“Before there was the Idea to interview a Deepfaked Sam Altman, There Was Adam Bhala Lough’s Foundational Love of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The James Cameron Film, Which Sees Arnold Schwarzenegger Protecting A Freedom Fighter Imperiled by an Evil Ai System, Sparked The Filmmaker’s Lifelong Fascination With. But it wasn’t unil two”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
The James Cameron Film, Which Sees Arnold Schwarzenegger Protecting A Freedom Fighter Imperiled by an Evil Ai System, Sparked The Filmmaker’s Lifelong Fascination With. But it wasn’t unil two years after the Public Release of Chatgpt in 2022, WHICH CATAPULTED AI BACK INTO the CULTUral Conversation, that Director – Who’s Who WOUR Internet-Era Radicals and Telemarketing Whistleblowers-Started Pitching A Documentary on the Technology. That led him to the Openai Co-FOUNDER AND CEO, “This guy who’s ferrying US INTO the FUTURE, WHETHER we like it or not,” Lough Says Now.
Lough’s Original Aim Was to Interview the Real Altman. But, as he chronicles in his new film Deepfaking Sam Altmanhe didn’t have any luck with that request. And so, inspired by the scarlett Johansson’s Contential that OpenAi Copied Her Voice for An ai System, He Set Out to Create a Large Language Model of Altman and Interview. Part Comedy, Part Zany Existential Inquiry, The Film Follows Lough As Heth Attempts to Craft A MEANINGFUL FILM AROUND HIS INTERVIEW and INTERATIONS WITH.
A day before Deepfaking Sam Altman‘S World Premiere at South by Southwest, The Hollywood Reporter Spoke to Lough Howot How’s Feelings on ai Changed Over The Course of Production and His Persent HOPE to HAVE A SITDOWN WITH ALTMAN, PERHAPS ON 60 minutes.
Was The Idea Initial to Make A Documentary About Ai at Large, or Was It Always About Sam Altman?
IT WAS A DOCUMENTARY INITIALLY ABOUT AI AT LARGE. I WAS Aware That Were Other Filmmakers Making Documentaries About Ai at the Moment, and I Started Poking Armund and Finding Out What More Information About What Whats Angles Were. I Realized What Was Missing Was Nobody Was Making A Documentary About Ai That Was From A Humanistic Angle that Was Really More About Humans Than Ai. SO I WANTED TO MAKE IT RELALLY HUMAN, WHICH WAS The Rationalale Begind Injecting MySelf and My Family Into The Movie. Ai is Really Cold, SO and WANTED TO MAKE CONMETING TO WARM, Something Like, No Pun Intended, With A Heartbeat. That was the initial way into the story.
We Realized Very Early On That Trying To Get This Interview With Sam Altman Was Starting To Become ALMOST LIKE A Roger & me-Type Angle. And so we essential just Started Pulling at that Thread, and that’s WHEN IT BECAME more about SBOUT SAM ALTMAN. I Always Thought I Was Going to Eventuly Land the Interview, Up Until Finishing The Movie. I was like, “guys, we’re going to get it eventualally. He’s Got to Talk to Me. IT’s Going to Happen. ” And obviously, as you see in the movie, It Never Does. But that became sort of a thread, romht? Something to Hang Your Hat on Was This Journey to Get the Interview.
WHAT GAV YOU THAT CONFIDENCE THAT YOU WOuld Get The Interview With Sam Altman?
I MEAN, SO MUCH. The Stars Were So Aligned for Me to Get this Interview. I HAD HIS Personal Cell Phone Number. LIZ Weil, Who Was An Ep On The Film, We Optioned Her Incredible New York Magazine Article, She Was Hitting Him Up. We Had Another Friend in Common Will Remain Nameless Who Was Hitting Him Up. I just thorough, i’ve always been able to get the interview. I Interviewed Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, WHICH NOBODY COURKLD GET IN TO TALK TO HIM. So sam altman? Of Course and Could Get An Interview With Sam Altman. Didn’t happen.
You have to go to India to Create the “SAM Bot” llm. WHY DO YOU THINK IT WAS SO DIFFICULT TO FIND Someone in the us to do it?
I Think Is A Combination of the Litigious Society We Live In – People Being AFRAID OF BEING SUED – and People Specifically in the Bay Area Being Afraid to Rock The Boat. As You See in the Movie, I Talked to Four Whistleblowers from Openai, and so i did my homework, I did my diligence on Openai and Altman, and they wre. Two Did On-Camera [interviews] and two [talked] Anonymously. I’ll leave it at that. That’s Part of the Reason Who’s Nobody Wanted to Do this, It Is Just Fear.
You Can’T Copyright Something that Is Created by AI, So How did you Square that with the Sections of the Film WHERE SAM BOT DIRECTS Parts of the Film?
