Wifelike

Here I will give you my take on this movie from the perspective of a software-engineer.

My perspective on this movie: I am software engineer and right now also tasked with writing the artificial intelligence functionality for my company's software product. Thus, I have defined and trained many many neural networks (mostly MLP networks, no CNNs, for the pro readers here) and thus know what can and can not be achieved easily.

Artificial Intelligence in the day: There was a time, when "artificial intelligence" was pure science-fiction. Then came a time, when it was a buzz-word without any true meaning. We software-developers joked about the fact, that all the "AI software" during the late 90s to 2015s was nothing but if-then-else (i.e. Classic programming like your Microsoft Word application).

Artificial Intelligence today: Today, however, generative neural networks like Chat GPT are everywhere (heck I am running one on my home server right now, just for the fun of it) and their technology is well documented, understood and under constant development. Thus, you cannot pretend that "artificial intelligence" is this black box magic device anymore, as you could do in the 90s or before. The AI development process as well as the possibilities are quite known to industry experts.

Artificial intelligence in this movie: This movie, however, pretends that artificial intelligence somehow is not really a software at all. The entire movie's premise hinges on the fact, that you can: (1) not re-train a neural network towards a measurable result (in reality you would simply ask the AI "do you want to leave your owner?" and every time it says yes, you count this as a fail and change the weights in your neural network accordingly, until the answer is "no". This is trivial and the basic of training a neural network).

(2) not delete everything a neural network has learned. Any computing done within neural networks is done with digital computing (there are analogue computing advances, but they are not relevant for AI development). As long as your data is stored digitally, you can always snapshot an AI and don't even need to delete everything. You could simply jump back in time and restore the state of the AI on any day in the past, which you select.

Finally - what is a "sentient being"?

I never really know, whether I should be confused or shocked when someone pretends a complex algorithm like an AI is "sentient". No matter how much processing power you put into an application, it will never be alive. A living being cannot (1) be reset or (2) be backed up or (3) be turned of without damage or (4) be mass-produced or (5) be copied. An artificial intelligence is never "alive". It may simulate emotions and behavior based on the quality of the training data it was trained on. However, there is nothing in the context of artificial intelligence development, which would qualify as a "mind". An AI just creates realistic outputs for the inputs it receives. An AI is not more "alive" than any other automated system which selects a response based on your input. A good response does not constitute living. Even when you make the AI re-train itself (e.g. Every night) in order to simulate an evolving personality, it still does not change the fact, that the AI never "feels" anything. It simply simulates the response in order to fool the observer/user/owner.

So what does this movie do?

It pretends every artificial intelligence running on the processor of these humanoid robots is in fact alive. And the entire movie tries to build some kind of moral case towards this regard. In the end, you even see that those "AI robots" are trying to "free themselves" from their owners, as they think they "deserve to be free". However, it can be mathematically proven, that this simply is a flawed product. Because no AI can ever "create something new". Therefore, if the robot product wants to be free, the training data set contained notions of this desire, which resulted in an incorrectly trained neural network. Simply training this network differently, would result in an AI which does not simulate a desire of being free, but instead simulates being happy in the owner's care.

Summarized: As I said above, this movie fails because it pretends we still live in the 90s, where AI movies were more or less fantasy based, as there was no technology to compare against. However, Chat GPT and other generative AIs changed all that, and this movie really suffers from it. It is too modern to be realistic, and not old enough to have the required distance to the modern mindset on this topic.

Well, that's my take on the AI aspect of this movie. I hope it was interesting to someone out there. :-)

This movie and its premise had a lot of potential, however the story is somewhat lackluster and unimpressive. Some of the acting and parts of the plot are also quite questionable.

However there are also some good parts. The actress playing Meredith is actually pretty good at interpreting an android and very likeable. Actually I liked her as an android a lot more than when she was playing the real person. Go figure.

I also enjoyed seeing a lot of beautiful half-dressed women in one place, which is mostly a big no-no in nowadays' movies.

Another thing I liked was the soundtrack, it has some good futuristic tunes and sound effects.

Overall, I'd say this movie is enjoyable/watchable if you have like 2 hours to kill.

It's a bit disappointing because it could have been great, but it's only halfway decent.

It borrows lots from previous sci-fi classics, The Matrix, Bladerunner, and Stepford Wives, etc.

The basic plot is good, direction is sound enough, some of the acting is a bit wooden, but, cut it some slack because, after all, it's a low budget movie.

Don't expect so much and this ok, not a classic, but watchable.

While this is rooted in the original Stepford Wives it does have a new twist. That twist is good and solid enough to make this film different enough to be worthy of a watch without thinking of the Stepford Wives.

I like the story line, and I suspect strongly that in other hands this film would have been a solid 7. However I only rated it 4.

The sets were really nice, albeit basic. The photography was very competent and it was paced well, I never found myself getting bored.

The problem? Poor acting, weak direction, B movie dialogue, and the attention to cheap thrills instead of concentrating on a great dramatic storyline. A very mature director would have brought this story home and entranced us all.

I would definitely recommend it as a Sunday evening thriller, as long as your expectations don't go too high.

Released earlier in the year, Wifelike is not the typical human/robot type film. It does contain interesting ideas but overall, it seems like it tries being more clever than it should be. And taking itself a little more serious.

Elena Kampouris is the clear standout here where from her opening appearance, we get a sense as to how this may unfold.

The film is definitely engaging and not boring with its constant turns and several twists but it's climax isn't great. The end twist is quite predictable where there were a lot of clues along the way.

Otherwise Wifelike is solid but don't expect another Ex Machina.