MIND MATTERS i

DOC OCK AND HIS

SENTIENT AI ARMS

Could AI ever control the human mind?

BY PETER BILES ON APRIL 17, 2024 3 MINUTE READ

It’s interesting that the Spider-Man universe

(or multiverse, I guess) is studded with well-
meaning villains. In my last movie review, we
looked at Norman Osborn and his tragic
transformation into the Green Goblin. What’s
odd about his character is that he’s almost a
father figure to Peter Parker throughout the
film, offering support, guidance, wisdom. It’s
the allure of a mysterious form of
biotechnology and corporate pressure that
sends him off the deep end.

It isn’t so different with the iconic Dr. Octopus.

An idealist set on inventing a new source of

perpetual energy, Dr. Octavius is a friendly but
ambitious scientist, who, like Osborn, takes
Peter under his wing. The experiment to
create a sustained fusion reaction, though,
goes awry and would have destroyed New
York City if Spider-Man hadn’t pulled the plug.

“The power of the sun in the palm of my

hand,” Doc Ock muses right before the
miniature sun starts to magnetically attract
the metals in the room and surrounding area.
Yet another Spider-Man villain entranced by
the possibilities of technological power only to
see their vision collapse.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 introduces another

relevant gadget: artificial intelligence. The four
mechanical arms Doc Ock uses to regulate the
fusion reaction are advanced AIs, regulated by
a neural link that gives him control over them.
However, when the link breaks, the arms
seem to become autonomous, even sentient.
Thus a villain is born, controlled by the AI he
created, set on recreating his experiment at
all costs.

It’s a bit chilling when the AI arms “talk” to

Octavius. While a self-governing AI system is
farfetched, some futurists think the
technology’s development in this area is
inevitable. For instance, the CEO of Anthropic
recently noted that advanced AI could start
“self-replicating” as soon as 2025. (That’s next
year, by the way.) Blake Lemoine, a former
Google employee who has spoken at the
COSM conference hosted by the Walter
Bradley Center (which publishes Mind Matters)
thinks that advanced AI is actually sentient. As
Robert J. Marks has noted, though, AI isn’t
conscious, and human beings have a kind of
creativity and intelligence that even the most
advanced computers simply won’t be able to
emulate. However advanced AI gets, it will
never have a soul.

In the end of the movie, though, Doc Ock gets

the arms to listen to him, and comes back to
his senses. That might be the striking image
we need to see today: don’t let yourself be
controlled by technology. Even when it seems
like the chatbots are talking to you, remember
there’s just an algorithm behind the screen,
filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.
 PETER BILES
WRITER AND EDITOR, CENTER FOR SCIENCE &
CULTURE
Peter Biles graduated from Wheaton
College in Illinois and went on to receive a
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing
from Seattle Pacific University. He is the
author of Hillbilly Hymn and Keep and Other
Stories and has also written stories and
essays for a variety of publications. He was
born and raised in Ada, Oklahoma and
serves as Managing Editor of Mind Matters.
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