If there's a lot of hype and anxiety over AI in the creative industries, with a viral video of an AI-generated fight sequence between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt sending ripples through Hollywood, it doesn't seem to trouble independent filmmaker Albert Birney. His new film Obex, which he writes, directs and stars in, feels like the complete opposite of the slick production values and VFX that the latest AI tools that no-budget filmmakers can potentially use to rival Hollywood studios.
"AI takes away the joy that I would have in the process of filmmaking," he tells me ahead of his film's UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival. "To just type in, 'make this' and then have it make something that's 'perfect': it actually is soulless to me when I look at it. I can just tell that there was no time put into it by a human being."
