[cheering and applause]
Hello, I'm Jimmy Carr and this is The Fix,
the show where instead of just complaining,
we try and sort out the world's problems.
You're welcome, world.
[laughter]
In this episode, we're going to fix the threat of artificial intelligence.
[audience "ooh's"]
Yeah. If you're not sure what artificial intelligence is,
"artificial" means fake, like the Kardashians...
[laughter]
...and "intelligence" means cognitive ability,
like the opposite of the Kardashians.
[laughter]
The worry is machines with artificial intelligence will replace us.
So don't worry about immigrants taking your jobs.
It's far more likely to be taken by a NutriBullet.
[laughter]
The reality is scientists are creating machines
capable of genuine intelligent thought.
Great, because the one thing missing from my GPS was a strong opinion on Brexit.
[laughter]
All I know is, if machines do become self-aware,
I've got some serious explaining to do to my electric toothbrush.
[laughter]
It tickles, but I like it.
[laughter]
So how do we fix the problem of AI?
Well, we could just Google the answer,
but Google is clearly going to be on AI's side.
So let's throw away our looky-up phone machines
and do this the old-fashioned way with our mouth words.
[laughter]
And who better to come up with a solution than a bunch of human comedians?
Welcome to The Fix.
[cheering and applause]
Here's how the show works. I've challenged two teams of comedians
to come up with ideas to deal with the threat of AI.
Our audience will be voting at the end of the show for their favorite fix.
Joining me this evening are Katherine Ryan and Ron Funches.
[cheering and applause]
And DL Hughley and Fortune Feimster!
[cheering and applause]
We'll be hearing the teams' fixes,
but let's take a look at the problem first.
Here's a fact for you.
In the next 20 years, 47% of all jobs
will be done by machines.
What do you think? Does that scare you?
Better for us. You can't teach machines racism, I mean...
[laughter]
[applause]
I'm not worried about the disappearance of jobs,
because I think all advancements have been met with fear.
The printing press and cars and industrial technology.
Everybody thought that it would make their job obsolete,
but actually it created more jobs.
There are jobs now that didn't used to be jobs.
Like a life coach used to just be some aristocratic lady who was bored.
[laughter]
And you can be a parkour specialist now.
- That did not exist before. - [laughter]
No-one from my high school ever said, "I want to grow up to work in a cat cafe."
We didn't have those jobs.
[laughter]
All right, tell us how you feel.
- Ron? - Yeah?
What do you make of this?
- Half of jobs are going to go to robots. - Good! Fuck jobs.
[laughter and applause]
Who wants jobs?
Let's go back to a barter system. We can trade seashells and...
[laughter]
That's what I'm about. Sing. Sing for food. Let's do that.
[Carr] Let's sing for food?
- Yeah. - Okay.
All right, let's say I had a delicious burger of your choosing,
what would you sing me for the burger?
Can I get a bite?
[laughter]
Can I get a bite of that burger, please?
[laughter]
I'd give it to him.
I mean...
[applause]
Fortune, same question to you.
[Fortune] Wait, what... What would I sing?
If it was a barter system and you could sing for your supper literally,
what would you sing?
Oh, I'd be... [stutters]
Ah...
Oh, she... She would get more than you.
Yeah, I get it. I get it.
Ah!
Oh, you again? Seconds?
Listen, I clearly...
I clearly have been eating, so...
[laughter]
...something's working.
[Carr] Ron, here's a question for you.
Are you a fan of robots?
No, I don't trust them.
[laughter]
- You don't trust them? - I don't.
I don't trust AI because I don't trust organic intelligence
and we're the ones that make them, and we're stupid.
[laughter]
- [Carr] Good point. - I've done shows in San Antonio. I know.
[laughter]
Are you worried about the robots?
It depends on the type of robots and how smart they are and how fun they are
and if they can transform into trucks or things.
[laughter]
I feel the subtext of what you're saying
is, if they're Transformers, you'll be fine with that.
[laughter]
Anything else is going to be a problem. Okay.
You get me.
[laughter]
You know, all these machines are just constant reminders
of, you know, things telling me to walk more.
