If Chaplin Were Alive Today, What Would He Say About AI?

This article is a thought experiment. Of course we cannot know what Chaplin would think about artificial intelligence. But what he said in his films about machines, authority and humanity offers a surprisingly good lens for looking at today's technology.

Suspicious of machines, tender towards people

In Modern Times, Chaplin is not an enemy of machines. What troubles him is a machine that does not serve people, but people who serve the machine. The assembly line turns the Tramp into a bolt-tightening tool; the feeding machine turns him into a test subject. Today Chaplin would most likely ask the same question: whose work does this technology make easier, and on whose behalf does it decide?

"We think too much and feel too little"

In the closing speech of The Great Dictator, Chaplin says that we need humanity more than machinery, and kindness more than cleverness. Those words were written in 1940 under the shadow of war. Read today, in the middle of the debate about AI, they almost sound like a manifesto. For Chaplin, knowledge and speed are not good in themselves; what matters is how we use them.

Let's imagine a Tramp comedy

If Chaplin were making films today, the Tramp might work as a courier. He would rush around the city on routes changed by an app every minute, lose his job because his rating dropped, and try to negotiate a rent reduction with a chatbot. The bot would answer politely without understanding a thing, and the Tramp, taking it for a person, would tip his hat to it.

In such a scene, what Chaplin made us laugh at would not be the technology, but the person left alone in front of it. And as always, in the end the real hero of the story would be the Tramp's solidarity with another person — perhaps another courier working for the same app.

Imitation and originality

Chaplin had hundreds of imitators in his lifetime. People who put on the bowler hat and cane and copied his walk filled the cinemas. But none of them captured the Tramp's soul, because that soul was born from Chaplin's own life. At a time when AI can imitate almost anything, this story reminds us of something important: the value of a work lies in the human experience behind it.

A final word

Chaplin would probably be neither an enemy nor a fan of technology. As always, his question would stay the same: who is the weakest in this world, and what is happening to them? If we remember to ask that question in the AI debate, we will stay true to Chaplin's legacy.