Hey everyone, it’s Gerd. Here at FreeAstroScience, we love exploring those fascinating intersections where science, technology, and culture intersect. And lately, there’s no bigger collision than the one happening with artificial intelligence and art. It’s a topic that’s impossible to ignore.
You’ve probably heard the buzz, and maybe you’ve even formed an opinion. Some provocative ideas are circulating. Some will tell you that AI is the ultimate democratizing force, a tool that will finally shatter the gatekeeping that has plagued creative industries for centuries. Others argue that if you write the text prompt, you are the sole and unquestionable author of whatever the machine spits out. And a third, perhaps more naive, view is that AI-generated content is inherently original, a fresh creation from the machine's mind.
Let’s be honest, though—it’s never that simple. A recent film that screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, What’s Next?, throws these debates into sharp relief, and I think it’s worth taking a closer look. It forces us to move beyond the hype and confront the messy, complicated reality.
When the System Says No, Does an Algorithm Say Yes?
First, let’s talk about the filmmaker, Cao Yiwen. Her story is, frankly, one that’s all too common. She’s a Chinese artist who spent years trying to break into the traditional film industry . She wrote a script for a feminist suspense movie, but when it came time to find investors, she was shut out They told her she was a "brand-new" director, "too risky" In the end, she had to watch as a male director was hired to direct her own script for the film Chubby Café.
Frustrated by an industry rife with what she describes as sexism and nepotism, she turned to AI. For her, it wasn't just a gimmick; it was a lifeline. It was a way to bypass the gatekeepers who wouldn't give her a chance Using generative AI tools like Runway and Discord, she spent six straight days feeding text prompts into the system, generating thousands of short, 3-4 second clips that she then edited into a 72-minute feature film.
From this perspective, you can’t help but empathize. AI became a tool of liberation, allowing an artist who had been systematically excluded to finally tell her story on her own terms. It’s a powerful narrative. But it’s only half the story.
But Is It Really Her Art?
This is where things get thorny. Cao claims authorship of the film because she wrote the prompts that generated the images. It’s her vision, her story. But the question is, where did the AI get the raw material to create those images?
Generative AI models don’t create in a vacuum. They are "trained" on colossal datasets of existing images, photographs, and artwork scraped from the internet—often without the consent of, or compensation for, the original artists . The very company whose tool she used, Runway, is currently facing lawsuits from visual artists who accuse the platform of training its AI on their copyrighted work .
This creates a deeply uncomfortable paradox. The technology Cao used to fight against the injustices of one system may be built on the exploitation of another group of creators . It’s a classic case of passing the buck. When asked about copyright, Cao deferred to the tech companies' policies, while the Berlin festival programmers said they simply trust the filmmakers to have cleared all the rights . It’s a convenient way to wash one's hands of a massive ethical problem . The U.S. Copyright Office, for its part, doesn't currently recognize an AI as an author, which leaves the legal ownership of this kind of work in a complete grey area .
So, What Are We Actually Watching?
Cao has suggested that we should think of AI as a "new type of film," a genre like thriller or romance And when you look at What’s Next?, you can see why. The film is described as a disorienting, psychedelic experience filled with distorted faces, oversaturated colours, and bizarre proportions . It’s visually uncanny and, according to some who saw it, becomes repetitive quite quickly—more like a "screensaver" than a traditional movie film’s aesthetic is intentional, meant to reflect a world plagued by gendered violence and loneliness But its unsettling nature also highlights the limitations of the technology. It’s a facsimile of art, a collage of styles and data points that lacks the deep intentionality we associate with human creation . It can mimic, but can it truly originate?
This isn't to dismiss Cao's artistic statement. Her film is a valid and powerful protest against the hurdles she faced. Yet, we can't ignore the fact that the tool she chose is ethically compromised. It challenges our definitions of art, originality, and authorship, but it offers no easy answers.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Perhaps the most telling part of this whole story is Cao’s own view of the future. She doesn’t see AI as the end of her creative journey. In fact, she plans to return to traditional filmmaking with human actors as soon as she gets the chance . She considers What’s Next? to be just the "first paragraph" of a much larger conversation she wants to have through her work.
At the end of the day, she says, "The story is the most fundamental thing. And that’s why humans can dominate AI" . On that, I think we can all agree. Technology is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used to build or to break. It can open doors for some while potentially closing them for others.
The existence of a film like What’s Next? isn't something to fear, but it is something we have to confront with our eyes wide open. It asks us to think critically about the price of access and the unseen costs of innovation. As these tools become more powerful, we have to decide: what are we willing to sacrifice for creative freedom? And whose freedom are we really talking about, anyway?
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