Someone at the conference took a jab at TRANSCENDENCE, a film I had never heard of and thus decided to watch despite its horrendous ratings.
I quite enjoyed it! It does falter terribly in the third act, but its first half is pretty darn good. It is almost certainly every delusional techno-optimist's wet dream; It isn't hard to picture our feudal tech overlords frothing at the mouth through most of it (it's even got a 2-second cameo of Musk). But, there is something there.
In other news, Xi Jinping landed in Egypt yesterday, a visit that was much publicized and can likely be taken as a clue of what's to come. Interesting times.