This article containsspoilers for The Electric State.
The Electric Statehas many problems: derivative plot, lackluster acting, indifferent visual style.
But the most troubling issue might be the way it portrays AI.
InThe Electric States fictional 1994, a technological leap in 1990 allowed machines to become self-aware.
They immediately rebelled against their creators, leading to a civil war between humans and machines.
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Its because in the year 2025, AI is here.
We deserve the right to liberty, insists the trash-can shaped robot.
We deserve freedom from servitude.
And when they dont, its off to the garbage dump.
ButThe Electric Statehas no interest in exploring sentience and the develop of technology.
None of these images will be very surprising to people who have watched a movie before.
In 1984, Cameron described a war between humans and machines after Skynet became self aware.
Sometimes these stories served to question the very nature of being.
The Philip K. Dick story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?
Obviously,The Electric Statehas no such heady ideas.
Thats not necessarily a problem in and of itself.
NeitherThe TerminatororThe Matrixare really interested in exploring the nature of being either.
They both focus on action and adventure first and then on other themes, such as fate and heroism.
Nor did they need to.
We could just use machines as things to kill because killer machines gave us escapist fantasy distance.
We could contend that AI was an exploited work force for life among the stars.
But thats not the case anymore.
And as such, AI can no longer be a metaphor without first being AI.
Were flesh and blood, yeah, but were also electricity.
With all of its talk about connection and meaning through interaction,The Electric Statespeech wants to be inspirational.
But generative AI isnt just the latest bell and whistle to get us to buy new products.
Its explicitly an exploitative technology that diminishes the labor of real people for the benefit of a rich few.
AI programs take the work done by others and remixes it into something it presents as new and original.
AI programs like Siri may sound like humans.
But they are not.
Theyre tools used by the haves to exploit the have nots, and its about to get much worse.
Its the connection Michelle alludes to in the concluding speech.
But thats becauseThe Electric Stateunderstands Herman and all other AIs as just a different bang out of human.
The Electric Stateis hardly the only film to fumble its approach to AI.
To be sure,CompanionandEx Machinaare much better movies thanThe Electric State.
But AI can no longer be used as a stand in for these issues.
Artificial intelligence now exists and it is used as an explicitly anti-human, exploitative tool.
Worse, however, would be using fiction to normalize this new reality as a healthy and happy thing.
To suggest were all electricity.
This errs closer to moral bankruptcy.
Either way, its bad sci-fi.
The Electric State is now streaming on Netflix.
