00:00:00 – 00:00:08 Nitin Bajaj

Hey everyone, welcome to The Industry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Aranya Sahay. Aranya, welcome on the show.

00:00:08 – 00:00:09 Aranya Sahay

Thank you, thank you.

00:00:09 – 00:00:10 Nitin Bajaj

Great to have you here.

00:00:10 – 00:00:12 Aranya Sahay

Thank you for having me, Nitin.

00:00:12 – 00:00:22 Nitin Bajaj

Let’s start with who is Aranya. Tell us about your personal, your professional, life and journey up to this point. What drives you, what motivates you, what inspires you?

00:00:25 – 00:00:48 Aranya Sahay

I grew up in Delhi, and I study mostly in Delhi. Grew up in, like, a Sarkari household, hibri. My mother—my mother was a sociologist, father in the government. So most of it was in a Sarkari kind of a setup. And most likely I would have taken that path as well.

00:00:48 – 00:01:16 Aranya Sahay

But somewhere I observed my own dad. He was—even though he was in the government, he was very starved of creativity. He wanted to express himself, but he couldn’t do that. And because I saw that, I think the priority for me then became creative work more than, like, stability or fulfillment of his other. So I think that’s something that has pushed me to do this.

00:01:17 – 00:01:39 Aranya Sahay

And yeah, I—my favorite art form is actually not cinema. It’s music. I learned music first and then came into cinema, and I’ve assisted a bunch of directors in Bombay. And it’s been a journey from that to a first film now, you know, competing at the Best Resonance Screenplays.

00:01:40 – 00:02:02 Nitin Bajaj

That’s amazing. And we’ll talk more about these things for you after. I love how that motivation or drive to create a way to express the creativity has led you into this, became the win. Tell us about Humans in the Loop. What inspired you to create it and the journey up to this point?

00:02:02 – 00:02:02 Aranya Sahay

Yeah.

00:02:02 – 00:02:16 Nitin Bajaj

And it is also a very impactful avenue, the topic you’ve chosen, the way you have expressed these things. So tell us about what drew you to do this, and what has been the journey, which has been fascinating.

00:02:17 – 00:02:17 Aranya Sahay

Thank you.

00:02:18 – 00:02:19 Nitin Bajaj

Tell us about that.

00:02:20 – 00:02:46 Aranya Sahay

Well, it’s—Humans in the Loop began as a short film first. And interestingly, what became important to me was that I don’t make it limited to a short film. I make it into a feature-length film. I felt like if I make a short or put all that energy, money into it, somebody else would make a feature on it. So it became important to do that.

00:02:47 – 00:03:09 Aranya Sahay

This was born from a news article by a journalist called Karishna on Herodtra, and she has written something called The Human Touch. That’s the long-form article. वहाँ मुझे पता चला इसके बारे में। I got to know about this Lethal Uni work happening there, but—and instantly I knew that this is a great premise.

00:03:09 – 00:03:42 Aranya Sahay

But a lot of times this kind of a great premise is also like a great curse, right? Because the film can just become like a spotlight कि ये काम वहाँ पे हो रहा है, and it just can stagnate at that. What was important for me was to artistically engage with the material and decide on where I wanted to take this narrative towards. And yeah, and I figured that out very gradually. It took me 2-3 months of just wrestling with the idea.

00:03:43 – 00:04:15 Aranya Sahay

Then at some point it clicked that this job that they’re doing of naming, tagging a chair and a table to make an algorithm understand that difference is very much similar to the act of parenting, right? And once that opened up, I could explore AI like a child and what are the different stages of child growth, curiosity, learning the wrong thing, making sense of the world, all of those things through this narrative.

00:04:16 – 00:04:43 Nitin Bajaj

I love that perspective. Now tell us about the journey, the impact the film has created. You’ve been to some of the best. Now you’re competing for one of the best awards. And how does that play out in terms of the lives you’ve touched, the conversations you’ve had, the stories that have come to light through that journey?

00:04:44 – 00:05:31 Aranya Sahay

I think the film began from an impact perspective also. What is going to be the impact of this film? And I think the stakeholders and the audiences in that that we had decided were definitely just not film cinephiles and film lovers. It was supposed to be engaging with tech leaders, with policy makers, with academicians, with journalists. And that’s what we’ve been able to achieve, at least the different kind of avenues that the film has touched upon. But for me, more importantly, what the film has done is it has given—it is not limited AI to a very dystopic perspective. It is not limited AI to

00:05:34 – 00:05:45 Aranya Sahay

an evil entity by itself. What the film is saying is that the algorithms are not evil by themselves. They’re not antithetic themselves. They’re a mere reflection of who we are.

00:05:45 – 00:06:05 Aranya Sahay

So if that’s the case, then can we take responsibility for the algorithms we’re building? And can humanity really seize the control from tech companies? Because this is a technology that’s going to affect everybody, and it can’t be taken so lightly that it’s only in the hands of the tech.

00:06:06 – 00:06:33 Nitin Bajaj

I agree. And in many ways, I just came back from San Francisco posting a few events there, and Humans in the Loop has become part of the vocabulary now. And without even realizing it, people are using it because it fits into the mainstream narrative so well. So kudos to you on framing that perspective and also beautifully sharing the responsibility we need to have as this thing is becoming mainstream.

00:06:33 – 00:06:52 Nitin Bajaj

Now, as you’re going through and engaging different factions of the community and bringing up this important question, there are many challenges to talk about, to address. What is the one big challenge you’re facing with the engagement that we’re having to do?

00:06:53 – 00:07:14 Aranya Sahay

Engagement, or just even, you know, as a filmmaker, as somebody who’s portraying a message and essentially forcing the community to have a conversation. There are many different perspectives that come at play. And when you look at all of those, what is maybe even a personal challenge that you face?

