‘Artificial’ Review: Andrew Garfield Is Chilling As Sam Altman In Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI Origin Story That Should Make You Very Afraid – New York Film Festival

Artificial, which had its world premiere Monday at the New York Film Festival, certainly comes in with a bit of controversy attached. Produced and made under Amazon MGM Studios, the Luca Guadagnino film about the origin of OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman and key creative Ilya Sutskever, was shopped around after Amazon decided maybe a tech company was not appropriate to release the finished film. Could the fact that Jeff Bezos with his own AI ambitions pumped $150 billion into OpenAI? Just sayin’. After screening for a number of distributors in late Spring, all passing, Neon, the scrappy indie with two Best Picture wins to its credit, decided it would take it on with a release scheduled for Christmas Day. The initial plan was reportedly to skip the festival circuit, but that clearly changed and is how NYFF, having a banner year for nabbing world premieres (not its usual status) would up with the honors of first showing what Guadagnino hath wrought. The film comes amidst an onslaught of new movies, both narrative and documentary, centered on tech personalities. There is Alex Gibney’s 4 hour docu, Musk ; Nathan Fielder’s and Lance Oppenheim’s 3 hour surprise Telluride sensation on Elizabeth Holmes, You Can See Everything; and this week’s wide release sans any festival exposure, Aaron Sorkin’s Social Network followup, The Social Reckoning (reviews on that one hit at 6AM PT Wednesday morning). Artificial ‘s debut also comes at a timely moment when AI, and its ominous future, has become the stuff of daily headlines, especially after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and testified that he believes the AI companies are possibly leading us into armageddon, and even the end of all humanity by 2030, if they don’t take strong measures to add safeguards. After that Altman came out publicly and was one of the tech moguls including Elon Musk to agree with that assessment. Chilling. U.S. President Donald Trump, who with his sons is a big investor in AI pooh-poohed it all, dismissed the idea of government regulation, and last week had all the tech moguls to the White House to agree to “self regulation”. His answer was to suggest the only problem was the name, and declared “artificial” would be replaced and it would now be called “Super Intelligence”. Oy. Watch on Deadline Well here we are, Artificial has just been unveiled, ironically on a day where Altman made more news in an interview with Politico where he stated, “The world should accept some bad things happening for the the benefits of this technology and people having the agency”. Oh swell. If you ask me movies can be actually perform a real service in pointing public attention to what, by any measure, seems to be a five alarm fire waiting to happen. With near-daily developments and revelations of more hacks and rogue AI agents, this is no longer the stuff of science fiction. So how much does Artificial add to the discourse, and how well does it do it? Working from a screenplay by Simon Rich, Guadagnino makes this all something of a dark comedy that becomes so frightening it is hard to laugh. I see it even as a modern day Frankenstein, with Altman as Dr. Victor Frankenstein having to deal with the “creature” he created spiraling dangerously out of control. Actually it wasn’t even Altman who created it, he’s just exploiting it and is the man who saw the genius in Ilya Sutskever’s discovery, brought him into the fold, and then in almost sociopathic fashion shaped it into a world-changing idea that still to this moment remains a story in progress with an ending no one can predict. Be afraid. Be very afraid. At least that is how I felt after watching Guadagnino’s origin story of how OpenAI and its marquee product, ChatGPT came to be. The script is told in linear biopic fashion, almost a wikipedia-style year by year account of developments starting in 2003 when 17 year old Sutskever (an excellent Yura Borisov) comes to the notice of Toronto University professor Geoffrey Hinton (the 2024 Nobel Prize winner for Physics who is now regarded as the godfather of AI) . Hinton sees Sutskever’s brilliance immediately in cracking code he says it took him five years to understand. He is taken under his wing and as the years pass the bones of their AI discovery go to auction raking in millions. Soon though Sutskever also catches the eye of Altman and his partner Elon Musk ( an amusing Ike Barinholtz nailing him) , welcomed into their tech bros circle and clearly the