The movie is awful, by the way.
I think most of us could have predicted that, unfortunately. Hollywood screenwriters are not known for getting their science right, nor for writing genuinely thought-provoking plots and scenarios. They more sort of scream things in big, bold capital letters, like FREEDOM versus ORDER, or TECHNOLOGY versus NATURAL HUMANITY... blah blah blah.
Yes, I'm planning on going to see this film quite soon with some heavy alcohol secreted in my coat.
EDIT: Saw the film. The AV Club's review is quite accurate. I do give the film points for vague gestures in the direction of Basic AI Drives, uploading as Indirect Normativity, and Friendliness being an issue at all. 6/10 just for being seemingly as well-informed as you'd expect from a Hollywood screenwriter trying to translate some MIRI/FHI propaganda into a film, but still a fairly bad movie. Better than the latest Captain America?
Ugh. Still such bad character performances that for the second time in my life I gave up and rooted for the UFAI.
I think most of us could have predicted that, unfortunately.
I have heard that Her was really good, and it dealt with similar themes, so that might have gotten people's hopes up.
Nick Bostrom takes on the facts, the fictions and the speculations in the movie Transcendence:
Could you upload Johnny Depp's brain? Oxford Professor on Transcendence
How soon until machine intelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence
Would you have warning before artificial superintelligence? Oxford professor on Transcendence
Oxford professor on Transcendence: how could you get a machine intelligence?