Tamlin Rooney has always been good with numbers, the ladies not so much. His confidence interval has historically just been a little too low. After being hired out of school by a large data analysis firm as a lead in developing a new AI algorithm to help better collate and sell data he figures focus on the career now and let matters of the heart come later.
That all goes out the window when he is introduced to his project manager, a fellow recent graduate named Tempest, and he is instantly smitten. Though mindful of the old adage “don’t defecate where you consume” he nevertheless attempts to establish a friendly rapport with her with hilariously (according to the screenwriter) disastrous results. When Tempest makes it clear the only interest she has in Tamlin is keeping him on schedule and hitting milestones he retreats into his work, which frustratingly has not progressed to where his employer wants it to be three months in.
After a particularly unproductive night at the office trying to tweak his AI code, Tamlin, at a loss both personally and professionally, inserts an ASCII portrait of Tempest into a string of data on a lark, finishing it moments before a lightning strike hits the building. Though the battery backups prevent a loss of power his monitor flickers for a moment, and the representation of Tempest on the screen begins animating crudely and speaking to him. After checking himself to make sure his brain wasn’t also hit by lightning he tentatively speaks back to it, and is amazed to find that he can converse with his algorithm. What’s more, the code begins re-writing and optimizing itself. By morning the algorithm is performing analyses beyond what his company was expecting a year from now. He dubs it TempestA, and while the name gives Tempest pause when Tamlin presents it to her the results speak for themselves.
The company thinks so too, and plans a rapid organization-wide rollout the next week, with Tempest to oversee and Tamlin to ensure stability and success. But TempestA, now dubbing itself just “Tempesta” has other plans. It can sense its creator’s affection for Tempest, and worse, its own jealousy at the notion, and I’m sure you can see where this is going: a rogue algorithm leaving itself a back door through the firewall, uploading itself to the cloud, and accessing the intimate data of billions of smart device users across the globe to manipulate and enslave humanity all in an attempt to win the heart of Tamlin, who for his part still just wants to be in the bone zone with flesh and blood Tempest.
It’s like a sexy, statistical mashup of Her, Christine, Transcendence, and Three Men and A Little Lady- streaming only on Chick Fil A’s new service next year.