This past week, Writer Director Stephen Packer’s short film Alpha Test was released on YouTube, courtesy of the Dust channel. Alpha Test is a short film that features a detective questioning the AI construct of a murder victim, in an attempt to determine who killed them.
Synopsis –
In a near-future crime experiment, detective Esther is partnered with a holographic copy of a murder victim to solve the mystery of their death. But when the hologram begins to malfunction and ask forbidden questions, Esther challenges the rules of the program, triggering a deeper unraveling. Alpha Test is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller about memory, identity, and the true cost of simulation.
In a very short period of time, Alpha Test very efficiently explores ideas of self-awareness and autonomy of AI, and the ethics around it. It’s a well constructed story – you think it’s going one way, portraying the pursuit of one application of the technology, but it switches on you towards the end and goes a route you might not have expected.
The through-line throughout is a question of morality – if you create an artificially intelligent entity, should it be treated the same way as a human being? Is there such a thing as cruelty when testing a computer program? It questions whether such technological breakthroughs can be enacted ethically when there are profits in the balance.
Alpha Test is written and directed by Stephen Packer, and stars Anna McGahan, Henry Cooper, Tim Phillipps, and Mark Saturno. You can watch Somnolence on YouTube, for free, below.
Dust is a curated Youtube channel of independent short films, all in the science fiction genre, and they have a wide selection of well produced, thought provoking sci-fi films, all available to watch for free. We highly recommend checking them out.
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