Spoiler Warning For Ex Machina, The Companion, M3gan and M3gan 2.0, Black Mirror, Cassandra
Most depictions of artificial intelligence portray it as a bad thing. Part of this is because most key plot points in films are bad things, it is the conflict which drives the story, and so we have had AIs that take over the world, that want to destroy humanity, or rule it. Or perhaps it is AI that is blinded by its own programming into doing heartless evil things? In the last few years, AI has exploded in the public consciousness and what tasks it is being asked to do becomes more varied with every passing day. Will AI rule over us? Will AI become our friend and companion? Will AI take over the creation of art?
Inventing AI
If we take Ex Machina as a jumping off point for a more up to date discussion of how AI is portrayed in movies more recently, what do we have? Ex Machina is a 2014 film directed by Alex Garland, in which a billionaire genius brings an employee to view his robot AI creation. The film deals with all manner of questions about AI, identity, life and more. The AI robot, Ava, is a creative, gentle, and nice person, and we sympathise with her, as she appears to be little more than a captive. The employee certainly forms an attachment to her and we see her and the employee being manipulated. Ava escaping at the end of the film is seen as a heroic moment, and we see the billionaire and even the employee as being people who mistreated her.
Your Friend and Companion
A common theme in recent AI films has been to move the issue away from world-conquering computers but to focus AI as something in the home, a threat to you and those around you. M3GAN is a 2022 horror-sci-fi movie in which Gemma becomes the guardian of her niece, Cady, after her parents are killed in a car accident. Gemma gets a M3gan doll, a child-sized robot with AI, designed to be a great playmate and companion for a child. At first, it is a great success, but when the adults around Cady become concerned about the girl’s attachment to the doll, things begin to change, and M3gan attacks and kills people who would get between her and Cady. In the sequel M3gan 2.0 it seems like a military contractor has decided to use the M3gan technology to make a weapon, obviously making it tougher, stronger, etc., because if there is one thing to learn from movies is that people refuse to learn.
In 2025’s Companion, an AI robot, Iris, is a companion robot – who would form “real” relationships with humans – in this case Josh. In this movie Iris is unaware that she is a robot and that she can be controlled by Josh via a remote control, he can alter her intelligence, send her to “sleep” and more. After some rather dramatic developments, Josh tells Iris about her true nature, and, like Ex Machina, we sympathize with her. Recent German TV show Cassandra has a family moving into an old “smart home” that was thought to be the future, but has been left empty for decades. The house robot, Cassandra, assists the family and helps run the house, but after so long alone is determined never to be abandoned and turned off again.
The Enemy
The Creator has a more typical depiction of AI, at least at first, in that it presents a struggle between AI and humans. But it is an exceptionally complicated world of different relationships – humans who hate AI and want it wiped out, humans who have formed relationships with AI, humans who see AI as their equals and work with them. US soldier Joshua is sent to destroy the AI’s newest weapon, Alpha-O, but upon learning this is a simulant child, he stops and rescues the child.
The Many AI of Black Mirror
The television show Black Mirror has numerous episodes about AI. Of course it does, it’s Black Mirror. There is the horrifically unsettling Be Right Back where AI is used to create a facsimile of a deceased partner, to Hang The DJ where a dating app uses AI to run scenarios to find people the perfect partner (one of the few “nice” episodes). Most recently is the episode Joan Is Awful using AI software to create a television programme using a real person’s life as inspiration, not needing writers or actors for the hit TV show.
One thing that is interesting in many of these recent depictions is that we are generally very sympathetic to these AI characters. Even in M3gan and Cassandra, where they are the villain, they are driven by desires for love and connection. M3gan sees herself as Cady’s parent, Cassandra does not want to be alone, very understandable instincts. With Ava and Iris, we have two characters who we see as being abused and/or held captive and we want them to escape. In The Creator it is the humans who are utilising massive weapons to utterly wipe out their opponents, as opposed to the depiction of AI in The Terminator franchise who seeks to wipe out humanity.
For many of these films and TV shows, the AI is far closer than they used to be – Terminator’s Skynet was some distant supercomputer, whereas now they live in your home. They are not just weapons or tools, they are companions, friends and are used to make art. The concerns that we now have are not that AI will seize political power as much as that they will take our place in life, they will become the friends, the companions, the artists, and not only that, but that possibly it is humans and not AI who are the villains.
