Artificial, which had its world premiere Monday at the New York Film Festival, certainly comes with a bit of controversy. Produced and directed under Amazon MGM Studios, Luca Guadagnino’s film about the origin of OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman and key creator Ilya Sutskever, was purchased after Amazon decided a tech company might not be appropriate to release the finished film. Could it be because Jeff Bezos, with his own AI ambitions, pumped $150 billion into OpenAI? I’m just saying.
After screening with a number of distributors in late spring, all of which were successful, Neon, the scrappy indie film with two Best Picture wins under its belt, decided to take the plunge and scheduled a Christmas Day release. The original plan would have been to skip the festival circuit, but that has clearly changed and so NYFF – which is having a banner year for world premieres (not its usual status) – would have the honor of showing for the first time what Guadagnino has been up to.
The film comes amid a wave of new films, both narrative and documentary, centered on tech figures. There’s Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary Musk; Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s surprise three-hour sensation in Telluride about Elizabeth Holmes, You can see everything; and this week’s full-scale release without any festival exposure from Aaron Sorkin The social network follow up The social balance sheet (reviews on this one were posted at 6 a.m. Wednesday).
Artificial This debut also comes at an opportune time when AI, and its worrying future, is making daily headlines, especially after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and testified that he believes AI companies could lead us to Armageddon, and even the end of all humanity by 2030, if they don’t take strong steps to add safeguards. After that, Altman spoke out publicly and was one of several tech moguls, including Elon Musk, to agree with this assessment. Scary.
US President Donald Trump, who with his sons is a big investor in AI, pooh-poohed everything, rejected the idea of government regulation and last week called on all tech moguls in the White House to agree to “self-regulation”. His response was to suggest that the only problem was the name, declaring “artificial” would be replaced and the technology would now be called “superintelligence”. Oh.
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Well here we are, Artificial just came to light, ironically on a day when Altman made more news in an interview with Politico where he said, “The world should accept that bad things happen for the sake of the benefits of this technology and the people who have agency.” » Oh, great. In my opinion, films can do a real service by drawing public attention to what, by all accounts, appears to be an impending five-alarm fire. With almost daily developments and revelations of a growing number of hacks and malicious AI agents, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction. So how much Artificial add to the discourse, and to what extent does it do so?
From a screenplay by Simon Rich, Guadagnino turns it all into a kind of black comedy that becomes so frightening that it’s hard to laugh. I even see it as a modern-day Frankenstein, with Altman as Dr. Victor Frankenstein having to deal with the “creature” he created spiraling dangerously out of control. In fact, Altman didn’t even create it, he just exploited it, and he was the man who saw the genius in Sutskever’s discovery, brought it into the fold, and then, almost sociopathically, turned it into a world-changing idea that, at this point, remains an ongoing story with an ending that no one can predict.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. At least that’s how I felt after watching Guadagnino’s origin story about the birth of OpenAI and its flagship product, ChatGPT.
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The storyline is told in the form of a linear biopic, almost a Wikipedia-style year-by-year account of developments beginning in 2003, when 17-year-old Sutskever (an excellent Yura Borisov) came to the attention of Professor Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto (the 2024 Nobel Prize winner in physics who is now considered the godfather of AI). Hinton immediately sees Sutskever’s genius in deciphering codes that took him five years to understand. He is taken under his wing, and over the years the bones of their AI discovery are auctioned off, raising millions. Soon, however, Sutskever also attracts the attention of Altman and his partner Elon Musk (an amusing Ike Barinholtz, who nails it). He is welcome into their circle of technicians and is clearly the mastermind behind this revolutionary discovery which, at the time, he thought might be 40 years away. But this prediction to change the world is cut short when they discover that this computer program is already capable of thinking for itself, answering questions and acting, finally, like a human. Sutskever firmly believes in its potential to end human suffering – cancer, disease, all our problems. It is, in his eyes, a uniquely beneficial force. Until…
A big moment changes everything when a problem arises and the model agent solves a problem by lying, thus creating a scenario that is not true. This is devastating for Sutskever. “I thought AI could be like humans, but better, not worse,” he laments. Hinton warns him of the consequences if they’re not careful, but Altman sees a bigger picture for the nonprofit company, even as some of its supporters step aside, including Musk and Dario Amodei (who would go on to found their competitor Anthropic). Microsoft makes a big investment, and when the company’s innovative ChatGPT becomes a sensation, Altman changes his focus to profit. This upsets Sutskever, who persuades the Council to fire him. But Altman finds a way to return, his true nature clearly becoming frightening.
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While this is somewhat of a straightforward approach to the story, it gains power in Garfield and Borisov’s captivating portrayals. Garfield is stunning here, creating a portrait of a guy who changes his story depending on who he’s talking to. This is a man who is not the genius behind AI, but someone who recognized it in Sutskever and would do anything to use it for his own questionable actions. Altman’s physicality, vocal intonations and general creepiness are on full display through Garfield for a man who simply should not be trusted or taken at his word. Borissov perfectly embodies the true believer, a young man who believes he has discovered the Holy Grail for humanity, the one that will come to fruition during his lifetime only to be shocked to discover that it is already there and taking on horrific dimensions.
Given recent developments about the serious dangers of AI if guardrails are not put in place, this film contains scenes that seem like they were filmed yesterday. Dark warnings are coming of the ultimate fate that awaits the human race because of this. This is chillingly played out in a shattering encounter Sutskever has with a hippie character named Zeke (a terrific Jason Schwartzman), who serves as a messenger of what the future might be like in a world that leaves this technology unchecked. It gives two options, neither is good. It’s almost eerie given recent warnings from tech giants, including Altman, suggesting that human extinction is a 10% possibility by the end of the decade. Artificial it feels like it made headlines and is therefore perhaps the most important film you’ll see this year. After watching this story unfold, I wouldn’t trust Nothing this man is talking about imposing guarantees. At one point, someone says, “A visionary is someone who lies to themselves. A liar is someone who lies to others,” and then asks, “Which one is Altman?”
The rest of the cast is very good, including Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, named CTO of OpenAI and increasingly concerned about Altman’s actions; Cooper Hoffman as Greg Brockman, the loyal company president who is in sync with his boss; and Rylance, who is the voice of reason and prudence, someone from another generation who knows the wisdom of putting on the brakes.
The stunning photography is by Malik Hassan, who is working with Guadagnino again after last year’s. After the huntand as usual in the director’s films, the music is really brilliant, that of Damon Albarn.
I don’t wonder why Amazon (invested so much in what Artificial warns ultimately and urgently), would decide to unload this film. This is the very reason why the public should see it when it opens on Christmas Day. Things are moving so fast that it may even be too late to do anything to stop it. At one point in the film, an AI agent casually asks, “Hey, have you ever thought about just unplugging us?” Then he quickly laughed and said, “Just joke’.
The producers are David Heyman, Jeffrey Clifford, Guadagnino and Jennifer Fox.
Title: Artificial
Festival: New York Film Festival
Distributer: Neon
Release date: December 25, 2026
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Screenwriter: Simon Riche
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Cooper Hoffman, Mark Rylance, Monica Barbaro, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd
Rating: PG-13
Operating time: 2 hrs 20 mins
Gn entert
