A National Film Board of Canada production

A young girl plays with her toys, unaware that she might just be holding humanity’s remote control. Voices of tech experts blend innocence, hope and mild panic about AI. This whimsical yet cautionary tale asks: Who controls AI, who profits, and who’s still waiting for the manual? Directed by two-time Oscar® nominee Cordell Barker, Good Luck to You All captures the mix of amusement, anxiety and unease we feel toward our potential robot overlords.

A little girl plays with her toys, blissfully unaware that she may hold the future of humanity in her hands. Meanwhile, fragmented voices of scientists and thinkers drift through the film like wandering thoughts—sometimes insightful, sometimes absurd. Shifting between the child’s innocent perspective and the chaotic uncertainties of artificial intelligence, Good Luck to You All is a whimsical yet cautionary tale about humanity’s latest shiny new toy.

Beneath a playful surface of lively, hand-drawn animation and unpretentious philosophical debate, the film explores the ethical dilemmas of handing power to machines and the impact on human connection. As the girl unknowingly mirrors humanity’s own relationship with AI, Good Luck to You All captures the mix of amusement, anxiety and uncertainty we all feel toward this rapidly evolving force.

Directed by two-time Oscar® nominee—and certified 100-percent human—Cordell Barker (The Cat Came Back, Strange Invaders), Good Luck to You All suggests that, like the child, we are all innocent players facing an unpredictable AI-driven future.

Where does the title of the film come from?

The title comes from the voice of the very last person to speak in the film. A poignant perspective from the past—the voice of then-14-year-old Princess Elizabeth, addressing the British nation via radio broadcast at the beginning of World War II, to calm the fears of the looming unknown. Hearing her speech, acknowledging the uncertainty ahead, made me think of the unknowable scale of threat that AI could eventually deliver. I also loved the poised quality in her voice considering her age. She reminds me of my young grandniece, Daisy, who is also in the film. Two different eras of uncertainty.

Good Luck to You All carries a heavier tone than your previous work. What drew you to explore this serious subject, and why did you choose a documentary-style approach?

I can really dwell on a subject. I’m a bit of a worrier, so I look at tiny things, especially new things, and I think about exponential growth or change of a thing, whether it’s an idea, a movement, a depletion, or a societal-shifting new technology. So, when AI started to be talked about, and when you consider how seductive it is, how magical it can seem—it’s undeniable that almost everyone will blindly embrace it. I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in regards to how much AI will affect society, jobs, politics, information—everything!

The young girl is voiced by your grandniece, Daisy. How did that process unfold, and why was it important to feature her voice alongside the various experts?

My young grandniece is incredibly precocious. I was struck by how bright she was at about five years old. It was the tone of her voice and how she would meter out her thoughts—the naive maturity—that really struck me. I asked her what she thought of another kid her age. She thought for a moment and calmly replied, “I think that’s a conversation for another time.” I knew then that I wanted to record her opinions on the subject of her future with AI.

How challenging was it to strike the right balance between the experts’ sometimes dark concerns about AI and Daisy’s innocent perspective?

I knew right from the genesis of the project that I wanted a broad perspective of views regarding AI and its future, because I didn’t want to make a slapstick film that either vilified or championed AI. I wanted to get the broadest point of view that a short, eight-minute film would allow. Daisy’s perspective wasn’t the only naive perspective, as I also recorded a neighbourhood friend of mine who has what I would regard as a “hippy” view of how the world turns. To counterbalance the naïveté, I interviewed several specialists in AI, a Ph.D. in philosophy and a brain scientist. And to thread the film together, I avoided any long technical descriptions from my interviewees and opted for just raw subjective opinion.

I tried to weave together a flow of ideas where one person’s question would seemingly feed into another person’s statement. From all of that, I began to create a visual flow that directly mimicked what was being stated, but it soon became obvious that this path was going to be a tedious “see/say” film. So I threw out all the visuals, started over, and used the statements as more of a tonal guide, and created a dual storyline with the vocal statements floating over top as a tonal, thematic connection to the film. It may not look like it, but it was the most difficult of all my films to craft.

Did making this film change your feelings about artificial intelligence—for better or worse?

Making this film certainly made me more concerned about our AI future, mostly because I started this project back in around 2018, when there wasn’t much talk about it. But now, I can see the disruption that it will cause in the workplace, job loss, media manipulation, etc. In fact, AI has escalated even faster than I had anticipated. It validates all my concerns. The main take-away from all my interviews and research is that the one thing I’m not worried about is the often-debated topic, “Could AI eventually become conscious?” I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be incredibly dangerous, depending on who’s using the AI, what protocols have been put in place, and especially—who’s writing the protocols.

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