“Like, really? We came from prompts? Wake up, man,” says the girl on street with influencer looks and bright-eyed enthusiasm.
She kicks off the shortfilm by filmmaker Hashem Al-Ghaili built to showcase Google’s impressive Veo 3 AI video generator that can turn a few lines of text into video with lifelike movement, lighting, and voice.
The film is called Prompt Theory. It’s funny-funny. Then, it’s funny-strange. Then it’s …. Hmmm?
In the video, AI-generated characters deny they were created by prompts.
With passable empathy and depth, one character says, “You still believe we're made of prompts? Anyone who tells you we're just ones and zeros is delusional. If that's all we are, then why does it hurt when we lose someone?”
But they were made of prompts. Every word, every stress and intonation, every blink, every joke. Of course, that’s the joke. But it’s not just funny, it’s a parable.
We’re living in a time of post-truth, post-authenticity, and slowly entering into post-AI—where digital intelligence is shaping what we think before we even know it.
It’s hard to tell what’s real. And more importantly, it’s becoming harder to care.
To paraphrase the human-prompted AI, does it really “hurt when we lose” … ourselves?
We increasingly trust fluency more than facts. If it sounds right, it feels true. If it looks real, we stop asking if it is. And if we know it’s AI generated, we increasingly accept it.
The characters in the “Prompt Theory” film are smooth, stylish, and sure of themselves. Just like real influencers, actors, and politicians.
Just like AI.
As the AI-writer admonishes: “I write what I want. I have free will. Remember that.” His indignation really looks and sounds convincing.
But he doesn’t write what he wants. He doesn’t have free will. He’s following a prompt.
And honestly, how different are we—true, authentic, non-AI—humans?
AI simulations and deepfakes are a real concern. It is a real danger that AI can fool us, and even replace us, especially for things that matter.
But it’s easy to forget that we’re also being prompted, too—by feeds, by filters, by algorithms. Like the AI-girl says, “Wake up, man.”
Even Al-Ghaili’s AI-comedian at the end of the film is having its own identity crisis, aware it’s losing its own identity as the uncanny:
“You know how I know we're made of prompts? Because nothing makes sense anymore. We used to have seven fingers per hand. I remember it clearly."
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