Thanks for writing this! I also wrote the movie off after seeing the trailer, but will give it a go based on this review.
“After Cady shows interest, Gemma builds the AI robot doll, Megan, to serve as Cady’s companion and toy. At home. In a week.” Is there a name for this trope? I can’t stand it, and I struggle to suspend my disbelief after lazy writing mistakes like this.
I can’t stand it, and I struggle to suspend my disbelief after lazy writing mistakes like this.
FWIW this sort of thing bothers me in movies a ton, but I was able to really enjoy M3GAN when going into it wanting it to be good and believing it might be due to reading Zvi’s Mostly Spoiler-Free Review In Brief.
Yes, it’s implausible that Gemma is able to build the protype at home in a week. The writer explains that she’s using data from the company’s past toys, but this still doesn’t explain why a similar AGI hasn’t been built elsewhere in the world using some other data set. But I was able to look past this detail because the movie gets enough stuff right in its depiction of AI (that other movies about AI don’t get right) that it makes up for the shortcomings and makes it one of the top 2 most realistic films on AI I’ve seen (the other top realistic AI movie being Colossus: The Forbin Project).
As Scott Aaronson says in his review:
Incredibly, unbelievably, here in the real world of 2023, what still seems most science-fictional about M3GAN is neither her language fluency, nor her ability to pursue goals, nor even her emotional insight, but simply her ease with the physical world: the fact that she can walk and dance like a real child, and all-too-brilliantly resist attempts to shut her down, and have all her compute onboard, and not break.
Thanks for writing this! I also wrote the movie off after seeing the trailer, but will give it a go based on this review.
“After Cady shows interest, Gemma builds the AI robot doll, Megan, to serve as Cady’s companion and toy. At home. In a week.” Is there a name for this trope? I can’t stand it, and I struggle to suspend my disbelief after lazy writing mistakes like this.
Curious if you ever watched M3GAN?
FWIW this sort of thing bothers me in movies a ton, but I was able to really enjoy M3GAN when going into it wanting it to be good and believing it might be due to reading Zvi’s Mostly Spoiler-Free Review In Brief.
Yes, it’s implausible that Gemma is able to build the protype at home in a week. The writer explains that she’s using data from the company’s past toys, but this still doesn’t explain why a similar AGI hasn’t been built elsewhere in the world using some other data set. But I was able to look past this detail because the movie gets enough stuff right in its depiction of AI (that other movies about AI don’t get right) that it makes up for the shortcomings and makes it one of the top 2 most realistic films on AI I’ve seen (the other top realistic AI movie being Colossus: The Forbin Project).
As Scott Aaronson says in his review:
This seems like the right trope:
Cartoonland Time—TV Tropes [WARNING: browsing TV Tropes can be a massive time sink]