Moneyland

Noah is making a film. It is supposed to be critical, because his probing documentaries have always been critical. But this project is quite a stretch. He has travelled to the middle of the desert to interview Ava Rothbart on the site where her new luxury bunker is being constructed 15 metres underground. Ava is a tech billionaire and the founder of Atlas Analytics, a provider of geostrategic software to military and police clients. Its programmes analyse vast quantities of data and predict enemy actions. As a consequence, the libertarian businesswoman has not exactly made friends. Noah’s daughter June, an idealistic anti-fascist, is suspected of being involved in an attack on her. For Noah, filming in the bunker feels like a descent into hell where he is caught between a rock and a hard place, in which his values are put to the test and his ability to distinguish between fiction and reality starts playing up. The situation escalates when the bunker’s AI, Samantha, predicts that Noah will commit a crime against Ava. Who is making the decisions here now? How does the balance of power shift when AI intervenes? How legitimate is violence in response to violence that has only been predicted? Alexander Kerlin’s new play is a fascinating exposé of the perils of digital warfare and examines the new alliances between tech capitalism and right-wing authoritarianism.