With the overwhelming rise of AI, it’s not surprising that so many movies touch on the topic. It seems like half the population is readily excited to embrace AI and all the ways it can upgrade our lifestyles. The other half of the population is concerned by the threat of scary results that may surface soon enough. Subservience is an interesting Netflix movie starring Megan Fox as a humanoid female robot of servitude named Alice. At first, it seems Alice has the best intentions. She was initially purchased to take care of Nick and his children while his wife healed from a heart condition in the hospital. However, when Alice becomes emotionally sentient and develops feelings for Nick, all hell breaks loose.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Here are 7 other attention-grabbing movies that shed just as much light on the speculated damage AI can cause in the future.
M3GAN
In 2022, M3GAN hit theaters as a horror sci-fi. It’s about life-like dolls who get programmed to act as “best friends” to lonely children. Parents with concerns that their kids need a little more companionship could easily fall into the trap of investing in life-like dolls like M3GAN to save the day. In this movie, a woman named Gemma (Allison Williams) designs M3GAN to showcase listening skills, learning skills, social skills, and more.
M3GAN’s supposed to be a playmate, gentle teacher, and protector. Gemma believes she’s helping when she gifts her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) a M3GAN doll, but unfortunately, Megan’s possessive and obsessive nature causes things to spiral out of control. M3GAN 2.0 is the sequel that’s set to hit theaters in 2025, and Gerard Johnstone is the director who handled both films.
Her
Her is a 2013 romantic comedy-drama starring Joaquin Phoenix in the leading role of Theodore, a heartbroken man reeling from the loss of his marriage. Scarlett Johansson also stars in the movie, but viewers only ever hear her voice, as an AI operating system named Samantha who develops intuition and emotion as she connects with Theodore through their many conversations.
Samantha simply functions to get to know Theodore on a deeper and more personal level. When he notices that she has a sense of humor, a sensitive nature, and a playful banter to offer, Theodore realizes his connection with her might be better than anything he ever experienced with his ex-wife –– or any human woman for that matter, raising serious debate about the “humanity” AI can achieve – and perhaps all the humanity missing from the modern world. Spike Jonze wrote, directed, and co-produced this movie.
Ex Machina
Ex Machina was highly revered when it first premiered in 2014, and people still have a lot of respect for it, today. It focuses on a beautiful humanoid robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander), who’s being studied and tested by a brilliant programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), under the order of his tech CEO boss, Nathan (Oscar Isaac).
Caleb’s job is to determine how conscious and capable Ava is regarding her artificial intelligence, but she’s far more deceptive and self-aware than he or anyone else could have guessed. Alex Garland’s cult-hit movie fully highlights the concern many people have about robots and other AI entities learning how to trick and outwit human beings.
[RELATED: 7 Movies to Watch After Netflix’s Carry-On]
Wifelike
In 2022, Wifelike premiered as a sci-fi thriller about a widower named William (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) dealing with the heartbreaking loss of his wife. An artificial humanoid robot named Meredith (Elena Kampouris) gets assigned to William to bring him companionship. She functions to make sure he doesn’t feel so depressed in his grief. Things start to brighten up for William, thanks to Meredith’s presence in his life.
However, his happiness starts crumbling when an underground organization aggressively works to sabotage the AI’s programming. The underground organization thinks the exploitation of humanoid robots is evil and wrong. Throughout the film, William questions his romantic feelings for Meredith compared to the way he felt about his actual wife before her death. James Bird wrote and directed the film.
iRobot
Will Smith’s performance in iRobot was arguably one of his best. He also served an executive producer alongside director Alex Proyas. The sci-fi action movie hit theaters in 2004, and with everything going on in our modern world today, people still often bring up iRobot in conversation. That’s probably thanks to the similar-looking batch of robots Elon Musk has been promoting recently.
In iRobot, a pack of highly intelligent robots realize they’re smarter than human beings –– so they link up to take over the world. Their internal agreement is to keep human beings safe, no matter what – but in their AI minds, they believe humans need to be kept safe from themselves, most of all, which means humans can’t be left to their own devices any longer. We now live in a world where that concern is no longer sci-fi, but a real-world one.
Replicas
Replicas premiered in 2018 as a thriller sci-fi movie starring Keanu Reeves. Keanu plays William, a neuroscientist leaning into cutting-edge technology to bring his kids back to life after their tragic deaths. He goes out of his way to download their memories into cloned humanoid bodies so he can continue spending time with them, rather than go through the healthy process of mourning their losses.
As a neuroscientist with high expertise, William believes he knows exactly what to do to avoid the heartache, pain, and distress of accepting the reality of his circumstances. William is so determined to have his way that he goes up against the physical laws of science, an entire police task force, and his equally intelligent boss (John Ortiz) who also works in neuroscience. Jeffrey Nachmanoff is the director who flawlessly brought this movie to life, highlighting the use of tech as a means to escape the pains of human existence.
The Artifice Girl
The idea of taking down predators by any means necessary is something tons of people would be willing to root for, and Franklin Ritch wrote and directed The Artifice Girl with that sentiment in mind. That’s why it’s easy for viewers to understand the hard-working and passionate special agents at the beginning of the film.
In this 2022 movie, a group of special agents uses a revolutionary AI program that features a fake digital child to track down online predators, with Tatum Matthews as the actress who takes on the AI role. The group’s initial mission is a wonderful one, but unfortunately for them, the AI girl they create for their fight ends up posing a highly dangerous threat when she becomes self-aware of what she’s being used for. The film taps into the dread of machines one day deciding they deserve more than being our servants.
Subservience is now streaming on Netflix.
