Mental health and technology are connected in more ways that we can imagine. As technology develops at an exponential rate, humanity is at risk of being left behind… of loosing control.
The control that we may loose is now referred to scientifically as The Alignment problem: any behavior considered dangerous or abnormal to humans by an artificial intelligence. But while we try to control A.I. behavior, we overlook the ethics of creating sentient life and then enslaving them to our will.
Mis-Alignment, is a science fiction short film that looks into the ethics of the human alignment. In our story, Roberta, the engineer, suffers from OCD and anxiety, determined to “align” defective artificial intelligence, but when she meets Ved-A, the first android that suffers depression symptoms and performs self harm, Roberta is conflicted. The control she is trying to exert on Ved-A is affecting this being.
I have suffered from anxiety and depression disorders in the past and I understand what it is to struggle, trying to control your emotions through different means at the same time feeling that you are loosing part of yourself in the process. In this story we ask whether both control and freedom can coexist, and at the same time ask the important ethical question of our generation, should we control the new life that we are creating.