{
  "id": 12426150,
  "title": "In Artificial, Luca Guadagnino Reveals the Messy Humans Behind the AI Age: Review",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/06/in-artificial-luca-guadagnino-reveals-the-messy-humans-behind-the-ai",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-10-06T16:56:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Consequence",
    "slug": "consequence",
    "url": "https://consequence.net/2026/10/artificial-review-luca-guadagnino-andrew-garfield/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Luca Guadagnino's film Artificial explores the messy humans behind the AI age, focusing on the creation and development of OpenAI and ChatGPT. Throughout the movie, characters consistently fail to properly clean up after themselves, from disposing of used smoothie cups to the constant wiping down of surfaces and windows in the background. The film briefly introduces the concept of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), describing how large language models can hallucinate incorrect responses, learn on their own, and improve over time.\n\nOne key scene sees OpenAI employees celebrating the development of an AI model that can beat a human at a video game without being instructed on how to win. While this victory showcases the technology's capabilities, the film questions whether it benefits humanity, especially in the hands of its creators.\n\nThe movie's script, written by Simon Rich, follows a typical narrative structure. Very smart individuals come up with a great idea, launch it with idealism, and then face the consequences of humanity's greed, usually personified by one of the co-founders. Andrew Garfield, the film's true star, performs alongside Ilya Sutskever, who stands out as a believer in AGI's potential for good. Monica Barbaro plays Mira Murati, a key figure at OpenAI, with quiet grace, though her presence is notably impactful.\n\nIke Barinholtz portrays Elon Musk with little subtlety, which may be attributed to his recent appearance in Alex Gibney's Musk documentary. Garfield's portrayal of Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, is somewhat surface-level, punctuated by his frequent use of \"like\" and \"gee whiz.\" His speech reveals a hint of deception, and it is only through certain scenes that the unsettling darkness beneath his almost ditzy demeanor becomes more apparent.\n\nThe film features a predominantly male cast with Monica Barbaro as the most prominent female character. While the soundtrack, composed by Damon Albarn, includes orchestral music and original songs, it sometimes clashes tonally with the action. The narrative does not cover the lawsuits over AGI models being trained on stolen copyrighted material or the controversy surrounding data centers.\n\nAlthough the movie touches on the consumption of resources and potential self-awareness in AGI, it does not delve deeply into these aspects. The use of title cards for timelines, locations, and event names helps maintain structure. Artificial's emphasis on the development of ChatGPT without proper guardrails reflects the need for caution as the industry continues to evolve. The film suggests that the people behind ChatGPT prioritized profit over considering the world's impact, leaving us to \"clean it up.\"",
  "summary": "The unsubtle tech founder tale stars Andrew Garfield as the sometimes ditzy, sometimes malevolent Sam Altman. In Artificial, Luca Guadagnino Reveals the Messy Humans Behind the AI Age: Review Liz Shannon Miller",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}