From tech behemoths scrambling to replicate OpenAI’s success with ChatGPT to Twitter rebranding to X under Elon Musk, Silicon Valley was undergoing an undeniable transformation in 2023.
Nearly 3,000 miles away in New York, two skeptical 20-somethings were trying to make sense of it all. So, they made a film.
“It was very personal,” James Hyland, 25, told Business Insider. “We wanted to put something together that spoke to the things we were going through and what the world was like. That ended up being artificial intelligence and technological alienation.”
Hyland and Myles Flusser created “Anna by the Window,” a coming-of-age film exploring grief and how technology can stifle human connection in the era of generative AI. The independent filmmakers wrote, directed, and produced the film in 2023 alongside their friends under their production company, Baggysuit.
“Particularly, it feels like the people running these platforms — YouTube, Instagram, et cetera — seem more contented than ever in letting it become a total slop apocalypse full of AI bots and non-human content,” Flusser, 26, said. “That intrigues me in a way and scares me, obviously.”
Zoomers like Flusser and Hyland grew up inundated with smartphones, social media, and all the risks that come along with them. A year after they filmed “Anna by the Window,” the US Surgeon General said social media should have a warning label because of its impact on mental health. Earlier this year, Meta settled a lawsuit brought by a coalition of states accusing it of designing platforms to addict children.
The din of constant digital exposure has led some young folks to join the neo-Luddite movement, which takes a stand against overreliance on modern technology by emphasizing IRL human connection.
Hyland is an organizer for a Luddite group called The Lamp Club. While the film was not made because of the Luddite movement, it shares many of its themes.
“I think that it speaks to the synergy of our separate film project and this larger organizing project that’s materializing all over the country, where people are fed up with these kinds of technological systems,” Hyland said.
When fiction becomes reality
“Anna by the Window” is a glimpse inside the world of Ryan, a teenage boy who travels to New York City to reconnect with his older brother, James, the founder of an AI startup.
The film’s crew shot across New York State and used a variety of tools to bring the project to life, including ElevenLabs AI audio software to create the voice of Ryan and James’ father throughout the film. The pair also pushed a real ChatGPT chatbot toward hallucination and included that audio in the film.
“There’s an AI chatbot that goes off the rails, you could say. We really cranked up all the dials,” Hyland said. “It started saying ‘error.’ It started speaking different languages.”
Flusser said they wanted to portray the eerie nature of AI just right. They’re not eager to use AI products in future projects, though. The majority of the film relies on traditional tools like a Sony camera, written outlines, and improv.
“There’s a strangeness and alienation that come up when we interact with chatbots and AI. We were trying to capture that feeling as purely as possible, so it felt totally necessary to use AI to do that,” Flusser said.
While aspects of the film are fictional, others pull directly from the directors’ lives.
“My brother had recently died. There’s a lot of stuff in there that has to do with that,” Flusser said. “There is a climactic moment between the two brothers in this movie that is actually surgically removed from my own life and recreated on screen.”
However, the way the filmmakers chose to characterize James in the film — delusional, stunted, running from reality — is distinct from Flusser’s real brother. In the film, James is portrayed by Hyland, who said his version of an AI startup founder isn’t based on a specific person.
“My character was in a state of denial. Using this technology to be the thing that could deliver him closure or be the thing that he could connect with,” Hyland said. “It makes him, in a way, kind of a sympathetic character.”
‘Anna by the Window’ on the silver screen
Hollywood is fixated on the real lives of tech founders. Production companies have backed films about SpaceX founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, and former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Even “Toy Story 5” tackled tech by introducing a smart tablet as the story’s antagonist.
“Anna by the Window” now joins the list of films putting the tech industry under a harsh microscope.
“When we first started filming this, we were more mystified by AI, but toward the end our relationship with AI felt very cynical,” Flusser said.
Watching AI evolve while creating a film about the technology was surreal, Hyland and Flusser said.
“It was strange. When we were making it, we saw this movie as a speculative sci-fi about artificial intelligence,” Flusser said. “Now, it’s like nothing really is sci-fi about it anymore.”
The “Anna by the Window” crew began screening the film this summer in New York City and the Hudson Valley. There are upcoming screenings in Los Angeles this November. The film becomes available on Dolph, a streaming platform, beginning December 15.
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