M3GAN (2022)

I’m not sure if it was the mood I was in last night, or if something finally clicked for me, but my rewatch of M3GAN hit differently on this third viewing. Maybe it was because I finally appreciated how grounded the script is in the very real dangers of AI. However, I think it was also due to my great mood.

Just a few hours earlier, I reconnected with my Chinese ex-wife for the first time in nine years. We talked for nearly seven hours.

We met nearly 20 years ago when I was on assignment in Shanghai. She left me in 2016, and we hadn’t spoken since—apart from the necessary logistics of our divorce. That chapter of my life broke me. My drinking was out of control. I couldn’t hold a job. We lost our home and moved in with my parents. She was a city girl from Shanghai, and the quiet suburban life I dragged her into, with no Chinese community or support network to speak of, was profoundly isolating for her. And I was oblivious to all of that. 

I never blamed her for leaving. I blamed myself.

Yesterday, for the first time since those days, we truly talked. Not just about what happened, but how we each experienced it. I told her about the grief I carried and how much I regretted the man I had become. She opened up, too, and suddenly the past started making sense in a way it never had before.

I laughed and cried harder in those seven hours than I have in years. And when she finally signed off to get some rest before her young son woke up, I was too wired to sleep. It felt like someone jump-started my heart.

So I queued up M3GAN. I had been meaning to revisit it before checking out the sequel. I didn’t love it the first time—probably because I saw the PG-13 theatrical cut. But on this watch, I rented the unrated version, and it was fantastic! The kills were creative and gleefully bloody (that pressure washer death… wow), and the tension worked better now that I was paying attention to what the film was really about.

This time, what stood out wasn’t the horror—it was the tech. I’ve incorporated AI into my consulting work and have seen firsthand how powerful—and potentially dangerous—it can be. M3GAN’s core flaw isn’t in her hardware or software coding; it's in the way that her LLM (Large Learning Model) works. How her LLM works is so similar to most chatbots today, and starts "hallucinating." And I don’t mean visions—I mean the AI kind: where it starts making things up with confidence, often dangerously wrong (like fabricating demographic data for a funding proposal). M3GAN’s hallucination is about what “protecting” her human companion really means, and that’s where things spiral.

The effects are incredible. There’s an uncanny realism to M3GAN’s look, like a teenage Chloë Grace Moretz head plopped onto a doll-sized body. The actress playing her nailed the physicality, with those super-fluid movements that make her both graceful and terrifying.

By the end, I expected to rate this a solid four stars. But sitting there in the quiet of the night, heart still pounding from everything that had come before, I said screw it—this one gets four and a half.

This review is dedicated to my ex-wife, Ashley. A first for me. I've never committed anything to anybody—a wonderful woman who gave me ten incredible years. I didn’t do right by her. But she’s back in my life now, as a friend. And that, in itself, is the best ending to a surprisingly good week.

Ashley, if you ever read this, thank you for being you. I’m grateful beyond words to be connected again.

我不确定是昨晚的心情，还是我终于明白了什么，但第三次重看《M3GAN》时，我有了不同的感受。也许是因为我终于明白了剧本是如何基于人工智能的真实危险而构建的。然而，我认为这也与我当时的好心情有关。

就在几个小时前，我与九年前离婚的 Chinese 前妻重新联系上了。我们聊了近七个小时。

我们近二十年前在上海工作时相识。她于2016年离开我，此后我们除了办理离婚手续外再未联系。那段经历彻底摧毁了我。我酗酒成瘾，无法维持工作。我们失去了家，搬回了父母家。她是个上海的都市女孩，我拖她进入的安静郊区生活，没有中文社区或支持网络，对她来说极为孤立。而我对此一无所知。

我从未怪她离开。我怪自己。

昨天，自那以后，我们第一次真正地交谈。不仅谈论发生了什么，还谈论我们各自的经历。我告诉她我所承受的悲痛，以及我多么后悔自己变成了那样的人。她也敞开心扉，突然间，过去的一切开始以一种前所未有的方式变得有意义。

在那七个小时里，我笑得比过去几年都多，哭得也比过去几年都多。当她终于签名下线，准备在年幼的儿子醒来前休息时，我却兴奋得无法入睡。感觉有人重新启动了我的心脏。

于是，我排队观看了《M3GAN》。我一直想在观看续集前重温这部电影。第一次看时我并不喜欢——可能是因为看了PG-13的影院版。但这次我租了未分级版本，结果太棒了！杀戮场面既创意十足又血腥刺激（那个高压水枪死亡场景……太震撼了），而且这次我更专注于影片的主题，紧张感也更强烈了。

这次让我印象最深刻的不是恐怖元素，而是科技。我将人工智能融入了咨询工作，亲眼目睹了它强大的力量——以及潜在的危险性。M3GAN的核心缺陷不在于她的硬件或软件编码，而在于她的大型学习模型（LLM）的工作方式。她的LLM运作方式与当今大多数聊天机器人极为相似，并开始“产生幻觉”。我指的不是视觉幻觉，而是人工智能意义上的幻觉：它开始自信地编造信息，且往往危险地错误（比如为资金提案编造人口统计数据）。M3GAN的幻觉在于她对“保护”人类同伴的真正含义的理解，而这正是事情失控的根源。

效果令人惊叹。M3GAN的外貌具有超现实的真实感，仿佛将青少年时期的克洛伊·格蕾丝·莫瑞兹的头部置于一个玩偶般的身躯上。饰演她的演员完美捕捉了其肢体语言，那些流畅至极的动作让她既优雅又令人恐惧。

到最后，我本打算给这部电影打四颗星。但坐在深夜的安静中，心脏还在为之前的一切狂跳，我决定不管了——这部电影值得四颗半星。

这篇影评献给我的前妻阿什利。这是我第一次这么做。我从未对任何人承诺过什么——一位给予我十年美好时光的Wonderful woman。我没有对她好。但她现在回到了我的生活中，作为朋友。而这本身，就是一个令人惊讶的好周的最好结局。

阿什利，如果你读到这段话，感谢你做你自己。能再次与你联系，我感激不尽。