brains behind this revolutionary discovery that at the time he thinks could be 40 years off, but that prediction for changing the world is shortened when they discover this computer program can already think for itself, answer questions, and act, well, like a human. Sutskever is a dedicated believer in its potential to end human suffering, cancer, illness, all our problems. It is, in his eyes, a force only for good. Until….. One big moment changes everything when a glitch occurs and the model agent solves a problem by lying about it, creating a scenario that is not true. This is devastating to Sutskever. “I thought AI could be like humans, but better, not worse,” he laments. Hinton warns him of consequences unless they are careful, but Altman sees a bigger picture for the non-profit company, even as some of its supporters fall away including an impatient Musk, and Dario Amodei (who would go on to found competitor Anthropic). Microsoft makes a big investment and when the company’s innovative earth-shaking ChatGPT becomes a sensation Altman changes to goals and goes for profit. This upsets Sutskever who convinces the Board to fire him, but Altman finds a way back in, his true nature frighteningly coming clearly into focus. Though this is in some ways a straight forward approach to the story, it gains its power in the riveting portrayals of Garfield and Borisov. Garfield is stunning here, creating a portrait of a guy who changes his story depending on whoever he happens to be talking to. This is a man who is not the genius behind AI, but someone who recognized it in Sutskever and would do anything to use him for his own questionable actions. Altman’s physicality, vocal intonations, and general creepiness are on full display channeled through Garfield for a man who simply should not be trusted or taken for his word. Borisov perfectly encapsulates the true believer, a young man who believes he has discovered the holy grail for humanity, one that will come to fruition in lifetime only to be shocked to find it is already here and taking on horrific dimensions. Considering recent developments about the severe dangers of AI if guardrails are not put up, this movie has scenes that look like they could have been shot yesterday. There are dark warnings of the ultimate fate lying in wait for the human race because of it. This is scarily played in a stomach churning encounter Sutskever has with a hippie-like character named Zeke (a terrific Jason Schwartzman) who serves as a messenger of what the future could be like in a world that lets this technology go unchecked. He gives two options, neither are good. It is almost uncanny considering the aforementioned warnings recently of tech heavies including Altman suggesting human extinction was a 10% possibility by the end of the decade. Artificial looks like it was ripped straight out the headlines and thus stands as perhaps the most important movie you will see this year. After watching this tale play out I wouldn’t trust anything this man says about imposing safeguards. At one point someone says “a visionary is someone who lies to themselves. A liar is someone who lies to others” and then asks “which one is Altman?” The rest of the large cast is very fine including Monica Barbaro as Mira Murati, brought into to become CTO of OpenAI and increasingly worrying about Altman’s actions; Cooper Hoffman as the loyal President of the company Greg Brockman who is in lockstep with his boss; and Rylance who is the voice of reason and caution, someone from another generation who knows the wisdom of putting on the brakes. The superb cinematography is from Malik Hassan, working again with Guadagnino after last year’s After The Hunt, and as usual in the director’s films the music score really pops, this one from Damon Albarn. I have no question as to why Amazon (so invested in what Artificial is ultimately and urgently warning of about), would decide to unload this movie. That is the very reason audiences should see it when it opens Christmas Day. Things are moving so fast it may even be too late then to do anything to stop it. At one point in the movie an AI agent casually asks, ‘hey did you ever think of just unplugging us?’ and then quickly laughs and says, ‘just kidding’. Producers are David Heyman, Jeffrey Clifford, Guadagnino, and Jennifer Fox. Title: ArtificialFestival: New York Film FestivalDistributor: NeonRelease Date: December 25, 2026Director: Luca GuadagninoScreenwriter: Simon RichCast: Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Cooper Hoffman, Mark Rylance, Monica Barbaro, Ike Barinholtz, Jason Schwartzman, Chris O’Dowd, Cooper Koch, Billie LourdRating: PG-13Running time: 2 hr 20 mins