A Sci-Fi Script Written by an Algorithm Goes Horribly Wrong — Here’s What Happened

Culture

Perhaps the fear of artificial intelligence taking control of everything is overstated. A.I. might be able to drive cars and beat people at chess, but they can't write a compelling screenplay — or even get close to one. That's what happened when filmmaker Oscar Sharp and A.I. researcher Ross Goodwin worked together to create Benjamin, a neural network they programmed to become a budding science fiction screenwriter, with pretty terrible results. 

They fed Benjamin a bevy of sci-fi scripts from the '80s and '90s — though oddly, the likes of Silver Linings Playbook and Scary Movie 2 were also thrown in, among others — and with the help of tech website Ars Technica and Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch, set out on a 48-hour mission to turn Benjamin's short film, Sunspring, into a reality. 

Middleditch and the other actors in Sunspring had their work cut out for them, with choppy dialogue that makes little to no sense (take Middleditch's first line, "In a future with mass unemployment, young people are forced to sell blood. It's something I can do"). Then, in the middle of tense, incoherent discussion, Middleditch's character vomits an eyeball, and places it on his desk. Sci-fi! 

Overall, Sunspring is an oddly compelling short, but its success hinges on the performances of its actors — since they're good, the storyline can carry some emotional weight. Take actress Elisabeth Gray's ending monologue, with tears streaming down her face, despite its unintelligible message. 

Benjamin's sci-fi writing abilities makes for a really fun concept, but we aren't going to see the next Dalton Trumbo in A.I. form anytime soon. 

You can check out Sunspring for yourself below: 

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