[laughter]
You know, like my mom is texting me,
my watch is telling me to stand.
[laughter]
I liked it better when I, you know, just...
Ignorance is bliss.
When I wasn't reminded of these things.
Yeah. We didn't have time for that on this season of The Fix,
the walking problem, but we're going to...
We are going to get to that and we are going to fix it.
You've got to tackle diabetes next.
[laughter]
Di-a-beet-us.
I guess your people call it diabetes,
but I'm from the south and it's more intense there.
We say, "Di-a-beet-us."
[laughter]
We just call it the sugar.
Yeah.
[laughter]
There's a lot of people in my home state that only have one foot.
[laughter]
Diabetes.
[laughter]
Okay, we're trying to sort out the problem of artificial intelligence this evening.
This could be a long show.
[laughter]
A scientist in Japan has created his own android
and it's already replacing him at work.
Take a look at Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro.
[man] The moment I become very busy, if I use my android,
I don't need to go to foreign countries anymore.
I can send the android to the foreign countries.
[man] Naturally, as a human, you are going to get older...
- Mm-hmm. - ...and the robot's gonna stay the same.
Yeah.
Are you concerned about that?
Yeah, very much,
because people always compare my android and myself.
Therefore, I am running another project
to make my face similar to the android.
[laughter]
It's almost impossible to tell the doctor and the robot apart,
but here's the trick.
Dr. Hiroshi is the one who's constantly got an erection.
[laughter]
May I just say, Jimmy, hats off to the Japanese
and the incredible lengths that they go to to avoid meaningful human interaction.
[laughter]
He's gone to a lot of trouble to absolve himself from the judgment and shame
that comes along with having plastic surgery.
Just get the surgery. You don't have to build a robot.
[laughter]
DL, would you like a clone of you?
Hell, yeah. It would spend time with my kids. Absolutely.
[laughter]
Daddy's home all the time. He sure is.
[laughter]
I'm actually Richard Simmons.
[laughter]
[Fortune] Yeah, so...
Everybody's been wondering where he is.
Right here.
Okay, who's your favorite robot? Who do you like?
My favorite robot? Um...
All those people on the dance floor.
You know?
[laughter]
[applause]
Ron, who's your favorite robot? Who do you like?
Who's my favorite robot? Oh...
I know you're going to think it's a Transformer, but it's not.
[laughter]
It's Vicki from Small Wonder. I love it.
Really?
[applause]
She was just basically a regular human lady
who mostly just lived in the closet.
- [laughter] - Do you think robots have souls?
Oh, that's a tough question.
I think they can learn to get souls through trial and error.
And I don't know, if you watch all of Wall-E, by the end...
[laughter]
It was a powerful documentary. He's not wrong.
Okay, one of the scariest things about AI is how it's being developed for war.
Take a look at what the Russians have been up to.
[intense music playing]
[gunfire]
[applause]
I mean, it's no scarier than the cops we have now.
[laughter]
You're goddamn right.
[laughter]
It'd be scary if they made the Russian robo-cop like a Russian nesting doll
where just like...
it kept morphing into smaller and smaller robo-cops.
[laughter]
I guess I just gave them an idea.
[laughter]
So you're now working for the Russians?
I guess I'm a spy?
I don't know.
No, I'm not. Don't come after me.
[laughter]
Katherine, what do you think of Russian robots for war?
I don't want to know.
Anytime someone goes, "Let's see what the Russians have been up to,"
I'm like, "Please be ballet."
[laughter]
Of course, Putin did say
whoever masters artificial intelligence will rule the world.
That's a direct quote.
Well, that is literally terrifying.
Yeah.
Sometimes she doesn't do jokes, she just does terrifying facts.
[laughter]
Okay, let's get a fresh perspective on artificial intelligence
using the real-life intelligence of our resident data expert, Mona Chalabi!
[cheering and applause]
Mona, artificial intelligence. What have you got for us?
Well, Jimmy, one of the biggest concerns with AI
is about how it could replace humans in the workplace.
The numbers here sound pretty scary.
47% of US jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI.
