You are not a gadget — yet you might find yourself immersed in an AI-generated film. In a unique creative collaboration, The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Jaron Lanier, a renowned technology innovator and occasional skeptic, is partnering with Natasha Lyonne and Brit Marling on a new feature film rooted in immersive video games with extensive AI integration. Titled Uncanny Valley, the project is supported by Asteria, an AI-focused studio founded by Lyonne and Los Angeles filmmaker and entrepreneur Bryn Mooser. Lyonne will direct from a script co-written with Marling, who will also star alongside Lyonne. The film centers on a teenage girl destabilized by a massively popular augmented reality (AR) video game set in a parallel present, blending live-action with gaming elements created by Lanier, Lyonne, and Marling. The production will employ AI from Asteria’s partner Moonvalley, utilizing a model named “Marey” that exclusively relies on copyright-cleared data, differentiating it from platforms like Runway and OpenAI. Asteria’s representative states that the film “will blend traditional storytelling techniques with cutting-edge AI technologies to create a radical new cinematic experience. ” It remains undecided if Uncanny Valley is targeted for theatrical release, streaming, or other emerging platforms. While AI recently has been used mainly to streamline postproduction, it’s rarely integrated into a film’s narrative itself, especially with high-profile talent such as this. Since co-founding Asteria, Lyonne has been exploring large language models, aiming to position herself at the forefront of innovative storytelling. This film marks her feature directorial debut; she also directed episodes of her Peacock show Poker Face, which returns for a second season soon. Uncanny Valley continues Lyonne’s narrative experimentation begun in Russian Doll’s time loops, while Marling advances the genre-bending themes from The OA, her Netflix cult hit co-produced by Zal Batmanglij, who also produces here. Marling describes this and other sci-fi projects as “a tool of resistance. ” More than an independent film, Uncanny Valley may serve as an early test of whether generative AI will dilute creativity or expand artistic possibilities, countering critics’ concerns. Mooser, who oversees several Asteria projects that use licensed data models, believes the film’s success lies in being led by storytellers rather than programmers. “When artists lead the tech instead of the other way round, trailblazing and unexpected advancements are possible, ” he states.

He produces the film alongside Justin Lacob, with Lyonne producing through her Animal Pictures. Lyonne described their work on the project by saying, “ChatGPT couldn’t come up with this, ” imagining “Dianne Wiest and Diane Keaton, at their loquacious best, taking a journey through The Matrix for sport, only to find themselves holding up an architectural blueprint. ” She also praised Lanier as “a bona fide polymath, a philosophically expansive personal hero and a singular, sage-like character for the ages. ” Lanier, who left Atari in the 1980s to found a critical VR startup, has become a leading Silicon Valley thinker through roles at Microsoft Research and public discourse, often voicing skepticism about Big Tech’s impact. In a 2011 New Yorker interview, he expressed disappointment with the internet’s evolution, advocating a human-centered computer science approach for “more interesting, exotic, wild, and heroic adventures” over machine supremacy focused solely on information. (He also advised Steven Spielberg on Minority Report, reflecting these themes. ) His 2010 manifesto, You Are Not a Gadget, championed reclaiming personal data and humanity amid rising social media dominance. Although he recognizes technology’s artistic potential, he recently noted AI can limit consciousness, unlike VR. Lanier and Lyonne previously appeared at a Tribeca Film Festival panel where Lanier distinguished VR’s capabilities, saying, “In virtual reality you could make very, very strange experiences, you could turn into different animals …split up your body into pieces and feel a diffuseness …change your sense of time …flow your bodies with others. ” Uncanny Valley embodies this fusion of human creativity and AI, potentially pioneering a new chapter in cinematic storytelling.