AI audience row at Sundance sparks walkout

Old Mutual Illness| Bernadette
PARK CITY – An audience member was ejected from a Sundance festival event in a spat over artificial intelligence, triggering a walkout that illustrates the divisions the technology has rapidly wrought in the film industry.
AI — a key driver of the recent and devastating Hollywood strikes — has been debated extensively at this year’s indie movie festival in Utah.
Filmmakers have experimented with using the technology as a creative tool, while also cautioning about its potential to erase jobs and stifle human expression and connection.
At a Tuesday screening of “Being (The Digital Griot),” in which audience members were encouraged to approach the screen and discuss issues like racism and the patriarchy with an AI bot, an audience member appeared to shout obscenities.
“I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either,” responded the film’s creator, artist Rashaad Newsome, refusing to participate in a post-screening Q&A until action was taken.
Festival staff forced the woman who had apparently yelled to leave the auditorium, prompting jeers.
Roughly a quarter of the auditorium walked out in solidarity, with some complaining that debate was being shut down and others insisting the lady expelled had not been the actual culprit.
Sundance organisers told AFP they were “looking into” the incident and “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”
In addition to “Being,” the Sundance indie festival has hosted “Eternal You” and “Love Machina,” two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death.
Another film, “Eno,” explored musician Brian Eno’s career and creative process, using a “generative engine” to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.
AI was also addressed on the fiction side by films like “Love Me,” starring Kristen Stewart, which imagined a romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite in a post-human world.