A man mourns the loss of his deceased celebrity mother, who suddenly appears to him as a hologram in his childhood home, singing and playing the guitar.
A touching scene from a new short film called Sweet Water, which has an unlikely backing from Google.
Amid all the controversy over artificial intelligence and the potential threat it poses to Hollywood and the creative community, the tech giant aims to reimagine the narrative with a 21-minute film that explores whether technology can help people cope with grief in this new digital age.
Google set the stage for this debate with a glittering event at the Academy Museum on Monday night. Actors, directors, producers and entertainment workers packed a Los Angeles theater to watch Sweetwater, starring Michael Keaton and Kyra Sedgwick.
Google commissioned “Sweetwater” with Santa Monica-based talent management firm Range Media Partners to explore the complex relationship between artificial intelligence and humanity.
Mountain View is interested in presenting AI in a better light. YouTube owner is big investor and a partner in artificial intelligence company Anthropic, which itself was subject of lawsuits regarding allegations of copyright infringement in art. In addition to its partnership with Anthropic, Google is separately developing its own artificial intelligence tools, including Gemini and Project Astra.
“The goal now is not to specifically sell your product,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “The goal for now is to create a world where people feel comfortable supporting AI, using it without fear or any critical doubts, the way we plunged into social media… I think with AI it was a more challenging task.”
Depictions of the digital afterlife in shows like Black Mirror can seem bleak, foreshadowing a dystopian future in which humans are resurrected from their graves as chatbots and robots.
In “Sweetwater,” a hologram of a deceased mom tugs at viewers’ heartstrings, hinting at the possibility of using AI to digitally preserve a loved one or comfort those who are grieving.
A man played by actor Michael Keaton talks to a hologram of his dead celebrity mom, played by Kyra Sedgwick, in this scene from the short film Sweetwater, which explores the potential use of artificial intelligence to digitally resurrect the dead.
(100 ZEROS, Brookstreet Pictures and Range Media Partners)
“It just poses a question I haven’t even decided for myself yet,” Sean Douglas, Keaton’s son and the film’s screenwriter, said in an interview. “If given the opportunity, would you want it—and what are the parameters for how realistic such an experience could be?”
The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked conversations and criticism about the technology's impact, including how it could change the way people perceive the world.
Hollywood faces similar questions as storytellers raise concerns about copyright infringementcompensation and AI risk compete with actors, writers and artists to work with. Technology has made it possible to bring back actors, writers and musicians from digitally dead. Some people are already using chatbots such as therapists.
Technology companies such as Google, which provide AI assistants and products for creating images, text and video, are promoting their tools as a way to help creative peoplerather than replacing them.
Google's artificial intelligence products do not appear in the movie Sweet Water, although the company does have a holographic 3D communications technology called Google Beam which uses AI.
Consumers Divided on Whether AI Will Help or Harm Creativity, Study Finds report from the Pew Research Center. Some 53% think AI will worsen people's ability to think creatively, while 16% say greater use of AI will improve the situation. Others are unsure or think it won't be any better or worse.
Neil Parris, Head of Strategic Content Partnerships for Film and Television at Google 100 Zeros InitiativeBecause people see a lot of stories about artificial intelligence (some of them less bleak), it could broaden their understanding of how to use the technology, he said.
“It’s meant to expand human creativity,” said Parris, executive producer of the short film. “It will evolve and shape people's jobs in the creative process, just like any technology throughout the history of filmmaking.”
“Sweetwater” premiered in New York in September but is not yet fully distributed. The filmmakers said they are also willing to extend it.
The panel discussion about the film also shed light on the tension between humans and machines.
“I was excited by the prospect of an actor playing an AI rather than an AI playing an actor. I thought that was good,” Sedgwick said to the audience's applause.
Earlier this year, many Hollywood actors were outraged when the creator of an AI-generated character Tilly Norwoodannounced that Norwood would soon sign with a talent agency. The AI character could be used in films and TV shows, in roles that could directly compete with human actors.
Keaton, who also directed the film, said that while he is not the most tech-savvy, curiosity and the opportunity to work with his son led him to direct and star in the film, but it is not meant to promote artificial intelligence.
The Google guys were “wonderful,” he said on stage Monday, but the actor also expressed concerns about the impact of AI on jobs and equality.
Google-owned YouTube has also added artificial intelligence tools to its platform to train video creators. Some creators expressed fear that it may make it easier for others to copy their work and creative styles.
“You don't replace anyone in the industry. I'm very old-fashioned about people, employment, jobs and protection,” Keaton said in an interview. “And at the same time, I find this material really interesting and curious.”
Although the film is about artificial intelligence, the filmmakers intentionally did not use artificial intelligence to create the digital actors.
“We didn’t want it to be unclear where we were using AI and talking about it,” Douglas said.
One of the benefits of working with Google, he says, is that the company has given researchers and their tech workers the opportunity to learn more about the digital afterlife.
Jed Brubaker, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has been researching the benefits and risks of an AI afterlife using Google DeepMind, worked with the filmmakers as they figured out the design of the “generative ghost” mom. In Sweetwater, a hologram of Mom is projected from a sphere.
“These are all choices we can make about generative ghosts as well, and they will have different effects on how people perceive them and interact with them,” Brubaker said. “Just like reading Grandpa’s diary is different from looking at a photo album of Grandpa’s pictures.”
According to Google, after the screening, people in the entertainment industry expressed interest in working with the company on future film projects.
“Our fear of machines has been massively inflated by Hollywood for many decades,” said Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “You could say Hollywood is picking up on social fears.”
