Companion

Robots don’t kill people. People do.

In 2025, the AI debate rages on. Some can’t go an hour without firing up ChatGPT, while others stand adamantly opposed to the tech. Now part of our daily zeitgeist, there was a time when this stuff was merely science-fiction. But in the dozen years since Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with his operating system in Her, the concept has upgraded from fantasy to reality.

We all have to face facts: artificial intelligence is catching up. And so far… Judgement Day hasn’t happened. Movies have long been afraid of what atrocities sentient computers might inflict on us, but Companion is one of few films to imagine what we might do to the computers...

Some will look to robots to fulfill their bodily needs, or emotional ones. They might just role play the caring lover, or actually develop genuine feelings. Some will respect their bots, but others won’t treat them any better than a toaster oven. A certain number might even use them to carry out crimes. Or if they found a way… to commit murder. Yep, AI will become just another tool in man’s arsenal to be used for either good or evil. Sadly, it’s in our nature to misbehave, and we didn’t need a new mechanism to give us permission. We’ve already been dehumanizing real people for years.

It’s interesting how we keep pushing machines to look and act more like us, without giving them the one thing that really makes us human: free will. God, the original Creator, must have decided that making a race of unthinking slaves was not a fulfilling use of His power, nor would it truly satisfy His capacity to love. When we go against our base programming and try to do things our own way, that’s when we see what love is really made of. For some reason, God remains fond of us, though sometimes it seems like the best thing for Earth would be to get rid of us.

We, however, are quick to abandon the stuff we make. We think we love our phones, until a slightly faster, shinier one comes along. We scream at machines that fail to meet our need for instant gratification. Gizmos that don’t work how we’d like get thrown in the garbage. And the way we cast off our devices so easily, why wouldn’t they be tempted to rise up and wipe us out?