SINGAPORE: I get why many people are uncomfortable with artificial intelligence entering the creative industries.So when a Singapore AI-generated film such as Trace Project – screened on National Day and dismissed online as “AI slop” – comes along, it is tempting to see if as proof that the sceptics were right all along. But as a filmmaker, I think we should be careful not to turn criticism of an AI-generated film into a rejection of AI in filmmaking altogether.A bad film does not suddenly become a good film because it was made with new technology. If anything, the controversy tells us something useful: AI can make it much easier to produce something – but not necessarily something good.NOT EVERY TASK IS A JOBI have spent more than three decades working in film and television, and I am currently making a short film. And yes, I use AI.My film is not AI-generated. We will be shooting it next month with real actors inside a virtual production studio. For most of my career, I rarely worked with complete storyboards. I generally knew how I wanted to shoot a scene when I got to the set.Virtual production does not quite work that way. There are too many departments involved, and everyone needs to know what I intend to shoot before we enter the studio. The virtual environment has to be built. Camera positions and lenses have to be considered. Art direction, cinematography and the virtual production team all need to be working towards the same frame, months ahead.So my assistant director created the boards based on my directions, with the help of AI.Did AI take away a storyboard artist's job? In this case, probably not. I was unlikely to hire one since that would mean spending a considerable amount of my time explaining every shot. Most likely, I would have ended up doing it myself with stick figures.That distinction is worth making. Fears about jobs lost to AI are legitimate, but not every task performed by AI automatically represents a job that would otherwise have gone to someone.KNOWING WHAT IS WORTH PURSUINGA deeper discomfort with AI in film is also about the value of human creativity. And for me, this is where the debate sometimes becomes too simplistic.AI can give me ideas. It cannot make the creative decision for me.I used AI to look for inconsistencies in the screenplay I wrote. It pointed out that something a character said earlier seemed to contradict something said later.But AI does not know what is beyond the page: whether the contradiction is intentional, what it tells the audience about the character, how I intend to address it later, or whether the resolution comes visually.