Before this studio, I thought that AI was a somewhat useful tool for general tasks, but not particularly useful for the creative process. I shared the point of view that AI could cause problems with the workforce in the future, as in causing workers to get laid off. I researched the outsourcing of workers to check the results of AI and the parallels that has with current day things like work from home tech support for companies. I think that my opinions on AI are very similar to the beginning of the studio, perhaps with more dread for the future. The message of the story aligns strongly with my own opinions.

I used a lot of AI tools in my design process, with Midjourney for images and Claude for story beats and formatting. I was surprised just how bad tools like ChatGPT and Claude are at making storylines and titles, both with plagiarism and tone. It was frustrating how Midjourney would only make characters standing up, looking directly at the viewer, with very little nuance in the pose, position, and expressions. 

I probably won't use these AI tools in the future for creative tasks, knowing how difficult it is to get the result I want, and how much time I waste trying to get the desired result. I will probably still use these tools for simpler tasks, like writing code if I need to do it quickly, but not for creative tasks in all likelihood.

Sam project description:

The Ghosts in the Machine is a movie about the possible use of workers for deception relating to the quality of AI, as well as the exploitation of said workers in the future. We made this project for the Collaborative Futures studio, a studio about using AI to make movies about the future of AI. We made the movie mainly using Midjourney to create cinematic shots and ChatGPT, as well as Claude to format the story into a three act format and Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet. We used the concept of Mechanical Turks to inspire the main story, an investigative journalist discovering workers behind automation and the exploitation of the workers. The movie is set in the 2040s, where surveillance is incredibly widespread and corporations' lobbying power has increased vastly, allowing them to get away with far more than would be possible today. The employees of the main company developing AI, who work to check the AI's results, live in a company town of sorts, where they live in tiny spaces connected to their workspace.