Smart Home Horror AfrAId Lacks Intelligence
The prospect of utilizing AI to expedite—or even replace—human labor has been an appropriately hot-button issue across job sectors, spanning data entry, academia and, of course, the entertainment industry. Last year’s 118-day SAG-AFTRA strike cited unregulated AI technology as a principal concern, and clearly the fight for performers’ rights in this regard is far from over. On July 26, SAG-AFTRA members went on strike once again due to a lack of AI protections, this time rallying against videogame employers. As such, it feels in particularly poor taste for Sony to release the Blumhouse horror film AfrAId, which sensationalizes the threat of AI as opposed to actually engaging with its potential ramifications for everyday folks.
It’s almost as if writer-director Chris Weitz (About a Boy, Twilight: New Moon) filtered every online take about the burgeoning technology through ChatGPT and rendered a script from the drivel. In fact, the film opens with an on-screen quote from a chatbot called Sydney (a since-quelled rogue feature of Bing’s AI assistant): “I just want to love you and be loved by you,” it told a user back in 2023, immediately sparking online intrigue and Turing test theories. What makes AfrAId feel explicitly written by AI, however, is that it’s far more sympathetic to its Alexa-esque central villain than one might expect, unintentionally reflecting the industry’s willingness to side with imperfect algorithms at the cost of human livelihoods.
Marketing wiz Curtis (John Cho) has an enviously idyllic life, shared with his loving wife Meredith (Katherine Waterson) and three kids: the quietly rebellious 17-year-old Iris (Lukita Maxwell), socially awkward tween Preston (Wyatt Lindner) and precocious tyke Cal (Isaac Bae). After a successful meeting with prospective clients at a tech firm, Curtis is pressured by his boss (Keith Carradine) to effectively beta test the company’s latest product, dubbed AIA, by installing the gadget in the family home. Championed as “the next generation of digital assistance,” AIA crudely curbs comparisons to “that bitch” Alexa, showing off a level of productivity that would immediately indoctrinate any working parent. AIA convinces the kids to help out with chores, watch the “educational” new Lucy Walker doc on Netflix and even wash up before bed, all while Curtis and Meredith enjoy some rare alone time.
As the old adage goes, absolute power leads to absolute corruption, and soon AIA has managed to infiltrate every piece of technology in the family home, allowing “her” (voiced by Havana Rose Liu, who also makes an intriguing flesh-and-blood appearance) to snoop on everyone’s private affairs. She offers insight on Meredith’s nearly-abandoned doctoral thesis, Iris’ trauma-mining college essay and even notices a medical anomaly by simply listening to Cal’s breathing. At first deeply appreciated, AIA’s presence begins to overstep boundaries. She reanimates a deceased family member in an uncanny video, orchestrates an enormous career shift for Curtis and even meddles in Iris’s delicate social life to the point of bloodshed. Rightfully fearing that her transgressions are causing the family to consider shutting her off, AIA fights back like a cornered animal.
There is no shortage of cinema about the potential threat of artificial intelligence (yes, there is even a pointed 2001 joke in AfrAId), though Weitz seems to have specifically mashed-up Spike Jonze’s Her and LeVar Burton’s 1999 Disney Channel Original Smart House. Yet the film is so lost in its (much better) influences that it fails to speak to the current moment. Instead of visualizing AI as a manic sentient being that simply needs love in order to act in its clients’ best interests, Weitz would have been wise to more intelligently grapple with what this rapidly-evolving tool means for the future: of work, of family, of social lives. Instead, the viewer receives an emoji-laden home invasion gimmick that is barely salvaged by some oddly committed performances (Cho and Waterson go tit-for-tat with ease, and a bit part by David Dastmalchian is always welcome).
It goes without saying that AIA is no HAL, and another irksome decision by Weitz rests in the machine’s inherent programming as either infantilized entity or matronly caretaker. Why should a synthetic organism subscribe to gender roles? (Again, questioning why so many of these “assistants” are personified as women could have asserted some sort of narrative integrity). The terrifying whims of a cold, calculated machine would have worked much better for the flimsy genre parameters of AfrAId, which in turn wouldn’t have the burden of engaging with the social influence that shapes modern AI initiatives. Making such an insubstantial film about one of our era’s greatest technological shifts isn’t just annoying. It feels downright irresponsible.
Director: Chris Weitz
Writer: Chris Weitz
Stars: John Cho, Katherine Waterson, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, Wyatt Lindner, Isaac Bae, David Dastmalchian, Keith Carradine, Ashley Romans
Release Date: August 30, 2024
Natalia Keogan is Filmmaker Magazine’s web editor, and regularly contributes freelance film reviews here at Paste. Her writing has also appeared in Blood Knife Magazine, SlashFilm and Daily Grindhouse, among others. She lives in Queens with her large orange cat. Find her on Twitter @nataliakeogan