“The Creator” came out in late September 2023 and was directed by Gareth Edwards.  It starred John David Washington as Joshua Taylor, a special agent assigned to track down the Creator and it’s fancy AI weapon, played by Madeline Yuna Voyles.  The story is set in a relatively near future where the AI (in New Asia) and the humans (in the West) are at war with each other and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

Throughout the movie, there is a subplot where Taylor searches for his wife, Maya Fey who is played by Gemma Chan.  He is sent into a complex undercover and finds a girl, who they discover is an android, more or less.  She has the ability to remotely control much technology.  He decides to call her Alphie. Throughout the movie, he becomes rather fond of Alphie and initially uses her to try to locate his potentially imprisoned wife.  The movie had a high budget for special effects and they are impeccable.  The filmmakers tried to rely on natural illumination and limited ambient sounds to create as realistic a set as possible.  I believe they successfully captured a mood or two by doing this.  The acting was expertly done.  I believe also they did some groundbreaking work into the idea of what if AI had a soul and/or feelings?  What if it did have the capacity to care?  In most modern work about AI, AI is simply a mechanical psychopath, but in other imaginary realms like Star Trek, some of the AI seems to have a soul and even a sense of humor.  In Star Trek, we have examples of friendly and sentient AI beings.

I am very fond of this movie because it explores the idea of the AI having a conscience and a desire for peace between AI and humanity.  Of course the idea of AI having a conscience begs the question, where would the AI have acquired it?  Its not like we can program that into the computers and mainframes, yet….  Discussions today about AI and its potentials seem to shut down rather quickly and I think this was an important and very timely film.