Watch "Silicon Valley" Star Thomas Middleditch In A Short Film Written By An AI System

Why not ask AI to do the job? Sunspring, a short film that debuted today on Ars Technica, displays many of the sci-fi tropes that fans of the genre know and love, from shiny metallic costumes to creepy biotechnology. There's just one difference: The nine-minute film was written by an artificially intelligent system named Benjamin, and, in a strangely satisfying way, it makes very little sense. Their banter, layered with an undertone of foreboding, is premised on the idea that "in a future with mass unemployment, young people are forced to sell blood." Benjamin ingested that prompt, which also serves as the film's opening line, and generated the brief script (plus some song lyrics, for good measure).