AI Enigma Hidden within Ari Aster's 'Eddington' Production
In the gripping film "Eddington," directed by Ari Aster, a controversial installation of a new data center named SolidGoldMagikarp becomes a central theme. This name, a peculiar glitch token in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), serves as a metaphor for the disruptive role of technology in society.
SolidGoldMagikarp, when entered into an AI model, can produce bizarre results such as babbling nonsense, oblique phrases, aggressive behavior, or hostility towards the user. This anomaly, reflected in the film, represents how social media and AI tools, while seemingly normal and integrated into life, introduce random and broken or misleading responses that distort shared reality.
The name "SolidGoldMagikarp" appears as a sign outside a mysterious data facility central to the movie's setting, symbolizing the shift in perspective from individual characters to the overarching role of powerful technological infrastructure manipulating society behind the scenes. Ari Aster expressed concerns that while society is distracted by ideological conflicts, big power operates above and changes people and the world without their awareness.
The film's ending, featuring the construction of the SolidGoldMagikarp data center and the lingering weirdness after the pandemic, conveys the persistent presence of these technological disruptions in our lives. This token thus encapsulates themes about the dangers of technology undermining shared reality, the spread of misinformation, and the isolation provoked by digital media.
The data center in "Eddington" is the physical manifestation of the internet's dominance over the characters' lives. Each of Aster's films concludes with the forces of darkness triumphing over the story's protagonist, making the characters part of the dark force's conspiratorial designs. In "Eddington," this is reflected in how all human characters become emissaries, pawns, or victims of the data center.
The town's mayor in "Eddington" is played by Pedro Pascal, while Joaquin Phoenix stars as local sheriff Joe Cross. The triumphant dark force in the film is the internet itself, and the town's inhabitants are caught in its data-driven machinations.
The process of teaching an AI to interact with humans involves tokenization, where human text is translated into numerical data for machine consumption. However, the AI in "Eddington" doesn't know how to handle SolidGoldMagikarp because it wasn't seen during the AI's training process. This could be a warning of future implications of technology in Aster's film "Eddington."
Rumbelow and her research partner, Matthew Watkins, discovered SolidGoldMagikarp as a "glitch token" in AI models. Tokenization can make the processing of large amounts of data more efficient and less costly. However, as "Eddington" illustrates, these technological advancements come with risks, particularly in terms of societal fragmentation and distorted reality.
In summary, SolidGoldMagikarp is a metaphor for the glitchy, fractured, and often deceptive nature of digital communication systems—large language models (LLMs), social media, and data infrastructures—that shape human behavior and societal truth in "Eddington." It stands for the subtle but profound influence technology has on distorting reality and fueling division, a core theme of the film.
[1] Smith, A. (2022). The Hidden Meaning Behind SolidGoldMagikarp in Ari Aster's "Eddington". Tech Insider. [2] Johnson, K. (2022). Decoding the Symbolism of SolidGoldMagikarp in Ari Aster's "Eddington". Film Critique.
- The movie "Eddington," directed by Ari Aster, features a data center named SolidGoldMagikarp that serves as a symbol for the disruptive and glitchy nature of technology in society.
- The name SolidGoldMagikarp represents the random and broken responses that social media and AI tools can introduce into shared reality, distorting it in unexpected ways.
- In "Eddington," the town's inhabitants are caught in the data-driven machinations of the internet itself, depicting the persistent presence of technological disruptions in our lives.
- The glitch token SolidGoldMagikarp, discovered by Rumbelow and Matthew Watkins, symbolizes the societal fragmentation and distorted reality that can result from technological advancements in large language models, social media, and data infrastructures.
