When Hollywood’s writers and actors went on strike last year, it was, in part, because of AI. Actors didn’t care for the notion that their likenesses could be used without their permission, whether by the studios that hired them that week or by someone at home with a computer in 2040. Writers didn’t want to do punch-ups on potentially crummy AI scripts or have their words (or ideas) cannibalized by large language models that didn’t pay them a dime.

But while some Hollywood filmmakers came out of the strikes fearful of how AI might wreck their industries, others wanted to learn more. This week, many of those filmmakers gathered in a movie theater in Culver City, California, for the inaugural Culver Cup, a generative-AI film competition sponsored by FBRC.AI and Amazon Web Services.