Google, now known for its LLMs and countless Gemini-branded offerings, has come up with another way to associate AI with itself. The search giant teamed up with Range Media to announce a new program called "AI on Screen."
It might not be hard to guess what AI on Screen is about. The company will fund projects where humans make short films exploring the relationship between humanity and AI. "Over the next 18 months, in collaboration with Range we’ll commission original narratives by visionary filmmakers that explore the complex relationship between humanity and AI," Google said in a blog post.
Making movies about artificial intelligence isn't a moonshot or something we haven't heard of. Filmmakers have been doing it for over a century now. The German sci-fi film Metropolis from 1927 was among the earliest attempts to depict artificial intelligence in media.
Then came the sentient droids of Star Wars, Rosie the robot from The Jetsons, J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man, and many others. The 2013 movie Her in the recent past, featuring Scarlett Johansson as an AI voice, explored the human-AI relationship.
Movies and TV shows have also shown what happens when AI goes rogue in the sci-fi franchise Terminator, the psychological thriller Ex Machina, and the anthology series Black Mirror. Meanwhile, animated titles like Wall-E have demonstrated that artificially intelligent robots have the potential to show care and emotion.
"We're looking for stories that will deeply resonate on a human level, exploring the emotional and ethical dilemmas that arise when we intertwine our lives with intelligent machines," Google said. Range's production division, Range Studios, will provide development and production expertise to the filmmakers.
Google is already working with two filmmakers whose short films will be out later this year. One of them is "Sweetwater,” in which the son of a late celebrity visits his childhood home, and "a fan mail reveals a startling AI, forcing him to reconcile his mother's legacy." The other one is "Lucid," in which a couple desperate to escape their suffocating reality risks everything on a revolutionary dream-sharing device.
The search giant is open to ideas and submissions across different genres, from sci-fi and drama to thrillers. Google said interested filmmakers can submit relevant project ideas directly to Range Media, and it aims to turn some of these short films into full-length features.
That said, we have recently seen that Google's AI efforts aren't limited to making chatbots. It partnered with the Las Vegas Sphere to recreate an 86-year-old movie for a 160,000-square-foot LED screen.
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