Prompt: interrogate the false promises and hidden costs of artificial intelligence. Generate: your own conclusions.

AI, or artificial intelligence, seems to be infiltrating every corner of our existence. But while tech billionaires claim that AI is making life easier and more convenient, this comes at the alarming cost of an underclass of precarious labourers, exploitative supply chains, and environmental damage caused by its infrastructure – from the sharp increase in precious metal mining and fossil fuel emissions, to the gallons of water needed to cool data centers overheating from demand. From eye-opening documentary to cerebral and speculative sci-fi, this shorts programme prompts us to gaze past the false promises of AI and generate our own conclusions.

Beyond the screen:

After watching this trio of films, join us to explore the complex interconnected web of human impact related to technologies apparently designed to simplify our lives. How do we retain our humanity amidst the cult of convenience?

We will be joined by Tom Hegarty from Foxglove, an independent non-profit organisation that “fights to make tech fair for everyone”. Foxglove just launched the UK’s first legal challenge to a data centre, challenges the government’s use of discriminatory algorithms, and stands up for the rights of global tech workers.

We will also hear from Karen Gregory, the founder of the MSc in Digital Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, whose work explores the nature and experience of self-employment in the digital economy with a focus on platform labour, risk, and precarity. She also advises the Workers Observatory initiative.

This conversation will be moderated by Take One Action director Rachel Hamada.

Empty Rider
(Lawrence Lek, UK/Switzerland, 2024, English, 15 min 20 sec)

In this science fiction short, the sentient self-driving car Vanguard-3181 stands trial for attempting to murder their parent company’s CEO.

Their Eyes
(Nicolas Gourault, France, 2025, English/Spanish, 23 min)

Online micro-workers from the Global South share their testimonies of being paid to painstakingly and manually label images: teaching self-driving cars to navigate the roads of the Global North.

Notes from Gog Magog
(Riar Rizaldi, Indonesia, 2022, 20 min)

An exploration of the interconnection between ghost stories, tech company culture in South Korea, and the economy of logistics in Indonesia.