Press
Understanding AI’s ‘Ghost In The Machine’ Is Vital Amid Vast Spending
“While most of the world’s biggest companies burn through hundreds of billions of dollars in the race to achieve general artificial intelligence, a documentary called Ghost in the Machine debuted this week at the Sundance Film Festival, questioning both AI’s dubious roots in eugenics and race ‘science,’ its worker exploitation in slums worldwide, and the possibility that all this spending is kinda just hooey.”
David Bloom, Forbes
Mind-Bending Sundance Doc ‘Ghost in the Machine’ Asks the Hard Questions About AI’s Origins and Potential Misuses
“[Veatch’s] new Sundance premiere features new talking-head interviews with an array of philosophers and scientists, plus archival footage of controversial AI figures such as Sam Altman and Elon Musk, to create a cautionary tale about the potential misuses of AI and its devastating impact on the environment, culture, and society.”
Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire
‘Ghost in the Machine’ Review: Documentary Delivers a Searing Takedown of AI, Elon Musk and Techno-Fascism
“The film argues that there is no time to waste, and it rises to meet the moment. Veatch won’t be intimidated by the ‘ghost in the machine’ and is instead like a one woman Scooby-Doo mystery gang, unmasking the fantasies that surround these ghosts for being what they are: an extension of techno-fascism.”
Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap
Who has the power? ‘Ghost in the Machine’ questions AI and the lie of democratization at Sundance
“For Veatch, this isn’t about rejecting technology outright. It’s about insisting on agency. The solution many historians, sociologists and computer scientists offer in the film is to refuse to use it. And with every moment of resistance where humans decide they don’t need AI, it loses its impact and its grip on power.”
Klara Meyer, The Park Record
“We Will Be Passing Out Little NOT AI Buttons to Our Audiences”: Valerie Veatch on Her Sundance-premiering Ghost in the Machine
“Valerie Veatch’s Ghost in the Machine proposes a different possibility altogether: that ‘AI,’ if you can even call it that, is just the latest in a long line of grift-y attempts by powerful, exclusionary white guys to remake the whole world in their own image.”
Lauren Wissot, Filmmaker Magazine
Valerie Veatch traces the links between AI and eugenics in Sundance-premiering Ghost in the Machine, a self-funded documentary treatise made with Zoom calls and conviction
“Ghost in the Machine is a burningly urgent self-funded documentary treatise connecting the historic and on-going links between AI and eugenics.”
Katerina Cizek and Shirin Anlen, IDA
Sundance 2026: GHOST IN THE MACHINE is a Chilling Exposé of AI’s Dark Origins
“Writer, director, and producer Valerie Veatch takes a subject that feels completely mined of fresh insight and reveals the terrifying ideology at its core. In doing so, she exposes how the biases baked into AI systems aren’t bugs, but features — hardwired by their architects to reinforce their worldview.”
Dan Tabor, Cinapse
‘Ghost In The Machine’ Review: This Isn’t Your Everyday AI Documentary
“There’s a tremendous amount of information flowing throughout ‘Ghost In The Machine,’ and it seems like too much to ingest. Veatch maintains the pace with skilled editing and an unsettling score. Everyone profiled passionately stands behind their articulate words, a large reason why, as the credits roll, this film works, just in a way one might not expect. Whether the messages land on first viewing or second, they will, and they should.”
Brian Farvour, The Playlist
22 Most Anticipated Movies at Sundance 2026
"And then there’s this entry in the fest’s more experimental, odds-and-sods NEXT sidebar from documentarian Valerie Veatch (Love Child), which takes a more essayistic approach about the history of human advancement through technological advances, and how the combination of utopian ideology, dystopian nightmares and good old-fashioned exploitation are playing into what could happen next with AI."
David Fear, Rolling Stone
Forget Awards Season — Sundance 2026 Is Here!
"Billed as a 'mind-expanding investigative essay documentary,' this film promises to dig past the buzzwords to uncover the true driving force behind the global AI boom—a high-stakes pursuit of power with sweeping philosophical, cultural, and political consequences."
Dan Tabor, Cinapse
2026 Sundance Don’t Miss Docs: GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Basil Tsiokos, what (not) to doc
2026 Sundance Film Festival Preview: The Must-See Films at the Final Year in Park City
“In what should be essential viewing in society’s ever-(de)volving reliance on and exploitation of A.I., Valerie Veatch’s Ghost in the Machine explores how the ideologies behind artificial intelligence are deeply rooted in fascism and eugenics.”
Jordan Raup, The Film Stage