I Created an AI to Make Procedurally Generated Movies, But They're Horrifying

You've probably played games with procedurally generated levels. You've probably even heard some procedurally generated music playing in the background of your favorite films and video games. We have been on the precipice of an A.I. generated world for some time.

But I think I've crossed the point of no return.

I've got a master's in Computer Science as well as a master's in artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, I was unable to employ this knowledge as, once I graduated, I started work in a massive office building as a call operator. We called leads who were people who may or may not (mostly not) be interested in a product we helped third parties sell. It required no previous skill or education. It felt like a waste of my time. But student loans sort of swallow your whole life and dreams in that way – Always working away your time to pay back people who were supposed to help you get a real career.

Working 44 hours a week (as we had to work an odd 4 hour Saturday every week), I was always exhausted, always denied my few friends' requests to hang out. I was in a terrible way. My life was not at all what I had imagined it would be.

It was after a night of binge drinking that I realized I had everything I needed to make my dreams real – Even if I didn't get paid in the meantime.

I would become an inventor of something never seen or done before.

Computer, procedurally generated data was something I did a thesis on. I'd always believed it would be our future. In some far off year, you could walk up to a computer interface when hungry, the computer would read what you crave most, and come up with something that may not even be a known dish, but it would match your desires to the t.

With artificial intelligence, anything was possible. A smart enough algorithm can become as creative, or more creative, than any person.

So, why did I settle on movies?

The thing is, I'm a big horror film fan. The best movie ever made was John Carpenter's The Thing, in my opinion. So outwardly horrifying, yet infinitely re-watchable as you try to figure out who becomes a monster themselves before it's revealed. I think I must've seen it 100 times by the time I was 28.

I kept thinking one night while sipping at a glass of whiskey, what if there was a software that took observations of your personality and created a 3D CGI movie that it knew you would enjoy?

Wouldn't that be amazing? Get bored, sit down at a PC, and tell the software that you wanna watch a movie.

It sounded so good at the time – It sounded world changing even.

And after 3 long years of secret development, it was ready to test.

I had it installed on my desktop workstation, a computer that I'd invested $5000 in over the past few years so that it had all the power it needed for the software to work.

Creation was the name I gave it. Simple, maybe a bit edgy, but for the time it would work.

With a glass of wine and a box of cheezits, I sat down one evening after work and double clicked the icon.

The black, borderless window opened up perfectly. The word, Creation, was displayed at the top center discreetly. I had gone for a dark, minimal approach to it.

It was time to make my first movie.

Now, there were some problems, of course, with this limited software. After all I could only do so much by myself and with a very, very limited budget.

For one, these movies would have no voice-acting. One thing that AI will have a difficult time replicating in the future is a realistic human voice. Secondly, it took approximately 2.5 minutes for a single frame of a movie to render. So, the typical 90 minute movie would take Creation around 7 to 8 months.