Companion
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading more and more alarmed voices calling for a moratorium on the development of advanced AI models. Even researchers who were previously enthusiastic about the positive potential of AI are growing concerned that we may be stumbling into building systems that could turn against humanity—like in one of those sci-fi movies where robots either enslave humanity or wipe us out entirely. Indeed, I just ready a study that expert on AI are more concerned that AI can harm humanity than the general public.
You may remember the 2013 movie Her, which portrayed the once-science-fictional idea of a human falling in love with an AI. In the film, the AI, voiced by Scarlett Johansson and paired with Joaquin Phoenix’s character, was more sensitive to his emotional needs than any human partner could be. Today, advances in large language model chatbots are making what once seemed like science fiction—artificial intelligence as a meaningful companion—a reality.
The new film Companion reflects on these developments. It imagines a perfect sex robot designed to meet every desire—only for it to turn against the human who bought or rented it. This is a timely narrative, as growing numbers of people worry that AI, at its current pace of development, is no longer fully under human control and could eventually pose a threat to us all.