When it comes to artificial intelligence, the visions between limitless possibilities – such as the healing of the serious diseases or the solution of global problems – and the fear of an overwhelming entity, which at some point becomes independent. In “Electric Child“The Swiss director Simon Jaquemet (” The Innocent “), who caused a conversation in 2014 with his uncompromising debut” Chrieg “, caused this area of tension. The focus is on a gifted programmer who, after a fatal diagnosis for his newborn, dares everything to use a self-learning AI system to save his son. Ja comfort linked sci-fi elements with a family drama and visually dares to visually in experimental realms, for example when the learning process of the AI is shifted to a metaphorical island on which a androgynous being must insist in a kind of survival scenario. An exciting idea, which remains difficult to access. Despite the current topic and some interesting approaches, the moral questions that result from the use of a superintelligence for individual purposes remain on the surface.
Sonny (Elliott Crosset Hove) and Akikos (Rila Fukushima) Joy about her first child panic when the doctors tell that her son Toru will not live long. The brilliant but increasingly driven programmer tries a radical experiment desperately: in the hope of making the medically impossible possible, he feeds the self-learning AI system, on which he is currently working, with all available data on his son's nerve disease. While Akiko wants to take care of the limited time with her child, Sonny is getting more and more in his digital obsession and forbidden is betting into the evolutionary learning process that the AI goes through on a virtual island to close a pact with it.
Sonny (Elliott Crosset Hove) Father's luck does not last long – because his newborn son suffers from a fatal nerve disease!
Visually, the different worlds of “Electric Child” are clearly delimited from each other by their own color concepts: the rich green of the virtual island, the cool gray of the university with the blue flashing servers, the couple that dipped in diffuse light as well as the warm tones of sunrise and offenders ensure atmospheric contrasts. But what initially arouses curiosity will soon turn out to be a stylistic balancing act that makes the emotional bond more difficult. As a symbolic space, the AI island is an attractive idea, but remains difficult to grasp dramaturgically. The constant back and forth between real and virtual world leads to alienation rather than real access. Especially at the beginning, this also makes the emotional closeness to the two parents who struggle with the fate of their child.
The film evades the really exciting questions
Jaquemet's own fascination for artificial intelligence and the possible creation of a general AI (AGI) act as an ideological driving force of the film. The comparison of machine logic with the unpredictability of mortality and fragility of a young life is the emotional and philosophical field of tension that the film tries to negotiate but only opens up. Because central questions – for example from when a AI develops a consciousness, what happens when ethical responsibility is replaced by technical progress or how far you can go when it comes to life and death – are unfortunately only typed. Instead, the film is increasingly losing a blurred action in which logical inconsistencies occur and a potentially exciting antagonist figure simply disappears without a trace.
Even the main character remains emotionally distant over the entire duration. Even before the diagnosis, Elliott Crosset Hoves Sonny (“Godland”) appears, exhausted, exhausted internally. Its obsession with the project becomes clear, but never really understandable. A visible emotional change after the diagnosis – be it visually or acting. The fact that his colleagues then appeal to him several times to his exhaustion looks almost ironic, since he already looks like a driven one at the start of the film. But even the long speechless Ai figure itself remains pale: The being embodied by Sandra Guldberg Kamp on the island looks more like an abstract art object-without a personality, without real conflict. What begins as an existential thought experiment is becoming increasingly diffuse – and in the end fully fades.
Conclusion: strong premise, but weak execution: With “Electric Child” Simon Jaquetet tries exciting questions about superintelligence and the desire to overcome mortality, but fails due to his fragmented narrative and emotional distance. A cinematic experiment that does not do justice to his ambitions.