Created using generative AI and found footage, The Imitation Game is a short narrative film about what it means to be human in a world increasingly mediated by simulations and representations. After Bruce, a professor of popular films, has a terrible bicycle accident, Rachel, his ex-girlfriend and lone emergency contact, is summoned to the hospital. There, she learns that Bruce’s accident has resulted in a mysterious speech disorder: He can now only speak famous lines from movies. As Rachel, an AI researcher, begins spending more time with Bruce and their relationship turns romantic, she questions whether his core identity remains and whether they can avoid repeating mistakes from their past.
The film is named after Alan Turing’s proposed game, better known today as the Turing test, for determining whether machines can display human-like intelligence. Although widely criticized, the Turing test remains highly significant in the history and philosophy of artificial intelligence. While previous research questioned whether machines could think, Turing instead questioned whether machines could pass as human. This question, in turn, raises even more profound questions. If a machine can successfully simulate a human, to the point where human and machine outputs are indistinguishable, then what does it mean to be human?
