Recall Me Maybe | FT Drama

You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player

Dad, can I have an ice cream?

No, you cannot.

Grandpa would let me.

Well, thank heavens I'm the one looking after you. Hey.

Jackie! Jackie! No! Fucking no!

Ivy.

It's no worries, Dad. It's not a problem.

Well, I think the hardcore swearing in front of a six-year-old might be a bit of a problem.

He would never have snapped like that before.

I hope it goes well.

Dad.

It's amazing.

I haven't worked with a writer before. I think that really helped.

Did it?

Our system, like all AI, is prompted by words. And the words you gave us were really above and beyond.

Well, please do tell my publishers.

So I hope you both feel that we've got as close as possible to the reality of your memory.

Well, everything's just moving so fast.

AJ: We render them at a speed that the subconscious can absorb, which is faster than the conscious eye. But we can slow any of them down. Don't worry if the images look a bit strange, they self-refine over time.

Oh my god. Is that really you?

I think so. Looks just like me. It's how I see myself still. Now, if I see my reflection, I think, who's that?

Do you remember it, Dad?

Yeah, I think so.

Some memories the system is matching to specific information. Others it generates from the data in a more holistic way. We know that you were a teenager in 1977, Kevin, and fairly on trend. So the computer is guessing, reading the probability.

Is that Slaughter and the Dogs?

And in terms of implantation, how far away are you?

We're already testing it.

Wow. And it'll be, I assume, very expensive?

Well, I'm sure we can... But what's going on there?

Sorry. Where?

It's gone now. There, there.

I hate it.

Cass.

I do. It tastes like sick.

You little...

What was that? I didn't do that. I'd never do anything like that.

Fuck, I don't know.

Cass.

I mean, no, of course not. I don't think you did either.

You don't think?

I was a kid.

It never happened.

Has that always been there?

Not necessarily. The system is continually generating new memories from the data. Let me see if I can work out how we got there.

Don't worry, Dad. I'm sure it's just a glitch.

What is?

Is it true?

I don't know. I don't remember it.

And obviously, he doesn't either.

Except his long-term memory is much better than his short-term one. That's why we can do this process. So he should remember it.

If it's true.

Yeah, I wish Mum were alive.

What would Wilfred Black do?

This isn't the sort of problem he normally faces. He operates in a world of clear right and wrong.

Cass?

Yeah. Here, Dad. I'm here.

When are we going to that place again, aman-something?

Anamnesis.

Yeah. Tomorrow?

I wanted to talk to you about that, Dad. Do we really think it's a good idea?

We discussed this, didn't we? Didn't we?

No, of course, we did. Yes.

Every day it gets worse. Every day I lose more of me. I want to be rebuilt.

What if what we're rebuilding isn't you?

What brought this on?

Nothing, Dad. Nothing.

Men who hit their children, they don't just do it once, do they? I mean, if he had hit you a lot, you would remember, right?

Would I? What if I can't remember because I've suppressed it?

Does he hit you again in the... what are you calling it, film?

Archive. They call it an archive.

Archives are owned by someone normally. Who owns this?

My dad.

Does he? Even after he's... sorry... gone? Because then I suspect it's Anamnesis. Did we check that on the form?

You're the lawyer.

Does he, in the archive, hit you again?

I haven't watched all of it.

Cass?

Tom, I don't know if it's the truth. The AI uses probability, algorithms. A lot of it is what the system has decided must have happened.

So what did you say that led the system to decide he must have hit you?

Nothing, I don't think. I talked about his mental health history.

That he was sometimes angry with you, that he lost it when you misbehaved, that sometimes maybe you were frightened of him?

Aman...Aman-something. Yes. But isn't that all dads?

But you heard him. He said it never happened.

Well, of course.

Of course because he's losing his memory, or of course because he's lying?

It's not lying. We all repress or block or let certain memories go. I mean, you can't remember it.

I was five or six. But fuck, this is ridiculous. I'm basing that on something that your AI has made up.

It hasn't made it up. It's assessed the probability. The whole universe, Cass, is probability. We don't even know where the smallest building blocks of matter are. We can only guess where they might be.

Don't quantum physics me. AI draws from the real world with all its biases about... Yes, larger men, men with a history of depression. There will be biases inbuilt into all of those categories.

Right. This is storytelling, something that I know about. We tell stories to make the world make sense. And somehow your algorithm thinks that my dad hitting me makes sense. That doesn't mean it's true.

Well, we could keep it but take the edge off.

Sorry?

Easily done.

I hate it.

Cass.

I do. It tastes like sick.

You little...

It's OK. I'll sort it.

She had to stop him. That's troubling.

This is delicious.

Thank you, darling.

Now you're just taking the piss. Is that a bottle of ketchup? Are you product placing in my dad's memory?

I am not. The AI must have decided... ...that the bottle of ketchup suited the happier scene?

Yes.

And also, who puts ketchup on tinned spaghetti?

Look. We can edit the incident out very easily, but the point of this is to retrieve who people actually were. And so you do them a disservice if all you retrieve is nice. It's not truth. It's propaganda.

But this isn't truth either.

Maybe, but neither is memory. Memory is biased. Memory is subjective. Memory is a dream. The way people think about AI is it's amazing, and it's suspicious. They assume that this technology - because it's so incredible - it must in some way be a villain.

Well, stories need villains.

True. But the villain in this sci-fi film, it's not an alien. It's our story, the whole human archive.

Is that good or bad?

I don't know. But I know that this is... as much the truth as anything else.

What's going on here?

He seems better.

They say it doesn't just recreate his old memories. It also improves his current, his working memory somehow.

Faster, Grandpa. Faster.

Well, now we don't want to go too fast, do we?

I think it was the right thing to do. He never seemed like a guy who...

We don't know who anyone is. But he's ill. He's frightened. He's suffering. He's been punished enough.

That's my storyteller.

Look at you.

I'm going to jump. I'm going to jump off.

No, no, no. Now, be careful, Ivy, darling. All right? Here we go. Oops. Now you can.

1, 2, 3, 4