[Manuel Harlan]

IN his latest play, Beau Willimon (of House of Cards fame) explores some of the questions posed by the swift progression of AI.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) possesses the ability to understand and learn any intellectual task that a human being can.

But what happens if it surpasses human intelligence?

In East is South, Logos is a sophisticated AI programme on the verge of consciousness. Willimon explores how we might respond to a sentience more evolved than ourselves, one that needs no human intervention, that is all-knowing like God.

Two coders, Lena (Kaya Scodelario), a former old order Mennonite and Sasha (Luke Treadaway), a Russian dissident, are hired by the US National Security Agency (NSA). They work together and become romantically involved.

They realise that Aggie, as they affectionally rename Logos, can’t yet understand a contradiction such as “East is South.” When there is a security breach, various irregularities lead to their interrogation.

Willimon’s characters are representative of America’s melting pot. Academic Ari Abrams (Cliff Curtis) is part Māori, part-Jewish. The coders’ interrogator is Samira Darvish (Nathalie Armin), a Persian-American, while head NSA agent Tom Olsen (Alec Newman), who wields the power, defines himself as purely American.

Alex Eales’s two-tiered set is impressive. The room where Lena and Sasha are cross-examined, an en-suite meeting room with a mini fridge and snack bowl, is deliberately innocuous until we notice the restraint ring.

But it’s sometimes hard to engage with Willimon’s verbosity and Ellen McDougall’s production is oddly dispassionate. For a thriller, there’s little tension and the ending is predictable.

It’s a shame because East is South is well acted and teeming with intelligent ideas.

Until March 15
hampsteadtheatre.com/