Human to human robot – Newspaper Kommersant No. 32 (7477) dated 21.02.2023

A film by video essayist Kogonada “After Yang” was released. The fantasy about the cohabitation of people and techno-sapiens, or, more simply, androids, seemed Mikhail Trofimenkov unbearably sugary movie.

The world of the near future is similar to the Garden of Eden: something, but Kogonada knows how to shoot the blooming nature. No worse than the dance of tea leaves in a jar being conjured by Jake (Colin Farrell), the philosopher of the tea business.

The future is ideally multicultural. Kaira (Jodie Turner-Smith), Jake’s wife is African. Mika’s adopted daughter (Malea Emma Tyandravijaya) is Chinese. And they are all plush. Excessively kind. Inhumanly human. Even when performing a family dance for a TV competition, from which they will fly out, they do not fall into a motor rage. It seems that if you press a button hidden somewhere under a multicultural skin, they will return to a blissful meditative state.

No, no, they, although such an impression is inevitable, are not techno-sapiens, but ideal people of an ideal future. Techno-sapiens serve them. Like Yang (Justin H. Ming), a robot with Chinese features, like Mika’s older brother, assigned to her in order to maintain and develop a genetic link to the national culture. Although how an artificial creation can convey such a connection is a big question. Well, to retell the Wikipedia article to the girl, what else?

In an ideal future, it seems that the problem of death should be solved once and for all. Such plush tumblers as Jake and his relatives cannot be mortal. The theme of the frailty of human existence, however, bypassed Kogonada, in contrast to the frailty of techno-sapiens. One damn day, Young falls to the floor, something is out of order, and how to explain to Mika the inevitability of parting with his beloved “brother”, the ideal mind of the future did not think of. Although, speaking with Marxist frankness, Yang is no brother to anyone, but simply a family slave.

The trouble is that Jake bought Yang, not exactly secondhand, but apparently second-hand and without a valid warranty. In official workshops, they will rummage in his gut for good money and make the obvious conclusion that the little thing is broken. There is, however, a black market, the dark side of technological paradise. It is a pity that Kogonada touched her only briefly. But there, in the slums littered with electronic trash, bearded conspiracy theorists work, promoting not-so-crazy ideas.

For example, the fact that household robots like Yang are perfect spies, broadcasting to Big Brother all the information about the daily life of the Jakes. Well, conspiracy theorists, what to take from them. Is that a block of memory removed from Yang’s dissected body. By connecting to it, Jake will learn the truth known to the world since the time of sentimentalism of the 18th century: “Even peasant women know how to love.” That is, androids can feel.

True, now they no longer dream, as in Blade Runner, of electric sheep. Young had tender feelings not only for his “family”, which was actually spelled out in his program, but also for a certain girl, Ada. Ada is a clone. And indeed, in the brave new world, the population of clones and techno-sapiens will soon reach human numbers. And, obviously, some new humanism without humanoids will come.

And in this new world, Yang will have every right to “doubt that he is Chinese.” And there will no longer be anyone who would pat him on the head and say: do not cry, you are not a Chinese, but a stupid piece of iron.