An audience member was made to leave an event at Sundance Film Festival this week, following a heated debate involving artificial intelligence.
At a screening on Tuesday (January 23) of Being (The Digital Griot) audience members were encouraged to discuss various issues with an AI bot, including patriarchy and racism. One audience member reportedly shouted, “Fuck this AI.”
The film’s creator, Rashaad Newsome responded: “I’m not here to be cursed out and I’m not going to have my AI child be cursed out either.”
Newsome also reportedly refused to take part in the post-screening Q&A session until action was taken against the audience member.
The incident led staff to remove the audience member from the auditorium. Around a quarter of the audience left in solidarity, with some complaining about the premature shutting down of the debate, and others arguing that the ejected audience member was not the culprit in the incident.
AI has been a source of tension in Hollywood recently, with last year’s SAG-AFTRA strikes raising concerns about its potential to erase and replace jobs and inhibit human creativity and expression.
The increasing conversation surrounding AI was reflected in other works at the film festival, which took place in Utah, with two documentaries related to AI being shown.
Eternal You, directed by Hans Block, and Love Machina, directed by Peter Sillen, both focused on the ability to use AI to communicate with loved ones after death.
Another film at Sundance, titled Love Me, starring Kristen Stewart, involved a fictional romance between an AI-powered buoy and a satellite, showing the growing prominence of the AI conversation within the creative industry.
Regarding the incident at the Being (The Digital Griot) screening, Sundance organisers are reportedly “looking into” it, “reviewing all available material to determine what happened so that corrective actions can be taken.”
In other news, Stewart has shared that her upcoming movie, Love Lies Bleeding “is going to shock people”.