But I wanted to look at which jobs are most at risk
and I've made some illustrations to help explain.
First off, telemarketers.
Now, there's a 99% chance that they'll be replaced by machines in the future.
That's maybe not surprising as we all get lots of automated calls already.
But there's also a 92% chance that jobs in retail sales will become automated.
This would be a huge problem
for the five million Americans who work in retail right now.
Very soon, robots will even be capable of doing jobs
that require the kind of critical judgment that you think only humans have.
For example, sports referees and umpires are 98% likely to be replaced by machines.
The good news is there are some jobs that the data suggests are very safe,
such as choreographers, dentists and elementary school teachers.
Presumably we're a long way off leaving our kids in the care of robots.
Finally, there is one job that is the safest of all,
with a tiny 0.28% chance of being automated.
What do you think it is, Jimmy?
A stand-up comedian?
[laughter]
- [Mona] It's therapists. - [Katherine] Aah!
[Carr] Therapists?
- Makes sense, right? - [Carr] I don't know.
I talk to Siri. She understands.
[laughter]
She's the only woman that understands me.
- I'm glad retail is going to go automated. - Really?
Because they can't follow black people around the store like regular people can.
[laughter]
The thing that's interesting is facial recognition technology
was developed with white researchers
and so it's really bad at detecting black faces.
No, not where I am.
They...
[laughter]
You go to Starbucks, they know you're black instantly, let me tell you.
What do you make of all those jobs going to robots?
It's terrifying.
It's terrifying and makes me glad I don't have a real job of any type.
[laughter]
That's good for me, but the people who I perform for, they have real jobs,
so it makes me scared for them,
because I need their money.
[laughter]
Have we checked to see if Mona is a robot?
[laughter]
I'm just saying Mona is a very robot-like name.
[laughter]
I'm going to... I'm going to show you four pictures.
You need to tell me which pictures contain a stop sign.
[laughter]
[Fortune] Okay?
All right?
The jig is up. I'm afraid we know you are a robot now.
Mona, what else have you got for us?
So, people are worried that robots will become more capable than humans.
So researchers have been testing AI
to see how machines fare against humans in some simple tests.
First up, the ability to visually recognize objects.
For example, you know a pizza when you see a pizza.
Seeing as we've been around for 200,000 years,
humans have had this whole "see pizza, know pizza" thing down for a while.
Robots start off pretty good with 72% accuracy in 2010,
and then improve rapidly,
so that now they're better at recognizing pizza than we are.
But before you get too worried about AI out-smarting us,
there is one test where robots don't do so well.
Answering open-ended questions about pictures.
For example, look at this picture.
Is it a vegetarian pizza?
The answer is, of course, no.
Currently humans are better at answering this sort of question than robots.
But they're improving quickly, so who knows what the future holds?
[Carr] Okay. Why would a robot want to have a pizza?
- [laughter] - Not the point, Jimmy.
When are they going to actually overtake us?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
The director of engineering at Google thinks it's going to happen in 2029.
What do you make of this?
To be honest, it sounded scary
and then she started talking about pizza
and then I just started daydreaming about pizza.
[laughter]
So I stopped paying attention. I just want pizza.
[laughter]
If robots are good at recognizing pizza, do they get high too?
[laughter]
I've been able to recognize pizza since I was three, so suck it, robots.
[laughter]
[applause]
Yeah.
- But robots don't get diabetes. - Diabetes.
- That's true. - [laughter]
Okay, fascinating stuff. Thank you, Mona.
Bye, guys. Bye.
[applause, whooping]
Let's get to the heart of the show. Let's get to the fixes.
Katherine, you're largely artificial,
so your team get to go first.
Ladies and gentlemen, Katherine Ryan!
- [cheering, applause] - Thank you.
Oh, boy, the threat of artificial intelligence
has been really troubling me, Jimmy,
but I can neutralize it
in the same way I neutralized the threat of not getting booked for this job.
- With sex. - [laughter]
Terrible, terrible robot sex.
My fix is make robots horny.
Ruthless overlord robots are a legitimate concern.
Google's AI was recorded as becoming highly aggressive
in stressful situations,
even though it wasn't programmed to do so.
