Next Showing
This film is presented with The Free Speech Society. Stay after the film for a panel discussion featuring real humans!
Ghost in the Machine is a gripping and urgently relevant investigative documentary that exposes the buried history of artificial intelligence, not as a neutral system of algorithms, but as a technology shaped by racism, misogyny, eugenics, and entrenched structures of power long before it entered everyday life. Rejecting the notion of AI as inevitable or objective, the film traces how myths of progress and efficiency have obscured deeper political and cultural agendas, revealing the ideological foundations beneath the systems now reshaping modern society.
Structured as an eight-chapter inquiry, the film blends historical excavation with contemporary analysis to confront essential questions: who built these systems, whose values they encode, and who they benefit. The film employs a bold yet accessible cinematic approach that is as unsettling as it is illuminating, offering a visceral understanding of a technology that now touches nearly every aspect of modern life.
This is not a film about machines. It is a film about power. It interrogates who builds AI, who benefits from it, and who bears the cost.
Reviews
"Valerie Veatch’s blistering “Ghost in the Machine” is a radical, necessary Molotov cocktail of a documentary that’s being thrown right into the heart of our nonsense, nightmarish world of overinflated AI hype." – The Wrap
As part of our See Change initiative, we strive to showcase the work of women and non-binary individuals and their behind-the-scenes involvement in a production.
This film is directed, written, edited, and produced by Valerie Veatch, and features original music composed by Morgan Doctor.
How and Why Ghost in the Machine Uses AI and NOT AI Labels
What is “AI”? Artificial intelligence, as we learn in Ghost in the Machine, is a marketing term. As University of Washington Professor Emily M. Bender says, it “does not refer to a coherent set of technologies” and, according to cognitive scientist Abeba Birhane, it has “always been a marketing term.”
What does the “AI” label mean? Footage that was generated for this film using synthetic media software is labeled “AI” as a nod to the popular term for these services. This is often referred to as “generative AI,” and this technology relies on unprecedented amounts of compute, data, and energy to run.
What does the “NOT AI” label mean? Footage observed in the landscape of digital media, archives, and Zoom interviews, and footage shot by the production are labeled “NOT AI”. It is not as straightforward in the case where computer generated content is presented by others in the context of digital media (i.e., social media) they label this “NOT AI.”
