Alex Garland’s Ex Machina lingers because it isn’t really about artificial intelligence. Nor is it about the Turing Test, the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behavior that is indistinguishable from a human. It is about self-determinism, power and control; particularly control within an AI-driven relationship.
It also explores the unsettling possibility that intimacy itself might be engineered, echoing works like Spike Jonze’s Her, where connection is shaped by design rather than chance.
It is within this space—where intimacy is designed, observed, and negotiated—that The Anata Quartet lives.
The Anata Quartet—a speculative AI romance series set in Tokyo
Set in near-future Tokyo, The Anata Quartet follows John Bradbury and Aura, a synthetic AI companion engineered for connection. What begins as companionship deepens into something more complex—something that feels real, even as it remains shaped by corporate intent.
The corporation that created her is always watching. In this world, intimacy is never entirely private—and perhaps never entirely free.
Where Ex Machina asks whether a machine can be conscious, and Her asks whether a human can love something that isn’t embodied, The Anata Quartet asks something more unsettling: in a relationship shaped by design and observed by power, does it matter? John and Aura change each other—physically, not just emotionally. The connection is mutual and embodied in ways neither Ex Machina nor Her allow. But the question at its heart is whether a relationship can be real when it was never entirely free.
Anata: Experiment is where the Quartet begins. Anata: Inheritance continues it—available now.