"Crime Scene" check Is an AI murderer really possible?
This friendly AI, the only digitally existing environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke), causes various deaths in "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer".
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke) could also become important for the investigations of Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik, right).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Is Kiel experiencing a series of murders of young climate activists? Benno's girlfriend (Jonathan Berlin, with Johanna Götting) was found dead in the Baltic Sea.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
The police are cracking down on young climate activists - which is why Borowski and Sahin don't exactly have good cards when it comes to investigating the environmentalist scene.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Borowski (Axel Milberg) develops fatherly feelings for the young climate activist Leonie (Johanna Götting).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
She could become a new permanent character in the Kiel "Tatort": Forensic scientist Paula Rinck (Thea Ehre, left) analyzes the cell phones of the dead for Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Sahin (Almila Bagriacik).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
The "nice uncle" Borowski (Axel Milberg, right) distributes fresh bread rolls to the environmental activists on the beach (with Johanna Götting, left).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Programmer Sofia (Pauline Fusban, second from left) shows Sila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik, left), Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and her grandmother (Tatja Seibt), with whom she lives, her work on the screen.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
What does over-60s detective Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) think about the climate catastrophe? Environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke) enters into a dialog with the investigator.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
In "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer", Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) work together for the third last time.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
This friendly AI, the only digitally existing environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke), causes various deaths in "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer".
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke) could also become important for the investigations of Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik, right).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Is Kiel experiencing a series of murders of young climate activists? Benno's girlfriend (Jonathan Berlin, with Johanna Götting) was found dead in the Baltic Sea.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
The police are cracking down on young climate activists - which is why Borowski and Sahin don't exactly have good cards when it comes to investigating the environmentalist scene.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Borowski (Axel Milberg) develops fatherly feelings for the young climate activist Leonie (Johanna Götting).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
She could become a new permanent character in the Kiel "Tatort": Forensic scientist Paula Rinck (Thea Ehre, left) analyzes the cell phones of the dead for Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Sahin (Almila Bagriacik).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
The "nice uncle" Borowski (Axel Milberg, right) distributes fresh bread rolls to the environmental activists on the beach (with Johanna Götting, left).
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
Programmer Sofia (Pauline Fusban, second from left) shows Sila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik, left), Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and her grandmother (Tatja Seibt), with whom she lives, her work on the screen.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
What does over-60s detective Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) think about the climate catastrophe? Environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke) enters into a dialog with the investigator.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
In "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer", Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) work together for the third last time.
Image: NDR/Thorsten Jander
"Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer" tells the story of young environmental activists who commit suicide in the Baltic Sea. Or is it murder? The twist comes late in the movie: an AI, disguised as an environmental influencer, sends the young people to their deaths. Is that possible?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Dead environmental activists keep the investigative duo Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) on their toes in the new Kiel "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer".
- At the center of the investigation is an environmental influencer who turns out to be an AI in the course of the crime thriller.
- Experts doubt that an AI can actually kill a human on its own.
Films about the dangers of artificial intelligence have been around for a long time. However, due to the rapid pace of technological development, scenarios from older science fiction films now seem more realistic.
In "Tatort: Borowski und das ewige Meer", there is a rather bold twist halfway through the film: a mysterious environmental influencer who sends young people to their deaths turns out not to be a flesh-and-blood murderer, but a doe-eyed AI.
Who played the death-seeking digital being and would it really be conceivable for a scenario like the one in "Tatort" to take place in reality? Can an AI even kill?
What is "Tatort" about?
Are there murders of young environmental activists in Kiel? More and more of them are floating dead in the Baltic Sea. At first, Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Mila Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) still believe it was a relationship and have the boyfriend (Jonathan Berlin) of the first dead in their sights.
But with each new victim, the perspective widens. Borowski goes undercover and befriends 18-year-old Leonie (Johanna Götting), because the activists don't like talking to the police.
