SR: Film Screening - Humans in the Loop
Breaking the Illusion of the “Self-Running” Machine
Today, Artificial Intelligence is often presented as something almost magical—clean, perfect, and fully automatic. We are told stories about smart systems that think, learn, and function on their own somewhere in the “cloud,” as if no human effort is involved. This popular image creates the idea of the “autonomous machine,” a machine that works independently without depending on people.
But this image hides an uncomfortable truth. AI does not run by itself. Behind every smooth algorithm and smart response, there are countless workers who label data, correct mistakes, and train systems. The global AI industry stands on the labour of thousands of individuals whose work remains unseen and unrecognized. Their efforts are hidden beneath the surface of technological progress.
This blog post is part of a larger engagement with contemporary cinema and digital culture, using the analytical approach suggested in Prof. Dilip Barad’s Film Studies worksheet. Through this lens, I examine Aranya Sahay’s 2024 film Humans in the Loop, a powerful and deeply moving exploration of the invisible human labour that sustains artificial intelligence. The film challenges the myth of technological independence and brings attention to the social, economic, and cultural realities that are often ignored in conversations about AI.
Challenging the Tech Dream: A Story from the Margins
Setting the Context: Understanding the World Before the Film Begins
The film works as a strong response to the glamorous stories often told about Silicon Valley and its so-called technological revolution. Instead of celebrating innovation, it shifts our attention to the people who quietly sustain it. At the centre of the narrative is Nehma, an Adivasi woman from rural Jharkhand. Her life changes when she enters the world of AI data labelling—a job that is repetitive, unstable, and very poorly paid.
Through Nehma’s everyday struggles, Aranya Sahay reveals the hidden side of the digital economy. The film shows how global technology systems depend on workers like her, whose labour remains unseen and undervalued. More importantly, it presents a sharp contrast between mechanical, rule-based algorithms and the depth of indigenous knowledge that cannot be easily reduced to data categories. This tension becomes one of the film’s strongest themes.
In this blog, I will examine the film through different critical approaches, including Marxist Film Theory, epistemology, and structuralism. Each perspective helps us understand how the film does more than tell a story—it uses cinema itself as a tool to expose what society prefers to ignore. Through careful framing, narrative choices, and visual storytelling, Sahay makes the invisible structures of labour and power visible on screen.
Before discussing the film’s technical and artistic aspects, it is important to first understand the social and economic background in which Nehma’s life unfolds. Her experience is shaped by larger systems—especially modern techno-capitalism, which depends heavily on hidden, underpaid digital workers. The film is not just about one woman’s journey; it is a broader critique of an economic system that profits from invisible human effort while promoting the illusion of automated intelligence.
1. Hidden Hands Behind Smart Technology
The global tech world, mostly controlled by wealthy countries of the Global North, depends greatly on workers from poorer regions of the Global South. These workers remain unseen, even though their labour is essential. This kind of invisible digital labour is often described as “ghost work.” It is the silent foundation on which machine learning systems are built.
When we use generative AI tools, facial recognition apps, or automated content filters, we rarely think about the human effort behind them. In reality, thousands of workers spend long hours clicking on images, tagging objects, drawing boxes around faces, and sorting data so that machines can “learn.”
Humans in the Loop shifts our focus directly to this hidden workforce. Instead of showing polished tech offices in California, the film takes us to rural Jharkhand. By doing so, it removes the glamour from AI. It shows that artificial intelligence is not just advanced coding or futuristic magic—it is also repetitive, underpaid manual work done far away from the spotlight.
2. Digital Labour and the Question of Alienation
If we look at Nehma’s life through Marxist ideas, especially those of Karl Marx, we can see how deeply she is separated from her own work. Marx explained that under capitalism, workers become alienated in different ways: they do not own what they produce, they have no control over how they produce it, they lose connection with their own creative self, and they become disconnected from others.
Nehma’s condition reflects this clearly. She trains AI systems every day, yet these systems will never improve her own life or the lives of people around her. The technology she helps build belongs to powerful companies, not to her. She does not control the software, the data, or the profits. Her role is limited to repetitive digital tasks.
In this system, she becomes just one small part of a much larger machine. Her thinking, seeing, and clicking are turned into cheap labour, while big technology companies earn massive profits. The digital age may look modern, but the structure of exploitation remains similar to older forms of capitalism.
