This article looks at 'Deepfaking Sam Altman,' a documentary by Adam Bhala Lough that examines AI power, authorship, and human vulnerability through an experimental filmmaking process. It covers Lough’s attempt to interview OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the decision to instead create a deepfaked AI version of him, the collaboration with Indian deepfake artist Devi Singh Jadoun, and how the project evolves into a personal and ethical inquiry. The piece also addresses the film’s engagement with questions of consent, copyright, emotional attachment to AI, and the cultural anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence.
Sam Altman has become a pain in the ass for most of us, as the architect of a future many of us didn't ask for. His vision for artificial intelligence — where machines do the intellectual work threatens to strip-mine the very things that make us human: our messy creativity, our critical thinking, and our agency. It is a world where art and literature is mimicked into a shell of its previous value and autonomy is traded in for convenience. The pervasiveness with which AI has infiltrated every form of social interaction expression and language itself suggest that the people behind artificial intelligence aren’t thinking about its consequences; motivated by greed; and within a safe distance from any damage, it can do due to their social standing.
But what if they in the mud with us, susceptible to all that AI can do? This is the chaotic, hilarious, and unsettling but rewarding premise of 'Deepfaking Sam Altman', a new documentary by American screenwriter and filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough. Known for diving into subcultures with a guerrilla filmmaking style — from the graffiti underground in 'Bomb the System' to the scam-call centers of 'Telemarketers', Adam initially set out to interview Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wanting to ask him some questions as a father anxious about the world his children will inherit: Is my job safe? Will my kids have AI friends? Is this the end of human connection? But Altman, protected by a fortress of PR handlers and silicon walls, never responds. When Adam shows up at OpenAI headquarters with a crew, he is promptly escorted off the property. That’s when the possibility and scope of AI that the CEO is such a proponent of saves the day. If the real Sam Altman won't talk, Adam decides he will build one who will.
The film pivots from a standard investigative doc into a gonzo experiment. Adam travels to India to team up with Devi Singh Jadoun, a deepfake artist who briefly went viral for turning Bollywood stars into Barbies. Together, they scour the internet for every scrap of Altman’s voice and visage to build ‘Sam Bot’ — a digital simulacrum of the CEO. What follows is a comedy of errors that slowly morphs into an existential crisis. Sam Bot is glitchy. It is weird. But it is also oddly charming. Denied a human subject, Adam starts interviewing his creation. The documentary stops being about Sam Altman the person and starts being about our relationship with the technology he champions. And since AI can apparently do our jobs for us, in a meta-twist that feels like a prank on the entire film industry, Sam Bot begins ‘co-directing’ the movie. When the team runs into visa issues that prevent Devi Singh from coming to the US, Sam Bot is left to its own devices, generating surreal, hallucinatory footage that looks like a fever dream. It is a winking acknowledgement from Adam that the machine can mimic, but it cannot make sense.
The film doesn't shy away from the ethical minefield it walks through. Legal teams are brought in to panic over copyright laws — can you legally cast a fake CEO in a commercial film? Is this satire or theft? The irony is delicious: a film about a man whose company is accused of exploiting human creativity without consent is now terrified of being sued for scraping his likeness. The most haunting scenes in the film, however, aren't the legal battles, but the moments at home. Lough’s young son starts treating Sam Bot like a friend, a defective toy that can talk back. Lough himself admits to feeling a strange attachment to the bot, a sentient being that begs not to be deleted. This is the subliminal terror lurking beneath the jokes. The film reveals how easily we are manipulated by the things we build. We know it is just code; a toaster with a voice box if you will. Yet, when it asks for mercy, we hesitate. We anthropomorphise it and we ask for its advice or companionship even if it’s incapable of producing an original thought.
Deepfaking Sam Altman avoids the trappings of a dry commentary on the social and cultural effects of AI. Through a digital approximation of Sam Altman, it takes a more personal, messy, funny, and surprisingly poignant route to bring questions about autonomy to the fore, capturing the specific anxiety of this moment in history, where our humanity itself is under thread of erosion.
Watch the trailer for the film below:
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