The Creator, Directed by Gareth Edwards
If you’re looking for a profound exploration of the future of AI and the potential and risks it might hold, I suggest you skip The Creator.
Starring John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, and Gemma Chan
Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Running time: 133 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violent havoc
The year is 2065. People have developed a variety of advanced robots and humanlike “simulants” run by artificial intelligence (AI). These “AIs” (whose processors, unlike today’s “AI” algorithms, are modeled on the human brain) can do everything from drive buses to police neighborhoods to perform surgery. Then disaster strikes: AIs detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles, killing a million people and injuring countless others. The West institutes a ban on simulants and certain robots, and the United States goes to war with “New Asia” with the intent to destroy all advanced AIs and those who continue to develop them, especially the legendary AI inventor Nirmata (a Nepalese word meaning “creator”).
This is the setup for the recent sci-fi thriller The Creator. The film’s opening briefly shows the incredible potential of AI—celebrating the ways it could enhance human life—before depicting the common fear that it will somehow turn against us. The dark tone this sets persists for the rest of the film, which also fails to deal with the ethical issues its premise raises or even to deliver a compelling story.
Relevant questions in any artwork dealing with AI are the matters of sentience (the ability to feel) and autonomy (the ability to make independent decisions), as this affects whether the AIs can have intentions and how characters interact with the AI. Thus, these questions set important context for moral dilemmas in the film. In The Creator, Western characters respond to any seeming display of emotion by simulants with such assertions as, “It’s not real, it’s just programming,” whereas the New Asians treat the simulants like ordinary people, forming relationships with them. One key Asian character (Maya, played by Gemma Chan) says “they’re just like us, underneath it all.” The simulants themselves claim they’re another species, the result of evolution, and that when they win the war against the United States, they will be released from “slavery” and able to coexist peacefully with humans. It’s unclear whether their status as rational, autonomous beings is intentionally left ambiguous, but it seems that we’re supposed to agree with the New Asians and the simulants, who are portrayed far more sympathetically than the Westerners—who are almost exclusively white.
The film also presents a thinly veiled critique of the American military, with the black protagonist siding with the New Asians against the (otherwise white) Americans, who are portrayed as cruel conquerors. The American soldiers have no qualms about attacking civilians, even when totally unnecessary. One soldier threatens to shoot a young girl’s dog to get information he could have obtained simply by looking around. Another cuts off a dead scientist’s face (offscreen) for facial scan access to a nearby laboratory. The Americans also launch missiles from a massive hovering platform, an ever-present threat looming over the New Asians who, despite their supposed ability to develop more advanced AI, have no military defense against such strikes. (This seems to be an unsubtle reference to the Vietnam War, a conflict without clear motives during which the U.S. military sprayed herbicides from above, causing more damage than expected.)1
In the film, the Americans appear to have a reasonable motive for banning AI (preventing future attacks) and perhaps even for attacking New Asia, but the soldiers’ wanton cruelty is unjustified. And even that motive is undermined by a simulant who claims that the nuclear strike on Los Angeles was caused not by malicious AI but by a human coding error. But the protagonist doesn’t question or investigate this, and the audience is left with no clue whether it’s a smokescreen or true—and if the latter, whether the American government is aware of this fact and covering it up. Such ambiguity runs throughout the film; as one reviewer at Variety put it, the film “can hardly even keep its premise straight.”2
The unfavorable depiction of the West and the confusion surrounding the nature of the AIs make it difficult for audiences to answer another question: Is the United States justified in trying to eradicate all forms of AI? To answer this question, we need to know whether the AIs are rational—meaning, able to form and use abstractions and thereby make logical integrations not predetermined by their programming. A further question is whether they’re able to make decisions—to do things beyond, or in contradiction to, what they’re programmed to do. If so, then those who attacked LA (and any who hold the same ideas) should be destroyed (for the same reasons that Hamas terrorists should be). But if the AI are rational, they would also have rights, meaning that the United States should distinguish between those that pose a threat (and their accomplices) and distant innocents who simply happen to be living in the same large country. If they’re rational, attempting to eradicate all AIs without such distinctions amounts to genocide. If, however, the AIs were merely following their programming in attacking Los Angeles, then the real threat is posed by their makers or programmers, and the Americans should hunt them, not AIs.
One reason the story has little compelling characterization is that the protagonist, Sergeant Joshua Taylor (John David Washington), is a far cry from a hero. He’s a veteran who lost everything—his parents, brother, two limbs, and his pregnant wife—to the war. When he’s told that his wife, whom he hasn’t seen in five years, is still alive, he sets out to find her. This seems like a clear, rational motive. However, subsequent revelations about his wife—which show that the two were lying to each other for their entire relationship—never shake his determination to find her, even at the cost of innocent lives. The only other emotional connection he displays is with the AI weapon he’s supposed to destroy—a childlike simulant (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).
The Creator’s only strong aspect is its stunning visuals, developed by the same company responsible for much of the effects in the Star Wars franchise.3 However, even the aesthetic impact is watered down by endless, repetitive action sequences and the dark, dreary tone of the film. There are touches of humor, mostly delivered as one-liners by American soldiers, but they often fall flat against the gloominess and mushy moral standing of everyone involved.
The film is rare in that it’s neither an entry in a franchise, a retelling of a true story, nor an adaptation—so its poor box office performance has led some commentators to remark that it demonstrates that originality is not commercially viable today.4 They apparently fail to notice that writer and director Gareth Edwards borrowed heavily from other films in the genre, even telling one interviewer, “I just threw in everything I loved about sci-fi movies and then tried to stir the pot enough, pull out something, and combine it in a way that felt like its own movie.”5 These elements and tropes are blatant throughout, from the Terminator-like fear of (and war with) machines to the Blade Runner-esque dystopian visuals and simulants that claim humans enslave them. Plus, the film’s emotional core is the “bond” between a hardened soldier and a small but powerful “being” who endears itself to him through sheer cuteness, reminiscent of The Mandalorian and the bond between its title character and Grogu, aka “baby Yoda.” Although no film is made in a vacuum, and virtually all artists take inspiration from art they admire, this film is no indication of what original work can do at the box office.
Instead of dealing with serious, timely issues in a thought-provoking manner, The Creator rehashes familiar tropes and common fears to convey a shallow anti-America story that ignores the moral issues it raises and expects the viewer to either accept cultural relativism and not take sides or to side against the West, portrayed as the villain. If you’re looking for a profound exploration of the future of AI and the potential and risks it might hold, I suggest you look elsewhere.