Ancestra director Eliza McNitt defends AI as a creative tool

VR filmmaker Eliza McNitt has explored the cosmos with her previous work, but with her short film Ancestra, she taps into Google’s AI tools to tell a personal story. Based on her own birth, the film follows a pregnant woman who is shocked to learn she needs an emergency cesarean delivery. We hear her frightened thoughts as she thinks back to the creation of life and the way all living creatures are connected.

In this episode, Devindra chats with McNitt about Ancestra and the creative potential (and many dangers) of AI as a video production tool. While she ultimately believes it’s up to every artist to judge the costs and benefits of every tool on their own, she also agrees that AI companies need to be more transparent about how their models are built, especially when it comes to training them on copyrighted works.