“ The electric state “muddles the border between technology and humanity

At first glance, “The electrical state” It may just seem to be another sprawling science fiction adventure-a road trip through retro-futuristic dystopia where brave heroes sail in a landscape strewn with ruin technologies and exiled robots. That’s it. But under its dazzling visuals and its moments of fighting the heart is a film that poses deeply uncomfortable questions about the world in which we already live. What happens when the machines we create become more than tools? What is the moral responsibility we have when AI crosses the threshold in sensitivity? And, perhaps the most disturbing of all, are we already too dependent on technology to see the dangers to come?

I recently sat with Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of “The Electric State”, to talk about the film – which broadcasts on Netflix from March 14. The film attracts us to a richly imaginary alternative from the 1990s where sensitive robots – are mascots and joyful aid – were exiled as a result of a failed failed.

At the heart of this adventure is Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown), an orphan teenager who leaves through the American West to find her younger brother. She is accompanied by Cosmo, a robot with a giant cartoon head and someone’s moving eyes – or something – it could be more than a simple machine.

But as Anthony Russo told me, history does not only concern the sensitivity of AI. This is the relationship of humanity with the technology and the evolution of this relationship since the digital boom of the end of the 20th century. “We were really going to these hardcore problems of the real world,” said Russo, “but fantastic space has been useful to us here because we place them in the field of fantasy … You can suddenly reap them intellectually and emotionally in a way that could be too difficult to do in your real life.”

A retro-futuristic mirror now

The world of “the electricity” is both familiar and strange – a deliberate choice by the Russo Brothers to make its history edifying more relatable. The framework is a nostalgic past that has never been, where the aesthetics of the 80s and 90s Americana collided with speculative technology. It is a world anchored in the tactile – drawings of robots specific to the decade, needle soundtracks and cultural references – but also that which floats just enough in fantasy to encourage reflection on our current trajectory.

The neurocasters of the film are barely veiled stands for today’s smartphones, inviting the public to consider the quantity of our lives that we already live online. These devices allow users to withdraw into personalized realities, transforming human connection into something organized, mediated and – entirely artificial.

The moral question of the personality of the AI

Cosmo is more than just acolyte with a pixar level charm. It represents a deeper ethical question that is close to reality: when a machine becomes more? In the film, the robots display emotions, form relationships and make moral decisions. When do we owe the same rights, responsibilities and respect that we reserve for humans?

Anthony Russo approached this moral ambiguity during our conversation. He noted how the film reflects a broader digital evolution that we have suffered now since the 90s. As AI systems become more and more autonomous, capable of learning, adapting and even “feeling”, the lines between the tool and the fuzzy person.

“The electrical state” does not offer answers but raises critical questions: if a being may think, choose and suffer, what are our obligations?

Double edge sword of dependence

The co-dependent relationship of humanity with technology is fully exposed in “the electrical state”. Even after an uprising of the robot, people continue to depend on the machines – whether through neurocasters or robot acolytes – to sail in their world.

It is an uncomfortable reflection of our own life, where convenience often prevails over prudence. We ask Alexa to manage our schedules and let the algorithms decide what we see, buy and believe. The film is almost less a science fiction construction and more a metaphor for digital silos and enclosed gardens in which we already live.

The history of history, Ethan Skate (Stanley Tucci), personifies this attractive dependence and provides echoes of what we are Witness to unfold with Doge and current titles every day. A technological genius that begins with noble intentions, it is gradually trapped in the very fantastic world that it has helped to create. As Russo explained, “he saw a fantasy of what human connection is, as opposed to what it means in his real life with the people around him.”

An uncomfortable isolation story

At first glance, the exclusion zone in “the electrical state” may seem to be a purely science fiction construction – a land of no imaginative man where the robots are exile after a failed rebellion. But look a little more deeply, and it is difficult to ignore the disturbing parallels to the spaces of the real world where societies have historically isolated those which they fear or judge undesirable.

The exclusion zone echoes the concept of Amerindian reserves in the United States – spaces defined by geography and politically created to remove indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands and isolate them from broader society. Reservations were often considered as places of “autonomy”, but in reality, they were a tool for travel and control, reducing access to resources, freedom of movement and cultural heritage.

Even more directly, the exclusion zone resembles a striking resemblance to the Japanese American internment camps of the Second World War. In both cases, an entire population was covered, not because of individual guilt, but because of collective fear and prejudices. Americans of Japanese origin – including American citizens – have been stripped of their rights and freedoms under the suspicions that they could be a threat. In “the electrical state”, the robots formerly welcomed as aid and companions are suddenly treated as enemies, exiled en masse regardless of their individual stories or intentions.

The two historical examples – and the exclusion zone in the film – are in light a recurring moral failure: societies that choose fear rather than empathy, control of coexistence. As Anthony Russo said in our conversation, “you can find humanity in technology, and you can find inhuman in humans.”

The parallels of the real world mean that “the electricity” looks less like fantasy and more like a edifying reflection on what is happening when we are instead than integrating ourselves – and how much we can lose our shared humanity in the process.

The technology that made it all

Ironically, the warnings of the film on technological dependence are animated by some of the most advanced cinematographic technologies in the world. The Russo Brothers have mixed the peak VFX, the motion capture and the practical effects to create the lively and tactile world of the film.

A particularly fascinating detail is how each robot was designed to correspond to a specific decade, creating a feeling of historical continuity. “We choose a decade for each robot that we used in the film,” said Anthony Russo, “and we would try to be mechanically faithful as much as possible during this period.” This gives machines a worn and familiar aspect – as if they were relics of our own chronology, not just a future of science fiction.

In fact, the filmmakers went further, in partnership with the UCLA robotics laboratory to create a real cosmo robot. Although the film was based on CGI for the presence on Cosmo’s screen, the physical robot made appearances during projections and events, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality in a way that feels both exciting and disturbing.

A edifying story and a narrative masterclass

Basically, “The Electric State” is a film on connection – between brothers and sisters, friends and, yes, even between humans and machines. But it also serves as a warning. Technology can fill the gaps, but it can also expand them. This can bring people closer or isolate them behind the digital walls.

“The electrical state” suggests that if AI can one day deserve the personality, it is ultimately us to decide how we are committed to the technology we create. Use it to connect or control us?

We hold on to the edge of a world filled with autonomous machines and AI systems that can surpass us. As our technology evolves, the questions posed by “the electrical state” are less like science fiction and more like the titles of tomorrow. And if nothing else, this film recalls that even in a world led by machines, it is our humanity which must remain in the center.