3. The Carefully Maintained Myth of Smart Machines
The fact that Nehma’s work is invisible is not a coincidence. It is part of how the system is designed. Large tech companies benefit from promoting the idea that machines can learn and function on their own. This creates excitement and trust in their products.
If people fully understood that so-called “artificial intelligence” depends on poorly paid workers—often women in developing regions—manually identifying traffic lights, trees, or human faces, the image of futuristic independence would quickly fade. The magic would feel less magical.
Aranya Sahay’s film breaks this illusion. It exposes what is normally hidden. By showing the faces and lives of digital workers, the film forces viewers to think about the real human cost behind everyday technology. What we experience as convenience is built upon labour that remains largely unseen and unacknowledged.
Cinema as Experience: Making Exploitation Visible and Felt
Aranya Sahay does not turn the film into a simple political speech. Instead, he uses the power of cinema itself—camera, space, sound, and framing—to help the audience feel what Nehma is going through. The film’s meaning is not only in its story but also in how it is visually and aurally constructed. A closer look at its form shows how carefully Sahay uses cinematic tools to express exploitation.
1. Two Worlds in One Frame: Nature vs. Screen
The film clearly contrasts two very different spaces. The first is the natural world of Jharkhand—green fields, open skies, soil, trees, and the lived history of the land. These scenes feel warm and alive. The camera moves more freely here, often showing wide landscapes filled with earthy colours and natural light. This space feels open and connected to tradition and memory.
In sharp contrast, the digital world appears cold and lifeless. When Nehma begins working on her laptop, the colour tone shifts. The screen gives off a harsh blue light. The space becomes tight and limited. Sahay often frames Nehma in close shots while she works, making her look boxed in. The camera does not allow her much movement. Visually, it feels as if she is trapped.
The glowing rectangle of the laptop screen slowly turns into a symbol of confinement. Even though she is physically at home, the digital workspace restricts her freedom. Through this strong visual contrast, the film shows how the digital economy separates her from the richness of her natural surroundings.
2. Sound That Speaks: Hearing Isolation
The sound design of Humans in the Loop plays a powerful role in expressing Nehma’s emotional state. When she is away from work, we hear the soft and layered sounds of village life—wind moving through trees, distant voices, everyday activity, and the natural rhythm of the environment. These sounds feel warm and grounding.
But the moment she starts working, everything changes. The natural sounds fade, and mechanical noises take over. The repeated clicking of the mouse becomes sharp and constant. The machine produces a low, artificial hum. These sounds feel empty and cold.
The steady clicking almost feels like a clock, marking time again and again. It highlights the monotony of her work. Through this shift in sound, the audience can sense her isolation and mental exhaustion. The contrast between natural sound and mechanical noise makes her alienation not just something we understand intellectually—but something we hear and feel.
3. The Camera and Our Responsibility as Viewers
If we look at the film through Apparatus Theory—which studies how cinema itself influences the audience’s thinking—we can see that Sahay carefully controls how we experience the story. He does not allow us to remain distant observers. Instead, he places us in a position where we are almost part of the process.
The film moves at a slow and steady pace. The scenes of Nehma working are repetitive and unhurried. This slowness is intentional. The camera often stays just behind her shoulder, showing us exactly what she sees on her screen. As a result, we end up staring at a screen that shows a woman staring at another screen. This layered viewing experience is not accidental.
By making us sit through the long, repetitive task of labeling one ordinary image after another, the film removes any excitement or glamour usually associated with Artificial Intelligence. There is nothing futuristic or magical here—only routine, exhausting work. The boredom we feel becomes part of the message.
In this way, the film quietly turns the focus back on us. We are not just watching Nehma’s labour; we are also consumers of the technology built through such labour. The cinematic technique makes us aware that our digital comfort depends on work like hers. Instead of allowing us to admire technology from a distance, Sahay makes us question our own role in supporting a system that thrives on invisible human effort.
Knowledge, Power, and the Problem of AI
Humans in the Loop is not only about low wages or difficult working conditions. It also raises a deeper question: whose knowledge counts in the age of Artificial Intelligence? The film explores how technology is shaped by power and how different ways of understanding the world can come into conflict.
1. Biased Systems and Cultural Control
AI systems are usually described as neutral and scientific. We are told that algorithms are based purely on logic and numbers, and therefore they must be fair and objective. But the film challenges this belief. It shows that algorithms are not free from human influence. They are created by people, and people carry their own cultural values and assumptions.
Most major AI systems are developed in Western countries. As a result, they often reflect Western ideas about society, identity, gender, work, and value. These systems are then trained to sort and label the world according to fixed categories that may not fit other cultures.