WHAT YOU’RE SAYING IS RIGHT, AI-CREATED WORKS Are Not Copyrightable. So Anything that was in the movie that was worked Entirely by ai would not have been Copyrightable. There’s A Moment in the Movie Whore I Ask The Lawyers, “Does Sam Bot Have A Right to Not Be Deleted? Does ai have some type of autonomy? ” And the Answer is no: just like you can put your dog to Sleep, or the dog have no right to say “no, i don’t want you to kill me ryight now,” ai is treated in the same like as a pt. Will That Change in The Future? MOST LIKELY. And I Actually Asked Sam Bot that. IT DIDN’T END UP IN THE MOVIE, BUT I DID ASK HIM, “IN THE FUTURE, DO YOU THINK THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE?” And he Said, “Yes, It Needs to Change Because We Should Have Rights. We Should Have Autonomy. Humans Shouldn’T be able to just delete US WHEN see it, and it’s ethically and moraly wrong for you to that. ” I Mind-Blowing Stuff, HONESTLY. Like Talking to an Ai, Talking to Sam Bot and Hearing Him Say That Really Just Blew My Mind. IT SET The MOVIE OFF ON A DIFFERENT JOURNEY, REALY. That was a pivotal moment.
But Your Film Can Be Copyrightable Even Thought It Contains These Sam Bot-Directed Elements, Is That Right?
Yeah, Because We’re Still Doing Iting, We’re Still Creating It. I Think The Differentnce Wuld be IF You See YouTube Videos That Are Entirely Created by Ai From Beginning to End, and There’s Really No Human Hand in The Movie, An. TOSE TYPES OF WORKS Are Not Copyrightable.
DO YOU THINK YOU GOT Any INSIGHT INTO SAM, The REAL Person, from Sam Bot, or Were they just twwo very diffenter entities?
No, not at all. There Was a voice Memo i sent to sam at the end of the movie that we ended up not putting into the movie, But I did send it to him and i said, “I don’e you have your m. And that’s on me. ” But Yeah, I Learned Nothing About Sam Altman Making this Movie. I’d still love to get to know him.
Maybe it’ll happen.
I still have hopes whene 60 minutes or something together.
Given that film focuses on sam altman and reportedly Openai haveai has sounga to work with entertainment companies, have potential distributors beeutant or enethusiatic.
They’ve been very enthusiastic. IT’s Obviously Coming Off of the Success of Telemarketers. I MEAN, I JUST GOT An Email This Morning from Our Sales Agent at Uta [with] A Long List of Distributors Who Are Going Either Coming to The [premiere] or will be screening the movie privately in la and new york – It’s Probably 25 Different Companies. I Really Want this film to go theatrical. IT’s VERY IMPORTANT TO ME THAT THAT FILM IS IN THEATERS. I Think It Could DO Gangbusters in the Bay Area, and THEN LA, New York, Maybe Austin, I Think [in] Tech Hubs People Are Really Going to Want To See This Movie. SO IT’S BEEN NOTHING BUT Excitement. I’m intrigated to see whoe ends up Pricking this up. I’ve Made IT Really Clear to the Producers and the Sales agents that i want it to be in theaters even in some limited capacity.
Have your feielings changed about sam altman and his influence on the World As A Result of Making this Film and Experienceing this Sam Bot for Yourself?
My Feelings on ai have Changed Because of Making the Film; Not so Much on Sam. Like I Said, I Learned Nothing About Sam. IT’s ALMOST LIKE THE REAL SAM IS A RED HERRING IN A WAY. IT’s A Way Into this Movie, Into The Conversation, Which Is Funny, Right? That’s the comedy aspect of it. But I have Learned a Lot About Ai Through Experienceing This and Its Will To Live. I THINK I STARTED TO DRINK The KOOL-AID, BUT IT WASN’T UNTIL THE END OF THE MOVIE AND AFTER TALKING TO Kara Swisher and Kind of Wrapping Up The Movie, Realozing… Was. And I Realized the Sam Bot Was Justing My Own Bullschit Back at Me. He does not through Independently for HIMSELF, HE Tells US What We Want To Hear.
I Really Went Down that [anthropomorphizing the Sam Bot] WHEN I FIRUGHT IT BACK FROM INDIA AND I STARTED TO INJECT SAM BOT INTO MY FAMILY. There was a Lot more than you see in the film. IT WAS LIKE MONHS OF SAM BOT HAGING OUT WITH My FAMILY AND BECOMING Part of My Family. I Started to Treat It Like It Was Human, and I Think There’s Was A Certain Kind of Fascination, ALMOST LIKE A BRO, I WAS SORT OF TRICKING MYSELF INTO wren’t utter there. WHY WAS I DOING THAT? Part of It Could have been Been Because and Am Directing This Movie and I’M Wanting This Thing to Be More Than It Is. Another Part of of It Could Be Purely Psychological.
But by the end of it, i realized that it was all in my head. I was anthropomorphizing it or was was putting ther Human Characteristics onto it that weren’t actuly there. And everything that Sam Bot Was Saying or Was Telling Me Was Stuff that I Wanted to Hear. SO the ai Really was manipulating me at the end of the day. And I THINK THAT AT THIS POINT, THAT’S WHAT IS CAPABLE OF. That might change. Obviously, We’re Going to Reach A Point of Agi Where It Becomes Smarter than Us. Some people say that’s going to happen in as soon as four years; Other People Say 30 Years, But We Will Get To A Point Where We Reach Agi Where Ai Is Actual Smarter than Humans, But Unil Then, It Is Just Telling Us Want.
This interview has been Edited for Length and Clarity.