00:07:14 – 00:07:36 Aranya Sahay

It’s really difficult to get eyeballs in our times, you know? It’s just very difficult without a lot of institutional money. It’s very difficult. So I think that’s the greatest—that’s been the biggest challenge of this film, that prestige, etc., etc. Everything is open jagar, but how do you get more and more people to watch this funding?

00:07:37 – 00:08:00 Aranya Sahay

And we tried to tackle that with a lot of—we did hundreds of screenings across India and the US, and we showed this film to 35,000 people before it went on Netflix. And I think that has been a strategy. But even then, I mean, we won—like, it was a victory in India that, you know, we were able to do that.

00:08:01 – 00:08:20 Aranya Sahay

But when I came here, the challenge—the same thing was, yeah, I’m having to start over again. And without a lot of time at my hand. पहले मेरे पास टाइम था तो I could do a year-long thing, but here I just had a couple of months. So that’s been a real challenge. To getting academy members to watch it and things like that.

00:08:20 – 00:08:26 Nitin Bajaj

With challenges come opportunities. What’s the one that you’re most excited about?

00:08:26 – 00:08:39 Aranya Sahay

I think I’ve met so many people, and because of this campaign, and I think I’m excited that so many people have loved the film and now rallying behind the second film. That’s something I’m very excited about.

00:08:39 – 00:09:00 Nitin Bajaj

Me too. Now, as we look into the future, I would love for you to pause and reflect and share two instances: one where things did not work out as you had expected, where there was disappointment, failure, lessons, and another where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:09:03 – 00:09:37 Aranya Sahay

So the first one, I think, when we applied to Berlin Film Festival, and there was an interest from them. And because we had given our premiere status to Mumbai Film Festival, they said that we can’t take it. When that happened, I was like, internationally, the film, what will we do now? So that’s when I realized that, you know, we can’t let the fate of our film be decided by film festivals. So we started doing these screenings that we’ve seen earlier, and these impact screenings really led to momentum building.

00:09:40 – 00:10:19 Aranya Sahay

What is the second part, success? Something that has far exceeded my expectations. I think the kind of support I’ve got here in the US, especially from the Indian diaspora community, it’s incredible. I’m very, very grateful, honestly. I mean, the consulates here, people like you, people who are in the industry, who are Indians, and just so many—and people in India who are connected to people here. So just that, I think, has far exceeded my expectations. People have loved and really chanted in this film. It’s a beautiful story.

00:10:19 – 00:10:40 Nitin Bajaj

And again, kudos to you and the team for bringing it to life. And I’m personally very excited at the next several projects you’ll be working on. Now, amongst all of these things, this is not an easy life, but it is a creative expression. What do you do to de-stress, disconnect, and kick it back?

00:10:40 – 00:11:01 Aranya Sahay

I think I go for a swim. I’m going to go after this—after the campaign, I’m going to go back. My parents are in Goa, so I’m going to go there and just swim in a quarry. Yeah, I also want to get back to music. Those are two things I do. And just spend time with my family. Like, I think that really de-stresses me.

00:11:02 – 00:11:07 Nitin Bajaj

Amazing. Is there a book or a podcast that is a favorite of yours to share?

00:11:07 – 00:11:18 Aranya Sahay

I listen to Andrew Huberman a lot. He talks so much about, like, scientific derivations of everyday habits, and I really watch him.

00:11:18 – 00:11:26 Nitin Bajaj

Very good. Now to my favorite part of the show. We call this the online My Presence. I’d love for you to share your My Presence with us.

 

00:11:29 – 00:11:42 Aranya Sahay

Intellect and instinct. I think instinct over intellect anyway, always, throughout your life. When instinct is the most strongest guiding light.

00:11:42 – 00:11:47 Nitin Bajaj

That one can have. Do you have more? Typically, you cut them.

00:11:53 – 00:12:29 Aranya Sahay

Momentum in life, I think, builds going into political consulting for a long time. And with this guy called Prashant Kishore, and the way he would kind of work with building momentum in a campaign, I’ve seen that, right? So it’s literally getting one head to turn at a time. It really is. And a lot of the noise on social media, etc., none of that can surpass ground engagement, I feel. So that’s another thing.

00:12:30 – 00:12:51 Aranya Sahay

For me, another thing is joy actually comes from the smallest things and the things that are not big. They’re not the laurels that you’re getting. They’re really in the everyday things. And it really is in the engagement with life कि मैं I’m cooking for myself or for my family and things like that.

00:12:51 – 00:13:41 Aranya Sahay

And I think lastly, I think a lot of, like, I come from a film school, and you tend to just go into films for everything, to de-stress, to learn about cinema and all of that. And I think one thing that has happened, I strongly realize, is that cinema shouldn’t only be the place where you learn from. There are umpteen civilizational ideas, philosophies that are out there for you to learn, and other people are there. And just engaging with stuff of life. Like, I sometimes deliberately take the bus so that I can interact with random people here. And yeah, I think just deliberate engagement with life gives a lot of joy. And

00:13:44 – 00:13:49 Aranya Sahay

thank you so much for making the time to share your journey, your story. Congratulations again.

00:13:50 – 00:13:53 Nitin Bajaj

Thank you for all the success. And I know we’re just getting stopped here.

00:13:53 – 00:14:04 Aranya Sahay

Oh, I hope I was. Oh, I mean, I hope this campaign goes through. And even if it doesn’t, it’s worth meeting people like you and just being here and fighting it out every day.

00:14:04 – 00:14:05 Nitin Bajaj

Such a pleasure.

00:14:05 – 00:14:05 Aranya Sahay

Yeah.

00:14:06 – 00:14:06 Nitin Bajaj

And thanks a lot.