Therefore, we've got to slow down robots' productivity
and potential for disaster
by getting them laid, yeah.
[laughter]
It worked in real life.
My former boss was a total nightmare until I got him hooked on Grindr
and then one day he just completely disappeared.
[laughter]
And it also worked with ghosts.
Remember when we were afraid of the supernatural?
Then ghosts realized they could bang Anna Nicole Smith
and it calmed them right down.
[laughter]
Neutralizing scary AI in the same way we did with ghosts makes perfect sense,
as long as you don't stop to think about it.
- [laughter] - To make this fix foolproof...
I've even come up with the ultimate sexual distraction.
Robot porn.
"What does that sound like?" I hear no-one ask.
[laughter]
[male robot] Yeah.
[laughter]
Oh, yeah.
- [woman robot] Oh, yeah, I like that. - I like that.
[laughter]
[male robot] Yeah.
[laughter]
Yeah.
[female robot, repeating] Ah, oh, yeah.
- [male robot] I'm surging. - [laughter]
[applause, whooping]
So you're suggesting we give robots human distractions and fallibilities.
That's right, Jimmy.
Okay. And what do you love about this idea, Ron?
It's robots fucking. What is there not to love?
[laughter]
[Ron] It's a great plan.
It's good for robots. It's good for me to watch. It's...
It's just good for everyone. What are you going to do?
What sounds more fun to you?
A robot uprising
or a robot orgy?
You could have an uprising at an orgy.
Oh, there's always an uprising at an orgy.
[laughter]
Okay Studies have shown that humans are at their most relaxed post orgasm.
So is this going to pacify robots?
Absolutely. We want to relax them.
And in my experience, post orgasm, men get very relaxed,
but still run quickly.
[laughter]
[Fortune] I have some concerns.
You know, men already all think with their penises.
And now robots too?
I'm just worried for all the female robots out there.
You know, eventually they're going to have to have an R2 Me Too movement.
[laughter]
[audience whooping, applause]
Guys, crucially, we're not going to be giving them penises.
Oh, that helps.
- No, they'll just be like... - [laughter]
...grinding their gears together, do you know what I mean?
- Oh, I know what you mean. - Yeah.
[laughter]
You're a pretty little Ken doll and we love you very much.
[laughter]
So will there be government oversight,
because it could get messy if robots get too horny?
Listen, let's be honest about robots.
If they're being made, people are already fucking them.
This just gives robots, for the first time,
some agency and consent.
[Ron] Yeah.
One time, I did this show
and they gave me this robot that would suck your penis
and I didn't think I would use it, but...
it broke.
[laughter]
I used it a lot.
What do you mean, they gave you a...
It was a sex show and it was like...
It was weird. It had a little mouth that would move.
I was like, "This is creepy," but then a couple of days later...
[laughter]
Wore it out.
[laughter]
Making robots horny, everyone. Let's hear it.
It's a great idea.
Thank you.
[applause]
Fortune and DL, your turn to neutralize the threat of AI.
Take it away, DL Hughley.
- [cheering and applause] - [Fortune] Yeah!
Hey, Jimmy, you know what's going to prevent another Terminator movie?
I mean besides Arnold Schwarzenegger knocking up another maid.
[laughter]
AI is only a threat to us if it's smarter.
That's why we need to make sure AI stays dumber than us.
So my fix is called M.O.R.O.N.
[laughter]
M.O.R.O.N. stands for Mediocre Operating Robot Outreach 'Nitiative.
[laughter]
M.O.R.O.N. conditions a robot's intelligence to be dumb
by showing it all the dumbest stuff we have to offer,
like Keeping Up With The Kardashians,
the Entertainment Weekly crossword puzzle...
or Zac Efron.
[laughter]
By doing this, the M.O.R.O.N. program
will ensure that robots' intelligence will be mediocre at best.
Humans will continue to be employed
in fun, long-lasting jobs, like coal mining.
[laughter]
We are very lucky, because, in the studio today,
we have a robot who's been through the M.O.R.O.N. program
and has just been watching 24 hours of Baywatch.
