CREATIVE INNOVATION, ETHICS AND TRUTH IN THE AGE OF AI

AI is transforming the media landscape, redefining how stories are developed, produced and experienced. For documentary storytellers, where truth, transparency and trust are paramount, this shift introduces a tension between creative opportunity and ethical responsibility. To understand its impact, we must look not only at what AI can do, but what ideas and values lie behind the code.

In this dynamic session moderated by Lexi Landsman (BBC Studios ANZ), creative technologist Angie Abdilla (Old Ways, New), creative technologist and filmmaker Clayton Jacobson (Gunshy Cowboys) and documentary maker Valerie Veatch (director, Ghost in the Machine) bring their unique perspectives into conversation: AI’s potential to expand creative craft and expression, and the ethical, cultural and historical forces that shape the technology itself.

Drawing on Veatch’s Sundance-premiering 2026 documentary Ghost in the Machine, which was nominated for the NEXT Innovator Award, the panel will explore artificial intelligence not merely as a creative and workflow tool, but as a set of ideas rooted in power and bias. The conversation will examine how AI is opening new creative possibilities for documentary makers, how it shapes the construction of knowledge and truth, and what ethical considerations arise as generative and analytical systems become increasingly embedded in storytelling practice. In an era where a new reality can be generated at the click of a button, this session ultimately asks what “truth” means now — and who ultimately gets to shape the reality we present?

 

Image credit: A still from Ghost in the Machine by Valerie Veatch | photo by The BBC Archive.