Filmmaking goes beyond the “regression” of generative AI

For the better part of two years, the prevailing conversation around AI-generated images has been summed up in one derogatory word: “regression.” It has become an umbrella term used to describe bizarre, reckless, and visually offensive images and videos created by LLM from user prompts and instantly posted online and on social media.

But is it fair to call all AI-generated content “dirty”?

Google Labs is trying to rewrite this narrative with it Flow sessions. At New York’s Metrograph Theater on Wednesday, Google screened several short films created by the fourth group of its Google Flow Sessions artist residency program.

I got an early look at the films created by each of the eleven resident artists. Far from the mindless production that the term “AI slop” suggests, the works on their debut are deeply emotional, personal, tangible, and imaginative. As someone who has spent years taking film classes and studying avant-garde cinema, these projects feel less like traditional short films and more like cinematic memoirs or “essay films” that involve the use of generative AI tools during production, not as a shortcut to the meticulous creative and editing process, but as an aid to creating visions that previously required exorbitant budgets and extensive crews.

At the heart of these shorts is Google Flow, an AI-powered media creation tool designed to serve as a collaborative canvas that brings an artist’s vision to life. Through Flow Sessions, Google organizes a six-week residency program that brings together artists from a variety of backgrounds, including fine arts, commercial agencies, and more, to develop passionate projects. Brianna Doyle, community lead at Google Labs, told me that Flow Sessions’ mission is to bridge the gap between the developers who write the code behind these tools and the artists who actually use them.

The goal is not to build AI for artists, but to build AI with them, so that tools become a conduit for expression rather than a substitute for human creativity, storytelling, and processes.

“AI has opened doors for them in terms of creativity,” Doyle said. “It wasn’t stifling at all. It actually reframed what they could do.”

Lower the floor and raise the ceiling

The prevailing fear among traditionalists is that the use of artificial intelligence dilutes originality, reducing the sanctity of art to machine-made approximations. But for the artists in this group, technology served as a catalyst for a new — but still nuanced — kind of storytelling. The motto, Doyle says, is “lower the floor and raise the ceiling.” It’s about lowering the barrier of entry for newcomers to filmmaking while expanding what an independent artist can make and improve.

This shift is evident in the way the tool itself has evolved over time. Streaming started out as a video-focused discipline, but artists report spending most of their time wrestling with images and storyboards rather than stills. In response, Flow integrated image creation and an organizational interface — folders, labels, and structure — that helps ideas move from concept to production without losing momentum, according to Doyle.

For artists-in-residence, like Ikenna Mokwe, founder of OnGen Studio, this efficiency changes what is possible. After 15 years working in traditional media, he has developed a new workflow in which MBA and video creation help bridge the gap between abstract presentation and vision. His process is designed as a loop: he uses Gemini via voice commands to convert late-night brain dumps into structured scripts, eliminating the physical bottleneck of writing, and then relies on custom precision tools within the flow to automate repetitive camera movements.

However, Mokwe is clear on what matters most. “Storytelling is at the heart of everything,” he said.

For Mokwe, AI doesn’t write the story, but it provides a faster path from idea to completion.

“I had no hesitation at all,” he said. “I jumped right on it. I took it, and I didn’t let go, you know? I think (AI) is absolutely amazing. I think it’s super empowering.”

The human touch is at the forefront

If the work of the resident artists proves anything, it is that the use of artificial intelligence does not mean the absence of humanity and intimacy.

Consider Dion Lee’s film Two Chairs, a devastatingly moving meditation on the decision women make about having children. In the film, Lee writes two letters — one to her 18-year-old daughter and one to a version of herself who never became a mother. Using two chairs as a visual anchor, she displays parallel lives side by side, creating an emotionally resonant internal debate.

Other artists explore the boundaries between digital and physical media. Artist Adam Bromley, who leads Studio Heartfelt, uses Flow technology to translate his poems and drawings into 3D needle-felt characters, which he then animates. What’s even more surprising is that Bromley’s interaction with AI tools brings him back to feeling the physical need to complete his digital work.

For Bromley, AI sits at the end of a deeply human process, helping him specify specific materials and lighting in his projects, while clients expand his world without breaking his vision for his characters.

“I think the thing that excites me about artificial intelligence is the ability to explore many possibilities quickly,” Bromley said. “As a one-man band here, being able to take an idea all the way to the finish line (…) wouldn’t be possible to do that if you had made up all the sets, done everything, created the characters and all that.”

Although the eleven artists come from a diverse range of backgrounds, styles, aesthetics and inspirations, their artistic motivations seem similar: there is a shared insistence on personal authorship in each film.

Towards a new future for artificial intelligence and art

I have heard of famous artists and filmmakers criticizing the use of AI in their artwork. “I’d rather die” Guillermo del Toro announced When asked if he would use artificial intelligence in his films. But as AI tools become more widespread and refined, a new era of filmmaking may be on the horizon – one in which AI and humans intersect to create art.

In this collection, generative tools and people are not used to transcend the craft or process, but storyboard with more freedom, iterating with less friction and polishing until the emotional depth of the film is reached. The question is not whether a machine can produce an image or not, but whether a film can still carry meaning.

This is where the “beyond the cliff” argument lands. Streaming sessions are not a deluge of output; These films treat generative AI tools as tools for their vision, helping to sharpen narrative intent and retain the human perspective in every frame, constant and momentary.

You can meet each resident artist and view their projects below:

• Man vs hairline Written by Ikenna Mokwe: This British comedy follows the life of a man as he navigates his hair journey and search for identity.
• mascot By Daniel Garcia: In this horror thriller based on a fairy tale, a tourist learns the true cost of stealing a photo from a street performer dressed as an off-brand mascot.
• grits By Mehdi Saqi: A unique creature struggles to fit in until a strange encounter leads him somewhere that changes everything.
• Nothing beats a cheeseburger By Andrew Nethery: Borg, an interplanetary explorer, discovered the world’s best cheeseburger in a small town in Michigan.
• oscillates By Matt Slamowitz: A grief-stricken woman embarks on an unusual journey when a creature appears in New York.
• Two chairs By Dionne Lee: A woman named Dionne writes two letters—one to her 18-year-old daughter and one to a childless future version of herself—that depict her internal debate about motherhood.
• One breath at a time By Santiago Carrasquilla: This unconventional feature film depicts the experience of meditation from a first-person perspective.
• Second skin By Kat Vlasova: A bionic suit worn by a human in a lab takes her on a journey of communication in this dance film.
• The call By Ariel Russo: A woman follows a pink light and invisible clouds through an empty seaside town into the space between memory and dream.
• The atoms in me By Adam Bromley: A creature contemplates its atoms, contemplates the mystery of its existence, and comes to a quiet realization.
• Where did the love go? Written by Nina Menzel: A poetic and lyrical experimental short film that explores memory, grief, longing, loss and the scars that love leaves behind.