Technocritical: Ghost in the Machine (2026) [MA15+]

Waverley Library is excited to present a screening of the critically acclaimed documentary Ghost in the Machine (2026) as part of our Technocritical lecture and film series delving deeper into issues of technology and political economy prevalent in today's world. An official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, Ghost in the Machine is a gripping and urgently relevant investigative documentary that exposes the buried history of artificial intelligence, not as a neutral system of algorithms, but as a technology shaped by racism, misogyny, eugenics, and entrenched structures of power long before it entered everyday life. Across nearly 40 interviews with historians, computer scientists, and human rights activists, including Emily M. Bender, Alix Dunn, and Tiera Tanksley, Ghost in the Machine is director Valerie Veatch’s most ambitious work yet, and one of the only AI documentaries currently on the market not funded by tech billionaires. The result is an uncompromised account of power and technology that tells the real story beneath the AI hype.