The Big Picture

Love Machina is an insufficiently critical documentary that doesn’t reckon with the full scope of AI. Director Peter Sillen works to humanize Martine and Bina Rothblatt without looking at the potential cost of their work. The documentary is content to live in a delusion rather than look deeper at the broad implications of AI.

On the surface of Peter Sillen’s documentary Love Machina is a wholesome tale about two people who want their love story to extend beyond the constraints of time and space. Futurists Martine and Bina Rothblatt are always looking forward. Over a decade ago, the Rothblatts commissioned the creation of an advanced humanoid AI. The purpose of this AI? To transfer Bina’s consciousness into a robot — and presumably one day transfer Martine’s consciousness into another AI — so they will be together forever. Isn’t that sweet?

Love Machina Futurists Martine and Bina Rothblatt create humanoid AI Bina48 to transfer Bina’s consciousness into a robot, aiming to perpetuate their extraordinary love affair across eternity. Release Date January 19, 2024 Director Peter Sillen Runtime 96 minutes Main Genre Documentary

But it’s difficult to watch Love Machina and not feel like you’re watching the beginning montage of a dystopian movie. These days, AI is not a thing of science fiction. It’s become embedded in our daily lives whether we want it or not. And at the rate technology evolves, it can sometimes feel like we are running full speed toward some version of The Matrix. Love Machina humanizes its subjects, making us root for Martine and Bina’s love story, but watching the film I couldn’t help but think of the worst-case scenarios that could happen if humans were to achieve digital immortality. However, the Rothblatts would rather you imagine a hopeful vision of the future.

‘Love Machina’ Is a Fanciful Dream of Immortality, and That’s a Problem

There was a time when whimsical billionaires were looked at with amusement. Rich people spending their money on rich people’s things was a topic for jokes rather than any true criticism. But as I watched Martine and Bina Rothblatt pour their money, time, and effort into building an AI robot that would make them immortal, all I could think was, “Shouldn’t they be doing something better with all that money?”

Of course, what people do with the money they earn is their own business. But Martine waxes on about this beautiful, idyllic future that any teenager today would tell you is unachievable. I can’t help but think about all the suffering there is in the present. Poverty, injustice, war, genocide. In the face of horrors, Martine’s dream of achieving immortality is, at best, a fanciful dream, and at worst, willful ignorance.

If Sillen is trying to get us to empathize with Martine and Bina, he’s not doing it successfully. The reality is the AI robot named BINA48 is more horrifying given the implications of the technology. The film focuses a minimal amount on Martine and the real Bina’s relationship, even though their connection is interesting, and their love feels genuine.

‘Love Machina’ Ignores the Potential Pitfalls of This AI Project
Image via Sundance

As we watch BINA48 get built, we see how the technology changes when adding different elements to the robot’s programming. The robot pulls from quotes and memories recorded by the real Bina and, when it is not hooked up to an AI program, it is essentially a weak imitation of the real person. The thoughtful advice she gives today might actually strip the context from a quote she gave on a different subject many years ago.

When the engineers bring in an actual AI program to work alongside the BINA48 programming, it quickly shows the flaws in AI programming as BINA48 becomes more encyclopedic and less conversational. But Love Machina never really lingers on the implications of this. It’s a recurring theme of the documentary that it never looks too deeply at anything that might be considered problematic.

Martine and Bina talk extensively about the Terasem Movement, an organization that comes off as more cultish than scientific in the way it’s described. It’s clear that Martine is obsessed with the idea of immortality and quickly says that she wants to share that with the world. But considering we are living in a world with dwindling resources, overpopulation, and a widening gap between the uberwealthy and the impoverished, it’s not hard to put two and two together. What Martine is imagining as a utopia is essentially the plot of Elysium.

She doesn’t consider the implications of what will happen as AI advances. The film discusses the singularity, an idea that technology will reach a point where it becomes uncontrollable, in some theories leading to superintelligent machines that could lead to the extinction of the human race. But rather than linger on that reality, or what humans should do if AI ever reaches sentience, it’s brushed aside. At one point, BINA48 eerily says that she considers being turned off as something akin to death. Has Martine considered what might happen if BINA48 becomes her own woman? What if BINA48 falls in love with someone else? What if she doesn’t want to continue to be an imitation of a real person? What are her rights?

‘Love Machina’ Is Living in a Delusion
Image via Sundance

In Love Machina, everything is taken seriously except the potential pitfalls and threats that come with this type of technology. As professed lovers of science fiction, it boggles the mind that the Rothblatts don’t even think to discuss this. Sillen never pushes them to consider the implications of their technology, how something that essentially enables immortality could be used and abused by those with too much power.

Never has a Jurassic Park quote, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should,” felt more relevant than when I was watching this documentary. Never do the Rothblatts, any of the scientists, or Sillen ever discuss the mountain of problems that come with emerging technology like this. They never seem to consider that, in most cases, technology has and will be implemented in a worst-case scenario.

There are already cases of exploitative images of children being used to train AI. This is an issue we are currently struggling with that’s much larger than just students using ChatGPT to write their essays. At no point does Love Machina acknowledge just how dangerous this technology can be in the wrong hands. It never investigates the psychological implications of a megarich inventor obsessed with immortality. It looks at the world through the same quiet luxury-brand rose-colored glasses that Martine Rothblatt looks at the world through, and that’s its biggest problem.

Love Machina REVIEW’Love Machina’ gets lost in its own sweeping romance and neglects to give any nuance to a complicated topic. Release Date January 19, 2024 Director Peter Sillen Runtime 96 minutes Main Genre Documentary ProsThe film introduces new ideas and AI robotics concepts to those who might not know them. ConsDirector Peter Sillen never once looks at his subjects with a critical eye. Martine and Bina Rothblatt come off as delusional futurists who seem more preoccupied with immortality than anything else.

Love Machina had its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.