Film review: The Invisible Doctrine is a brilliant analysis of neoliberalism, ruined by the use of AI generated images
Why George, why?
George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison’s book, “The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (and How it Came to Control Your Life),” is now available as a film.1 The film features Monbiot narrating a version of the book from a large otherwise empty room.
The book is a brilliant history and analysis of neoliberalism and how it became the dominant political and economic ideology.
When Chris Hedges interviewed George Monbiot about the book in October 2024, he paid Monbiot a backhanded compliment.
“So let’s begin with the book,” Hedges says. “As I said before we went on the air, I mean you’re a journalist. So you can write.”
Monbiot is a excellent writer. He is one of my favourite journalists. And in the film he doesn’t just read the book. He gives an amazing performance. I don’t know whether he’s reading, or whether he knows the entire material by heart. (I suspect it’s the latter.) Either way, his performance is a tour de force.
Ruined by AI generated images
In the film, which is directed by Peter Hutchison and Lucas Sabean, the text is illustrated with archival and news footage. And AI generated images.
The film “will rely heavily on visually-stunning, cutting edge Artificial Intelligence-driven imagery” states the film’s fundraising website.
Unfortunately, the AI generated images are truly dreadful. And they are a massive distraction from the message of the film.
In a recent interview about the film, Peter Hutchison says,
“We’re fully aware of the common critiques of the use of AI generated imagery in this kind of work in art, and we gave it a lot of thought. We understand the sustainability considerations, we understand the IP considerations, but it was a concerted aesthetic choice. We really liked the way this, I mean now outdated sort of early iteration of of AI generation, we liked what it produced.”
He also points out that there was “an entire graphics and animation team on deck for this whole film, helping to create the look.” Lucas Sabean mentions that the film was made on a “micro budget”.
“There is a lot of debate about the use of AI in our film,” Sabean writes in a thread on BlueSky. He argues that this is perfect example of what neoliberalism does, which is to focus on “how something was made instead of why it exists”.
But the AI generated images are intrusive, ugly, and downright weird. One guaranteed way of making sure that the debate about the film wasn’t going to be about the use of AI would have been not to use AI at all. Problem solved.
Here’s a more or less random sample of some of the AI images from the film:
After about 10 minutes, I’m afraid I couldn’t watch any more. The archive footage was fine. But the AI images were definitely not.
I downloaded the video and converted it to an MP3 audio file. I put it on my phone and went for a walk while I listened to it. I recommend that you do the same. The soundtrack by Landon Knoblock is very good. The rhythms, tone, and pauses in the music reflect and amplify Monbiot’s speech patterns.
The film delivers a crucially important message. And almost certainly, whatever you see while you’re out walking will be a better background to the narrative than the two-year-old AI slop in the film.
AI is a neoliberal technology
AI is run by a tech broligarchy — which the film rightly criticises. Amazon declined to distribute the film, quite possibly because the film criticises Jeff Bezos:
For Jeff Bezos, spending 11 minutes in his giant metal phallus going up into space and down again, that was only the beginning. What he wants to do is to set up effectively whole nations in this ultimate extra-territorial space, space itself.
AI is almost completely unregulated. It is a neoliberal technology. As Evgeny Morozov puts it in a 2023 article,
There’s no way to understand why so many public institutions are falling for the sweet promises of AI pushers other than situate this marketing push in the broader history of privatizing solutions to what are otherwise public and collective problems. So to solve our problems via AI today is tantamount to solving them by the market.
Solving problems by the market is exactly what the film opposes.
AI threatens democracy. In her new book, “Empire of AI,” journalist Karen Hao compares the AI industry to colonial regimes. She writes that,
The empires of AI are not engaged in the same overt violence and brutality that marked this history. But they, too, seize and extract previous resources to feed their vision of artificial intelligence: the work of artists and writers; the data of countless individuals posting about their experiences and observations online; the land, energy, and water required to house and run massive data centers and supercomputers.
AI is wiping out jobs. Monbiot knows this. In July 2023, he wrote an article about the need to change the education system in the UK. The article starts with the impact of AI on graphic designers:
“From one day to the next, our profession was wiped out. We woke up and discovered our skills were redundant.” This is what two successful graphic designers told me about the impact of AI. The old promise – creative workers would be better protected than others from mechanisation – imploded overnight. If visual artists can be replaced by machines, who is safe?
“Sustainability considerations”
Hutchison says that the film directors understand the “sustainability considerations” of using AI generated images. I find it difficult to believe that is true.
To give just one example, Elon Musk recently built a massive data centre in Memphis for his artificial intelligence company, xAI. He called the project Colossus, after a 1970 film about a supercomputer that becomes sentient and takes over the world.
Musk obtained no permits to install the 35 mobile gas turbines that power the plant. There are no pollution controls. The data centre uses enough fossil gas to power a small city.
That’s the same Elon Musk whose DOGE is helping to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency — the agency that is supposed to regulate exactly the sort of pollution generated by his data centre.
The Southern Environmental Law Center commissioned drone photographs of the data centre that show that 33 of the turbines were operating — not 15 as the company claimed.
Communities living near the plant are increasingly suffering from asthma, cancer, and respiratory diseases.
Trump has appointed Lee Zeldin as head of the EPA. Zeldin sees promoting the AI industry as a core part of the Agency’s mission. “It’s about unleashing energy dominance,” he says on Fox News. “Making America the AI capital of the world. The EPA can’t be restrictive of that, we can’t be suffocating it.”
Hundreds of data centres are now under construction in the US. xAI is building an even bigger data centre in Memphis that will use between 40 and 90 gas turbines. It will need enough electricity to power 40% of Memphis. “So we’re not, like, stopping here,” Musk said in February 2025, at an xAI product launch.
KeShaun Pearson of Memphis Community Against Pollution sums up the problem:
“What’s happening in Memphis, that is Elon’s vision. A technocracy. To be able to do whatever he wants. Whatever he chooses to experiment, to kill, to destroy the environment, at the behest of his machines. What that will amount to is a plantation economy for the rest of the world. A desolate wasteland of data centers is to follow.”
It’s available on Apple TV, Google Play, Vimeo, Journeyman TV.
Nobody needs AI. It is a distraction along with an excitement promoter (just like Space travel) to 1) relive your boredom and 2) get you t not notice the extent of corporate takeover (neoliberalism). Society is being hollowed out from within, while we grasp at each new distraction.
The use of AI by the very people who recognize its harm is preposterous and infuriating. Anyone who recognizes the overshoot and climate change using this tech is a hypocrite.