In the film, when Nehma labels data, she is required to fit complex local realities into simple digital boxes. The rich and layered experiences of communities in the Global South must be adjusted to match categories designed elsewhere. This process shows a clear imbalance of power. One knowledge system becomes dominant, while others are forced to adapt or disappear.
Through this theme, the film highlights that AI is not just technology—it is also a cultural product shaped by global inequality.
2. Fixed Systems vs. Living Knowledge
This tension becomes clearer when we look at it through Structuralist ideas. Structuralism suggests that human life and culture operate within larger systems or structures that shape meaning. In the film, the AI interface represents one such rigid structure. It works through fixed options, strict categories, and binary choices—yes or no, object A or object B. Everything must fit into a pre-decided box.
But Nehma’s understanding of the world does not function in this rigid way. As an Adivasi woman, her knowledge comes from lived experience, tradition, and community memory. Her worldview sees nature, people, and spirituality as deeply connected. It is not divided into simple categories. For her, a forest is not just land; it carries history, belief, and identity.
The problem is that this layered way of knowing cannot be easily translated into dropdown menus or data fields. The AI system demands clarity and separation, while her indigenous epistemology is relational and interconnected. This clash shows the limits of structural systems when they try to control complex human realities.
3. When Technology Silences Culture
The conflict between these two ways of understanding the world leads to something deeper—what we can call epistemic violence. The harm is not physical, but intellectual and cultural. For example, when Nehma is asked to label an image of a sacred grove, the AI only provides practical options like “Timber Resource,” “Park,” or “Obstacle.” There is no option for “Sacred Place” or “Ancestral Space.”
This absence is not a small technical mistake. It shows how the system fails to recognize other ways of seeing the world. As Prof. Dilip Barad has argued in his discussions on AI bias, such limitations reveal how technology can reproduce power structures. When a system refuses to include certain meanings, it indirectly pushes those meanings aside.
In this situation, Nehma’s hesitation is important. She is not confused or incapable. Instead, the machine itself cannot understand the depth of what she sees. To complete her task and earn her wage, she is forced to simplify and reduce her own cultural understanding. The digital system makes her compress a rich and sacred reality into narrow, functional terms.
In this way, the film suggests that technology can act like a new form of colonization—reshaping knowledge, controlling categories, and quietly erasing voices that do not fit its framework.
Reclaiming the Frame: Adivasi Presence and Power
Another important aspect of Humans in the Loop is how it deals with cultural representation. In mainstream Indian cinema, Adivasi communities have often been misrepresented. They are usually pushed to the background of the story. Many films show them either as “primitive” and exotic, or as weak people waiting to be saved by someone from a dominant caste or urban background. Such portrayals reduce their identity and silence their real voices.
Aranya Sahay takes a very different path. In this film, Nehma is not a side character. She stands at the center of a global, modern story about Artificial Intelligence. She is not shown as helpless or dependent. In fact, with every image she labels, she is actively contributing to the shaping of global technology. Even though she is exploited by the system, the film treats her with respect. We see her thoughts, her emotions, and her inner struggles.
Her small acts of resistance are especially powerful. When she deliberately mislabels certain images that go against her cultural beliefs, the film presents these moments as quiet but meaningful rebellion. These are not mistakes—they are subtle protests. Through such scenes, Sahay shows that resistance does not always have to be loud. It can exist in everyday actions.
By placing an Adivasi woman at the heart of a story about AI, the film also challenges the common idea that technology belongs only to urban, upper-class people. It reminds us that the digital future is not built only in big cities or corporate offices. Indigenous labour and presence are deeply woven into its foundation.
Closing Reflections: Questioning the Future We Are Creating
Humans in the Loop is more than just a film; it feels like an important social record of our time. It breaks the polished image of Artificial Intelligence and brings our attention back to the tired, overworked human hands that actually make it possible.
Through its slow rhythm, strong visual contrasts, and sensitive portrayal of Nehma, the film asks us to rethink what we call “progress.” It makes us question how we understand labour and whose knowledge we value. Technology often appears neutral and advanced, but the film reveals the inequalities hidden within it.
In the end, the story leaves us with difficult questions. Are we creating a future that respects the richness and complexity of human life? Or are we building systems that reduce everything to simple categories and codes? Nehma’s journey reminds us that in our excitement about artificial intelligence, we may be overlooking the very human realities that give life meaning.
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