Director Martin Percy, whose work often combines traditional filmmaking techniques with innovative AI technology, has been lauded with numerous awards, including a BAFTA, an Emmy, and 11 Webby Awards. FEST was excited to welcome Percy for a Training Ground Masterclass on June 24. In “AI Basics: Thrills or Chills?” Percy engaged participants in an interactive film on how AI is changing—and possibly revolutionizing—our world.   

Divided into several parts, “AI Basics: Thrills or Chills?” is a documentary “that asks you questions” and actually waits for answers. Like a choose-your-own-adventure, the film supplies options for responses and interaction, with presumably different outcomes depending on how audiences react

Percy opened and closed the session with the same query: how important is the AI revolution? Participants had three choices—as important as the Internet, the Industrial Revolution, or the evolution of humans? The facts that follow in the film, which are numbered and referenced in a Fact Sheet on the Inclusive AI Project website for transparency, may shift one’s initial view of just how impactful AI will be.   

The pertinent questions the film raises are both pressing and uncomfortably open. In the film industry, AI has already begun to make substantial waves in how movies are made. Several participants in the Masterclass shared personal experiences with how AI has disrupted their work, and the future role of AI in the film industry and beyond remains mired in uncertainty. Percy’s documentary tackles these anxieties head on, presenting a variety of scenarios for what AI could mean.  

Some of these visions of future AI technology definitely veer towards the “chills” side of the spectrum (an AI “human’s” reflection on its shadow self at one point in the documentary is unsettling, to say the least). However, the film also highlights the potential of AI to facilitate significant strides in fields like medicine.

Overall, the documentary’s efforts to include audiences in the discussion around AI can help to alleviate some of the uncertainty around this technology. By sharing experiences and gaining a clearer idea of what AI can and cannot do—at least for now—it is also possible to recognize where AI offers value and benefits that can be shared by all.