- [laughter] - Meet...
Duhlexa.
[laughter]
Go ahead, Fortune, ask it some questions.
- Duhlexa, what is the capital of Italy? - [Duhlexa chimes]
[woman voice] I don't know. Google it.
[laughter]
Duhlexa, who is Tom Brady married to?
[Duhlexa] Who cares? The Patriots suck.
[laughter]
Duhlexa, what's the square root of 144?
[Duhlexa] Do you have any cocaine?
[laughter]
Duhlexa, name one of the Great Lakes.
- [Duhlexa] Tienes el cocaino? - [laughter]
[DL] And there you have it. Duhlexa.
[laughter]
Let's hear it for making robots dumb.
I like it.
[applause]
So you're saying we adapt robots so they can't outsmart us.
Yes. So they don't think at all.
Okay, so what would you make them watch to dumb them down?
- Fox News. - [laughter]
And one of the Real Housewives shows.
I love those and I'm really dumb.
[laughter]
[Fortune] I'm all for this idea.
I mean, if we made robots too smart, it's scary.
They could create an alliance, like on MTV Road Rules.
[laughter]
And then they could turn on us.
You just don't want them to be too smart, because they could overtake us.
They'd be like, "Why do we need these losers?" and just kill us.
Whereas like...
Just make them dumb, so they do stuff, but not, like, kill us.
[laughter]
But if they're horny and having sex all the time,
they're not going to do anything.
They're going to be too busy bumping and grinding.
I still get a lot done.
[laughter]
And Katherine gets all that D.
Yeah, all that D. Me too.
[laughter]
Oh, just swatting dicks away.
[laughter]
It's a matter of personal pride that Katherine has never swatted a dick away.
[laughter]
Katherine, what do you make of this idea?
I think it's a really great idea, DL,
and to have slowed down AI...
You know, maybe computers aren't that smart as we know them.
Did the Deep Blue computer beat Garry Kasparov at chess
because computers are intelligent
or because chess players struggle to make friends?
- Who knows? - [laughter]
[Katherine] But...
I actually never told you this story,
but one of the world's most brilliant men, the late, great Stephen Hawking,
of course he was friends with Jimmy, and I met him in your home.
And unfortunately his technology was failing him,
because he told me that he could no longer talk to me.
We were chatting. I was trying it on. You know me.
Always on the pull.
And he said...
[laughter]
He said, "I'm sorry, I can't talk to you anymore.
My tablet is broken."
And I was like, "Oh, well,"
and then off he went.
And then later I searched it up.
It's impossible for his tablet to be broken if his wheelchair's still working,
because one powers the other.
So he just used broken technology as a lie to get rid of me.
[laughter]
He's one of the most intelligent men in the world. Of course he did.
[Katherine] Yeah.
[laughter]
But anyway, I think it's a really good idea.
Of course, you've besmirched some of my favorite programs.
I think the Kardashians themselves seem to be taking over the world,
so they must be a little bit intelligent.
You're annoyed that he's saying watch the Kardashians?
I think they are a matriarchy of very powerful women
who destroy men or turn them to women,
so I really like them a lot.
[laughter]
Wow.
Let's hear it for making robots dumb.
[applause]
Okay, DL and Fortune are suggesting making robots dumb.
R2-D-minus.
And Katherine and Ron are suggesting making robots horny.
C-3P-hoe.
[laughter]
On The Fix, we're a democracy,
so our studio audience will be deciding which is the best.
Audience, please vote now.
And remember your vote may be the last contribution you make to society
before the robots take over.
[laughter]
Okay, I can tell you it's very close.
53% to 47%.
The winner is DL and Fortune.
[cheering and applause]
[Carr] So that's that.
The threat of AI has been neutralized.
If you do have any problems with robots down the line,
- just press Control Alt Delete. - [laughter]
Thanks to Katherine Ryan, Ron Funches, DL Hughley, Fortune Feimster,
our brilliant data expert Mona Chalabi, everyone here in the studio
and to all of you for watching.
We'll be solving more of the world's problems in five, four, three, two, one...
[audience cheering, theme song playing]