Having tackled gutter journalism with Nightcrawler and the weirder corners of the art world in Velvet Buzzsaw, writer/director Dan Gilroy is taking aim at creeping automation for his next film, Faster, Cheaper, Better.
We say "creeping", but at the pace that AI and robots are taking over jobs from humans in all sorts of sectors, a more apt phrase might be "speeding". Gilroy plans to mine for drama on the subject in all sorts of ways. It’s a big multi-narrative film, set over two decades in multiple locales," Gilroy tells Deadline. "We follow a group of inter-connected characters, as they deal with automation and AI changing their world, particularly the work world. I’ve always been interested in machines and technology and it fairly recently how automation and AI are just profoundly transforming the workplace. For example, right now at this moment, there are fully automated factories around the world where robots are literally making robots to replace people in an absolutely endless variety of jobs. Not just manufacturing and production jobs. I realized when I started doing the research that this is just the beginning of a transformational era we are about to enter into, where automation and AI are really the employment equivalent of climate change. And how utterly unprepared we are as people, and as a world, for what is coming." For more from Gilroy, head to Deadline.
Jennifer Fox, who has produced most of Gilroy's past films, is back working with him on this one, and it'll be for sale to interested companies at the virtual Cannes Film Market, which just kicked off. We'd imagine he won't have to wait long to find his film a home.