Simon Bouisson

The latest opponent of streaming platforms is sleep! Every minute, people consume around 100,000 hours of fiction. Screenwriting giants are now relying on their own algorithms to steer pitches, scripts and even the editing process into the realm of maximum addictiveness.

But screenwriters had better watch out because they could end up becoming slaves to AIs, which constitute a sort of creative grid that interferes with their decision-making. It’s this duality that forms the thesis of my project. Algorithms–are they tools to be used by the writer, or is it the other way around?

AÏLA (“Artificial Intelligence in Los Angeles”) presents us with this new clash between writer and algorithm.

It’s a work of fiction that explores how AIs are designed to anticipate our desires in order to best indulge them. What or who is the algorithm, really? Is it politicized, patriarchal, gendered, inclusive, individualist…? Can humans and algorithms exist side by side or does one of them have to win outright? Above all, can an AI make us happy?

California represents the crossroads of American cinema and new technologies, and the springboard for a vast proportion of our digital culture and habits. Aside from raising issues of standardization in writing, before algorithms and AI had entered into the creative process, this was (and it still is) a land abounding in eclectic fantasies. I am excited by the promise of drawing upon these fantasies with a view to fine-tuning the initial narrative and technological premise of AÏLA.

AÏLA envisions a tug-of-war between AI and writer, a theme explored in both the narrative thread and the writing method. On location in Los Angeles, I will set up the software (i.e. the algorithmic writer) based on what I learn from meeting academics in the field who design these algorithms.

Through encounters with creative networks, I will attempt to capture a less exoticized image of current challenges in storytelling from the perspective of local studios and independent filmmakers. I will also be hearing what streaming platform engineers and representatives have to say about the recommender algorithms and narrative analysis systems that they advocate. This will hopefully offer me a finer view of these issues of technology and user habits. Lastly, I want to refine the parameters of the tool designed for this project, write the initial story arcs, and incorporate a narrative framework “dictated” by the software and myself.

I expect AÏLA to be set in Los Angeles, so this residency will be an opportunity to test out my ideas by immersing myself in the city. My preconceptions are likely to be shaken up as I experience the location in real life.