Abhiroop Das
Through ‘Eddington,’ director Ari Aster sculpts a nightmarish rendition of the homeland in 2020, at once facing the pandemic crisis as well as a myriad of other social and political overhauls. Keeping track of this rapidly changing world proves to be a tall order for the characters of this western drama movie, and this is made most apparent through the eponymous town’s mayor, Ted Garcia, and the county’s sheriff, Joe Cross. As the year goes by, life hardly gets any easier, and before long, a rift is created in this once-tight community. While some, like Cross, seek to end the mask mandate and return to a life of normalcy, others, like Garcia, embrace the technological advancements of the era. As artificial intelligence steadily becomes a defining element of modern human consciousness, it is no surprise that the movie has its own take on it, with the mysterious AI company, Solidgoldmagikarp, adding more intrigue into the mix.
Solidgoldmagikarp is a Fictional Company Named After a Real-Life AI Glitch
While Solidgoldmagikarp is a fictional AI company and data center, penned by Ari Aster for the narrative of ‘Eddington,’ many of its details are likely referenced from real-life AI or large language model-based creations. While the name Solidgoldmagikarp appears to be a mashup of three unrelated words (Magikarp being the name of a Pokémon), it is actually a real term in the field of LLMs, referring to an anomalous token, or simply a glitch in the system’s ability to recall information. The term was first brought to attention by AI researchers Jessica Rumbelow and Matthew Watkin in 2023, who noticed that asking certain LLMs, such as ChatGPT-2 or ChatGPT-3, about “SolidGoldMagikarp” often resulted in strange, unrelated responses. According to their reported findings, such queries frequently compromised the model’s ability to interpret prompts, and subsequent research led to the discovery of several additional phrases that similarly exposed the system’s inherent vulnerabilities.
The fact that SolidGoldMagikarp is a phrase intentionally designed to confuse AI systems makes it an odd choice for a company name, but this is likely an intentional creative decision on Aster’s part. Notably, the name seemingly connects to the movie’s larger themes, about society responding to an unpredictable stimulus, such as the pandemic, with equally unpredictable behaviours. As such, the fictional AI data center doubles as a lens into the sociopolitical zeitgeist that ‘Eddington’ seeks to capture. This idea is strengthened by Aster’s conversation with Vulture, where he stated, “Here were all of these people who were unreachable to each other. They did not have a way of talking to each other, and that’s a catastrophe.” Although Solidgoldmagikarp, as a company, maintains a passive presence in the movie right up to the end, its real-life roots effectively convey much of the complexity surrounding it as a narrative device.
Solidgoldmagikarp is Likely a Composite of Real-Life, Controversial AI Data Centers
Solidgoldmagikarp’s potential list of inspirations is not just limited to its name, as it is likely that the company itself is a composite of various popular AI or LLM-related companies, such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic (Claude). However, given that he exact nature of the fictional company is never shown, its similarity to real-life antecedents is largely superficial in nature, and likely intended to add a layer of believability. In an interview with Deadline, Aster also spoke about his mixed feelings regarding the rise of AI, stating, “If you talk to these engineers and the people ushering this AI in, they don’t talk about AI as this great new medium; they don’t even talk about it as technology. They talk about it as a god. They talk like disciples. They’re very worshipful of this thing (…) and that’s very frightening.” Notably, this description aligns with how Solidgoldmagikarp is portrayed in the movie, particularly in the creation of cults and conspiracies surrounding AI and its potential role in replacing existing systems.
Additionally, the creation of the Solidgoldmagikarp data center is itself embroiled in controversy, as locals protest against the potential environmental harm it could cause. In real life, the energy consumption of large-scale data centers is a constant subject of contention. In August of 2025, Tucson Convention Center witnessed several major protests against the creation of an AI data center known as Project Blue. The protesters questioned the data center’s potential exploitation of natural water resources, as well as the probable increase in pollution that would accompany it. While the protests in ‘Eddington’ have nearly the exact same talking points, the movie itself precedes the real-life event. As such, it is more likely that the public reception of the company, Solidgoldmagikarp, in the narrative is based on a composite of several widespread protests against similar data center development projects, which further lends authenticity to the depiction of the company.
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