Several big-budget movies set for release before the end of the year portray real-life Silicon Valley titans, especially those at the forefront of the artificial-intelligence revolution, as villains whose products undermine society and now threaten—literally—to end the world.
Artificial, opening Christmas Day, depicts OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield) as something close to a sociopath whose A.I. research risks human extinction. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, a fierce OpenAI competitor, is the bad guy of The Social Reckoning, opening October 9, which reconstructs the 2021 showdown between Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) and whistleblower Frances Haugen (Oscar-winner Mikey Madison). Elon Musk, another leading A.I. champion, is threatening to go to court to block next month’s release of a nearly four-hour documentary by filmmaker Alex Gibney that portrays him as a dangerous megalomaniac.
