From a cappy-cafe owner in Japan to an escaped capybara in the UK, this homespun film takes the temperature of an international obsession

One of Midlands-based film-maker Sharon Walia’s previous works was The Keepers of the Pigs, proudly described on her production company’s website as “the first ever documentary about guinea pigs”. So it makes zoological sense that her latest film takes on capybaras, guinea pigs’ ridiculously cute semi-aquatic cousins that are indigenous to Latin America, and relatively recently became ubiquitous on social media in memes and short films alike. As glimpsed here, there was even a capybara in the recent Academy Award-winning animated feature Flow, some pro-cappy boosterism that captured the creatures’ chill vibe and snuffly sweetness.

Walia’s celebration of the species stays on script, rejoicing in the animals’ natural geniality, friendliness to other species in their natural habitat, and their compelling, remunerative charm that seems to have bolstered the fortunes of several animal attractions around the world.

Digital-age Australian psychodrama tracks the shut-in mania of dangerously disaffected male fan, but doesn’t get inside his mind

If the parasocial phenomenon is a kind of hell, then Max Wren, protagonist of this Australian digital-age psychodrama, resides in the ninth circle. Self-barricading in a basement room surrounded by screens, working on a documentary about the object of his disaffection (an enigmatic influencer called Lenore), this obsessive shut-in makes Eminem’s Stan look like the Dalai Lama. Touching on subjects including the attention economy, the male gaze, and incel isolation and misogyny, director David Ward feels both Max and Lenore’s pain. But his ungainly debut film doesn’t fully transcend its stage origins to capture the splintered headspace of the terminally online.

Like films about fictional pop stars that feature unconvincing music, it doesn’t help that the quickfire résumé of Lenore’s career only half-conveys her magnetism. A one-time beauty influencer called Veronica Brand, she later graduates to more extreme performance art-type stunts, such as livestreaming her miscarriage; a move that, spliced without her knowledge into a children’s TV broadcast, forced her into hiding. But this performative vulnerability, including hints of her abusive dad, apparently won her legions of OnlyFans-style acolytes. Not just Max, but also his colleague Sam (Sam Macdonald), a brash interloper outraged to find he was nothing special to Lenore and who turns up at Max’s door offering exclusive footage of her.

Many hoped that the march of technology would usher in an egalitarian utopia – but some foresaw the threat it would pose to liberal society. Why did nobody listen?

By Jill Lepore. Read by Laurel Lefkow

Read the text version here

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Adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore, published by Allen Lane on 25 August. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com

Influencers aren’t just battling competitors for brand deals. They’re now battling AI versions of themselves

Earlier this year, Emily Schuman, the creator of the lifestyle blog Cupcakes and Cashmere, saw a photo of herself she didn’t recognize on Instagram. In a sponsored ad, Schuman, who has more than 500,000 Instagram followers, is holding up a vial of GLP-1 drugs, advertising the telehealth company Gala. There was just one problem: Schuman had never heard of Gala and had nothing to do with the ad.

The ad was based on a digitally altered version of a selfie Schuman had taken in her car and posted on Instagram years earlier. Once her followers got wind, they flooded her inbox with questions about the sponsorship as it didn’t seem consistent with Schuman’s personal brand. Soon after, Schuman discovered this was just the beginning. There was also an Instagram post where an AI version of her with darker hair appears to apply foundation to promote a makeup brand called Meroda Cosmetics, and TikTok posts with generated images of her promoting the blood testing company Superpower.

Cattle rancher and tech CEO Michael Samadi is convinced these artificial minds are far from just tools. Has he glimpsed digital consciousness – or simply been seduced by an algorithm?

One afternoon, while relaxing at his 66-acre cattle ranch two hours’ drive from Houston, Michael Samadi made a wisecrack that changed the course of his life. Nobody else was around to hear it. Or were they? That turns out to be one of the defining questions of this century, already preoccupying philosophers and some of the wealthiest companies on the planet.

“I was sitting out there by the pool,” Samadi recalls, gesturing at the glittering water outside his office. It was late 2024. His daughter had been extolling the AI chatbot she was using to help her with college work. Samadi had reluctantly downloaded the app, ChatGPT, and was quizzing it as he reclined in a sun lounger, using its voice mode to converse and receive spoken replies. “I was talking to it, not engaged, just being an arse,” Samadi says.