Flipboard on Flipboard

When Jérôme Blanquet set out to make his new virtual reality film, Alteration--which, among other things portrays an artificial intelligence diving into a man's dreams to steal them--he felt strongly that AI should play a big part in the project. "As a filmmaker, I would like to represent…using AI in the dreams of a human," Blanquet says. "For me, only AI can represent what AI can [represent] in the human brain." Alteration, which was launched yesterday for the Oculus Rift and Samsung's Oculus-powered Gear VR, centers on Alexandro, who volunteers to take part in a dream experiment, unaware that the researchers running it are going to inject, digitize, and take over his subconscious with an AI in the guise of a woman named Elsa. The story progresses through scenes representing Alexandro's memories, the AI always hovering nearby. His wife, Nadia, who plays a central role in some of those memories, objects to Elsa's presence, leading Alexandro to pull the plug on the experiment–with disastrous results.