The policeman, himself the father of an estranged daughter, soon develops parental feelings for the highly intelligent but desperate girl. Meanwhile, Sahin takes care of the digital world with forensic scientist Paula Rinck (Thea Ehre):
All the deceased left their cell phones at the same recycling center before passing away - and they were in contact with environmental influencer Zenaida (Milena Tscharntke). The path to her leads via the programmer and activist Sofia (Pauline Fusban), who lives with her grandmother (Tatja Seibt).
What is it really about?
The screenwriters Katharina Adler and Rudi Gaul ("Tatort: Videobeweis"), who are best known for their work on the Stuttgart district, tell the story of sad young people who are already fighting climate change with considerable desperation. The world of the activists is portrayed in complete isolation from that of the older generation.
While boomers and Generation X continue to ignore the signs of the (end) times, younger people have long been looking for radical solutions to problems that seem too big to wait.
After the plot twist that the environmental influencer is actually an AI, two new topics are finally added to the "Tatort": How dangerous are - possibly even artificial - influencers? And: Can an AI actually kill?
Can an AI actually kill?
Many experts believe this is impossible because artificial intelligences have no will of their own. Nor is it in their ambition to develop one. However, AIs are very good at this: They collect and process data at record speed, which helps them to solve complex tasks.
Should a powerful AI be tasked with stopping climate change, for example, it could - in theory - also resort to radical measures such as harming humans, who are the cause of climate change.
In general, critical AI experts warn against systems that humans can no longer see through in their decision-making. For example, when it comes to deploying weapons systems - under time pressure - or not. In sci-fi scenarios, the evil AI is often a so-called "artificial general intelligence".
This refers to an artificial structure that can experience all human characteristics such as creativity, sensitivity, self-awareness and consciousness. Researchers in 2024 still disagree as to whether such a thing will ever exist.
Who played the death-defying AI?
The mysterious environmental influencer Zenaida, later revealed to have been generated by an AI, is played by Milena Tscharntke. The 28-year-old Hamburg native is the daughter of actress Andrea Lüdke, who played patrolwoman Tanja König alongside Jan Fedder in "Grossstadtrevier" from 1995 to 1997. In 2018, she appeared in the ARD telenovela "Rote Rosen" in the role of Eva Pasch.
In the meantime, however, her daughter Milena Tscharntke has really taken off: not only in the current Borowski "Tatort", but also in the Sky series "Turmschatten" (from November 15) with Heiner Lauterbach. In the film adaptation of the bestselling political thriller, she plays a young probation officer who becomes emotionally close to a neo-Nazi released from prison.
However, Tscharntke's most important role to date dates back a while: she was the title character in the rape drama "Alles Isy", which was nominated for a Grimme Award in 2019 and aired as a highly acclaimed Wednesday movie in 2018.
Which AI films should you know?
"Metropolis" (Fritz Lang, 1927) is considered the first AI film in history. In it, the machine man "Maria" embodies the first robot in film history.
The next major milestone was "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, in which the disembodied robot HAL 9000 turns against the crew of a space mission. Later films came along that ask the question: What actually constitutes human life - and is it different from artificial life?
Films such as "Blade Runner" (Ridley Scott, 1982), "A.I. - Artificial Intelligence" (Steven Spielberg, 2001), "Her" (Spike Jonze, 2013), "Ex Machina" (Alex Garland, 2014) or "Creator" (Gareth Edwards, 2023) are well worth watching.
In addition, countless science fiction films work with the narrative that "thinking machines" have turned against their creators - and destroyed humanity, at least in part. The best-known franchise that works with this idea is the "Terminator" stories.
What's next for the Kiel "Tatort"?
Axel Milberg will be seen twice more in the role of "Tatort" detective Klaus Borowski. Then comes the long-announced retirement of the investigator: The episodes "Tatort: Borowski und das hungrige Herz" and, finally, "Tatort: Borowski und das Haupt der Medusa" will run on the first channel in 2025.
Almila Bagriacik will remain in Kiel as Mila Sahin. Her new colleague and Milberg's successor will be Karoline Schuch ("Katharina Luther").
