Filmmaker turns to deepfake after failing to secure interview with Sam Altman

Adam Bhala Lough’s documentary Deepfaking Sam Altman follows the director’s attempt to interview OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his decision to create an A.I.-generated Altman when conventional outreach fails. The film’s advertising riffs on a poster for Michael Moore’s Roger & Me, and the documentary begins in a similar mode: Bhala Lough, who says he has a longtime interest in A.I.

dating to Terminator 2, wanted time with Altman in part to help secure financing. After unsuccessful, sometimes goofy outreach — including a visit to a San Francisco building he was not certain was OpenAI’s headquarters — he pursues “the most tech bro idea ever” and sets out to make a fake Sam Altman with A.I.

technology. He travels to India, “supposedly because no one in the United States would do this,” and puts out a casting call for an actor for a deepfake; an A.I.-generated audition monologue draws laughs. When a resulting chatbot fails to convince — “I don’t think this would convince a 4-year-old,” Bhala Lough says — he cedes directing duties to the ersatz Altman.

A producer in the film says the bot’s creative suggestions show that A.I.

Key Topics

Culture, Sam Altman, Openai, Adam Bhala Lough, Deepfaking Sam Altman, Generative Ai