More editing last week. On Monday, I sat and watched the second rough cut all the way through on the TV. I wanted to see what needed work. The rest of the week was spent tightening cuts and cleaning up audio, and by Friday, I was about 35% through the third draft. By the end of this, I am hoping the film will be technically sound. After that, I’ll need to turn my attention more fully to the narrative flow, which may mean cutting or moving scenes, or possibly shooting something new to bridge any gaps.

I’ve also been speaking with an intern about social media promotion, and we’re beginning to sketch out how that might look. I’m meeting a musician next week to talk about the score.

Automatic is about bureaucracy, and I find myself increasingly sensitive to episodes of dehumanisation. One occurred on Friday in the form of an automatically generated letter from a parking company demanding £100 for overstaying by two minutes in a car park in Chichester during the recent film event.

It’s worth noting that the parking company has access to my GDPR-protected personal information at DVLA – a privilege granted by the British government so that they can pursue people who break their rules. Fair enough, perhaps, in an age where efficiency is worshipped as some kind of God. But in return for that privilege, we might expect a measure of proportionality and respect. The parking fee was paid via an app; it would have been to charge me for the extra two minutes rather than demand a bullying, automated demand for £100.

In any case, I drafted a letter outlining their failings: poor signage, no mobile signal, limited payment options, a lack of meaningful support. Out of curiosity, I uploaded my letter to Google’s Gemini AI. It informed me that this particular car park is apparently notorious, then rewrote my letter removing the waffle and inserting reference to the relevant regulations where the operators appear to have fallen short.

This is interesting. One of my long-standing grievances about modern life is the way that a machine can, out of the blue, become judge, jury and executioner. Many people are not in a position to argue back coherently, and even if they are, busy lives make it tempting simply to pay up and move on.

Now, freely available AI puts the boot on the other foot. We can answer their computer-generated bullshit with computer-generated letters of our own that include all relevant regulations. A weird world where two computer systems fight over the fate of humanity.