Why is it that our visions of artificial intelligence so often veer toward fear; of machines turning against us? Perhaps it’s not the technology itself that we mistrust, but the reflection it offers. If intelligence is shaped by what it observes, then what has AI seen in us? Perhaps it sees a species that extracts more than it gives back; that labels life as useful or wasteful; that builds hierarchies and systems of exclusion. If this is the world we feed into the machine — one marked by exploitation, indifference, and disconnection — then maybe the real danger isn’t that AI will overpower us, but that it will become too much like us.

Aranya Sahay’s 'Humans in the Loop' leads a similar inquiry into the kind of values we're imparting to the algorithms that are quickly becoming a part of our future. Set in a remote village in Jharkhand, the film centres on Nehma, played by Sonal Madhushankar, a woman from the Oraon tribal community who navigates a precarious position between the intimate knowledge systems of her culture and the opaque demands of artificial intelligence.

Through a job in data labelling — arguably one of the most invisible forms of labour in the digital economy, the film offers a powerful critique of how knowledge is extracted, categorised, and weaponised, often at the expense of indigenous ways of life.

Nehma is introduced to us as someone already marginalised by legal and social structures. She lives in a 'dhuku' marriage, a form of live-in relationship practiced within tribal communities that is unrecognised by the Indian state. The fragility of her position is portrayed not only in her lack of legal protection but in the emotional distance growing between her and her daughter, Dhaanu. The daughter’s preference for her father — a man who lives in the city and embodies upper-caste, urban privilege, speaks volumes about caste, assimilation, and the desire to belong to a world that seems more ‘legitimate’ in the eyes of dominant society.

The film uses Nehma’s work at the AI data lab as a site for exploring these themes more deeply. Here, she is tasked with the repetitive labour of labelling objects and organisms in photographs and videos, feeding the cognitive infrastructure of machine learning. It is precisely this process, seemingly banal, that lays bare the politics of classification.

Aranya tells us that his experience working on a film in Jharkhand was deeply shaped by his collaboration with local communities, particularly with Biju Topo, an ethnographic filmmaker from the Oraon tribe. Biju became a crucial guide, offering Aranya access not only to the region but also to a wider network of tribal writers, academics, and conservationists. One of the most profound encounters was with Philomena ji, also from the Oraon tribe and the wife of renowned Adivasi art conservationist Bulu Imam, who has discovered nearly 70 rock art sites in Jharkhand.

"She told me that when she as an Adivasi walks on grass, she thanks it for letting her walk on it. And when you as a non-Adivasi, walk on grass, you think that you're entitled to it. So there is that idea itself really, that stuck with me and that formed a kind of interesting basis of some philosophical explorations", he shares.

In a similar vein, a striking moment arises in the film when Nehma refuses to label a caterpillar as a pest. Nehma comes from a community that lives in a symbiotic relationship with nature, a reverent one. This is the same caterpillar she had earlier shown to her daughter in the forest, explaining how it consumes only the decaying parts of a leaf so the rest of the plant may survive. Her refusal to mark it as harmful, despite professional consequences, reveals how indigenous knowledge systems often run counter to the exploitative logic of industrial agriculture and AI-driven automation.

These two worlds are also reflected in the relationship between Nehma and her daughter — an inherently connected bond, yet one fractured by distance. They see the world differently, want different things, and struggle to meet each other where they are. The daughter longs to leave, to escape a life that feels heavy and limiting, while Nehma clings to a kind of rootedness her daughter no longer relates to. This emotional divide, and the subtle, moving ways in which it begins to close, is captured with great sensitivity in the film — mirroring the larger story of disconnection and the hope of finding our way back.

The film highlights labour, particularly the invisible, feminised labour that powers digital systems. Nehma and the other women in the data lab are engaged in a form of mental piecework that is both repetitive and cognitively taxing, yet entirely unrecognised by the AI systems they help create.

The irony is striking: these women are shaping the future of technology, even as they remain structurally excluded from its benefits and erased from its public imagination. There may even be a hidden metaphor for the way our world operates. It's often characterised by a lack of more feminine and nurturing values in favour of more masculine ambitions of dominance and control.

In a training session at the AI centre, Nehma’s supervisor tells her that artificial intelligence is like a child — it must be taught how to see the world. This metaphor becomes a central ideological battleground in the film. If AI is indeed a child, who becomes the teacher? What values and assumptions are encoded in the data it consumes?

Through a tender story of home, family and belonging, Humans in the Loop questions who gets to decide what counts as knowledge. Through the eyes of tribal woman who is reconciling multiple, often conflicting realities, it becomes a meditation of what really matters to us as humans beings.

Follow Aranya here and watch the trailer for the film below:

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