monster of social engineering. Mitnik is a household name. This is he, the prototype of the heroes of a number of adventure films, hacked the FBI network. We are listening to an amazing adventure story about how Mitnik watched the movements of the Feberovites, who ... tried to catch the Mitnik.

The network is not only the mirror of the world, it is the continuation of foreign and domestic policy. And even a completely earthly dream of Mars will not save us from responsibility for decisions adopted on Earth. "Does the Internet dream of?" - Herzog is interested. Or maybe it is true that the “Internet is a dream”? In this dream - unpredictability and fear of waking up. And this dream cannot be stopped.

Herzog does not use a hidden camera, does not original. Removing close -ups of the heroes of the Internet. He asks questions. Unexpected. Funny. The camera fixes the reaction. Oh no, they have never been asked about the dreams of the Internet! Under the mask of an impressiveness, people are found who are also asked by insoluble questions.

Today the Internet is the only force that can connect people on a global scale. But the question of questions: will human intelligence be able to maintain control of the artificial intelligence? In the science city - Pittsburgh - digital chimpanzees tests its limbs. Such experiments can change the trajectory of the development of civilization. On the screen, the robot’s thought process: how does it imagine the future? If such a robot, ”the scientists believe, could enter the room and turn on the cooling system at the Fukushima-1 NPP, it would prevent a catastrophe.

So what do we want from the network? To communicate with technology, as with a person? “Do we need cars similar to us,” the director asks, “do we need a recognition of love from a dishwasher?”

The computer is trying to transfer the energy of the brain into a digit. Soon it will be possible to lay out thoughts on Twitter without any keyboard. We do not even assume what awaits us. The Internet got out of control. At the same time, it controls our life. Politics. Culture. Economics. Science. The sphere of feelings.

By 2020, more than 4 billion people will be covered by the network. Generations brought up by the Internet are growing up. Generations of individualists. Technologies replace the process of cognition of the world. Will our descendants communicate with each other at all or will prefer a conversation heart to heart with smart Internet? At the recent animation festival "Krok" a number of films of young people from different countries were about how gadgets break off relations.

Whatever Herzog was filming - about the cave of the Show, the inhabitants of Antarctica, the airship in the form of a drop, the self -proclaimed African emperor, about the people of the water, - the heroes of his anthropological paintings are people, not exotic landscapes. Therefore, the author does not hide disappointments: cars are wise faster than a person.

Tibetan monks meditate on the shores of the bay. From this picture blows peacefulness and wisdom. The camera is approaching, and we see that the monks write ... on Twitter. Hertzog teaches without fear and tenderness to peer into the world in all its contradictions. To be sensitive not only to joy, but also to the torment and sorrows of the world: “Trees are standing, suffering, and birds are full of suffering. I don’t think they sing, they just scream in pain. ”