PLUG & PRAY

Is it possible that one day in the future - if high-tech robots ever come close to having the complexity of human beings - there will be campaigns for the rights of machines? Admittedly, for the time being, prototypes of intelligent military vehicles are not even able to negotiate their way through a cornfield. But still, from Asia to America, people are working under high pressure on robot technologies that one day could handle the jobs which are increasingly becoming too much for us in modern market economies - killing enemies, watching children or caring for old and sick people. For ambitious researchers it is a dream; for the computer pioneer, Joseph Weizenbaum, it is a quantum leap in the wrong direction. Through astonishing insights into the world of artificial intelligence, prize-winning director Jens Schanze opens up a subtle discussion about the essence of humanity.