Rather than being a full review of the Devs series, released in 2020, written and directed by Alex Garland, this is some of the complaints I have about the show's handling of certain philosophical concepts. Broadly, the plot is about an unethical tech industry experiment that makes predictions about physical events, both into the past and into the future. In theory, this should be a very capable vehicle for exploring concepts like free will, determinism, etc., but the effect of the show was a bit like making a drink out of every flavor of soda at the soda fountain. By taking a small amount of these concepts without committing to any one of them, the end result is a product that often doesn't seem to be going in any particular direction.

One of the few statements that the show does seem to be willing to make is the connection between amorality and determinism. The antagonist of the show states early on that because people cannot choose what they do, they can't be held to account, because they never could have taken a different action. He then uses this dispassionate amorality to wave away the guilt over his role in the cloak and dagger violence protecting his tech empire. Our protagonist, one of the victims of that exact type of violence, accepts this statement silently, apparently unable to find a way to give voice to outrage at having her life, and the lives of her loved ones, threatened or ended as a result of this mode of thinking.

While much of the show focuses on the exculpatory side of this connection, the ability to excuse wrongdoing stuck with me as being a flaw the protagonist's otherwise pristine character. Why was she unable to say that taking good actions, and avoiding harmful actions, is itself good? Why was she unable to observe that if the man opposite her was a better person -- had believed that murder was wrong -- then he would not have ordered a murder to occur? It might not have been convincing, but it would have been true. Her silence wasn't out an abundance of sympathy; the show simply treats this connection between amorality and foresight as an obvious and inescapable conclusion. The show believes that to know the future is to forfeit morality.

A marble might roll down a ramp because it was pushed, but you can still point to it and say "that's a fast marble". You can point to the tech CEO with blood on his hands and say "that is a bad person". Judgement still exists under deterministic rules, at least for human purposes.

The missing element here is that morality and other ideological concepts do contribute to human behavior. The presence or absence of free will doesn't change how the marble behaves. But to a human, belief in those concepts is as real as a ramp, or railings, or a jump in that marble's track -- it is a feature in the landscape in deciding how a person will act. The assumption of free will is all that is necessary for this, a function of belief. The show eventually pursues some kind of religious statement to this end, but a purely existential one would suffice: it is enough to act as if good exists.

The difference between acting as if good does, or does not exist, does not actually hinge on the state of the existence of good. It is the belief itself that does the thing. Principles are real, even if the belief underneath has been placed in a false thing.

The ideas provided in the show are often too shallow to provide much sustenance. Aside from the strong core about the emotional weight of cursed knowledge, the show tends to hop along from one interesting concept to the next, to dazzle them and then sprint to the next thriller sequence or concept. We're doing big data police state, then unreality, then it's deterministic existentialism, simulacra and simulation, multiverse, transhumanism, quantum consciousness, and so forth. Never stopping to do much. Almost incurious about the concepts, just reaching into the full tray and giving a big tongue slather across each before putting it back.


Spoilers to follow: (stated somewhat vaguely in no uncertain terms)

This is mostly exemplified by one really bad scene (in my opinion) that seemed to present one of the few true pieces of commentary within the show: that fated, metaphysical destiny exists. Beyond the magical prediction box, there is still some kind of eternal controlling force that causes events. It is never hinted towards, never explored, it merely asserts itself at the pivotal moment and leaves. That might be done artfully, but this particular version was positioned so as to undo so much of the story. It reverses the story's latent emergence of free will, representing a regression towards antiquated stories about religious fate: a prophecy reverted in an unexpected way. Both the hero who asserts free will to avert the fate and the tech CEO, who foresaw the fate, are killed in a freak occurrence after our protagonist demonstrates the ability to exert free will. An event so unpredictable that even the machine could not have seen it coming. It seems to make the comment that dualist free will exists, but only in service of a metaphysical destiny, and even as it defies tech-derived determinism, it still must obey that other fate.

And that could be a compelling idea, if those two fates were ever thematically opposed for even a single moment. But prior to the ending, there is no hint of it. It comes out of nowhere and then goes nowhere. Awkward stuff, made more awkward by the fact that the two fates are in fact, slight variations on events that have the same exact outcome, i.e., the machine also predicted that the two characters would die, in the same way, at the same time, just from a different cause.

And not to nitpick, but the show also arrives at this conclusion by way of assuming that quantum events permit spontaneous free will. This is a bad assumption, and a pretty freshman error when it comes to discussions of free will, as quantum events are generally believed not to be large enough to affect neurology in a human brain. Even if they produced a difference, and even if that difference was to make a coherent plan of action, rather than a seizure or a blink or the sudden reminder of the smell of a ham sandwich, then those differences might occur all the time, for any number of people, for any number of reasons, and the predictability of events would have been totally screwed. The magic box would have been useless.

But free will is not for everyone! Just for our special prophecy protagonist, who is just so emotional and therefore metaphysically powerful enough to break out. It's a sci-fi show that arrives at its conclusion only through magic, a retraction of the good, interesting concepts at its foundation. It is a violation of the assumed determinism of the show, creating a sense that the beginning didn't matter, compounded by the protection from consequences at the finale, creating a sense that the ending didn't matter either.

Eventually the show arrives at supernatural and religious concepts, which are treated with the same informal, brief attitude as earlier philosophical concepts, and comes to contrast too brightly against the emotional weight to which these scenes are attached. There is a good degree of taste here, the script never goes too far and makes a classic Hollywood science/philosophy mistake, but that's somewhat belied by the obvious attraction to the multiverse concept and cliches about "infinite possibilities mean every possibility exists somewhere...". What really stuck with me is the disappointment here; I was really hoping for a good, convincing, hard sci-fi explanation that might connect typical fictional multiverses well to the science, even with the use of magical boxes and mystical revelations. But Devs still has too many plot holes, tunneled through by unexplained supernatural phenomena, and its end location has nothing to do with where it was initially going.

That's not to say it's a bad show. Nick Offerman looks like a bigger, sadder version of Bertram Gilfoyle and still solidly plants this sucker into the deep left field for every story beat that calls for his character, Forest. The directing leaves plenty of room for everyone to do their best, and, as is usual in an Alex Garland piece, the cast they chose makes excellent use of that space. The score is appropriately ethereal and energetic, and the most iconic moments of the whole show come down to its visual effects, especially this version of superposition. I don't regret watching this show, but I do regret anticipating this show for its intellectual content.

Most of the show seems to spend its energy expressing with awe the implications of the collapse of the illusion of free will. Those who gaze into the future inevitably become nihilists, soul seared away by that very knowledge. It is cursed, immediately repulsive to the uninitiated, and bestowing a corrosive fatalism on those who stare deeply. They transform their humanity directly into power, and ironically become powerless as a result. One of the show's best scenes (despite shaky science) depicts a character experiencing a great and fierce intensity of joy at not knowing the outcome of an event, and an antagonist grimly standing by. Patiently. Unmoved as the person approaching their own resolution with thrilling uncertainty, she absorbs hardly a cinch of emotion from them. Barely watching. Holding the reins. Capable of nothing else.