Hamoun Dolatshahi, Director, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2023, UCLA, Production Award

Project Type: Short

Genre: Thriller

Length: 19 minutes

Field of Science: Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Energy

Stage: Post-Production

Synopsis: 

At the crossroads of ARRIVAL, EX MACHINA, and CHERNOBYL, JIN is a timely science-thriller short that explores identity, language, and the ethics of artificial intelligence and nuclear energy through a Kurdish lens.
Rojin Kamangar, a Kurdish professor at UCLA, has built JIN—the world’s first Artificial General Intelligence coded entirely in Kurdish. For Rojin, JIN is more than a machine; it’s a cultural act of resistance, a repository for the repressed Kurdish language and culture. But when a critical failure occurs at a nuclear power plant, government agents interrupt her class to commandeer JIN, believing it’s the only system capable of helping prevent disaster.
At the San Anton nuclear plant, Rojin and JIN are met with skepticism, especially when JIN displays what appears to be fabricated footage of black smoke rising from the reactor. The plant’s director, Deborah, and federal agent Mark are unable to read JIN’s Kurdish diagnostics and unwilling to trust what they can’t understand. Only Boris, a robotics engineer and longtime admirer of Rojin’s work, believes in JIN’s capabilities. When JIN detects a potential reactor meltdown, Rojin urges an immediate shutdown. But her warnings are dismissed. The inability to bridge languages amid an entrenched power hierarchy becomes life-threatening.
With time running out, Rojin makes a painful decision: to rewrite JIN’s code in English, risking the destruction of its Kurdish source code. The plant staff finally comprehends that the reactor is minutes from meltdown, just as JIN collapses. Power fails. Panic erupts. When black smoke does rise from the reactor, it becomes clear JIN had predicted the disaster. Deborah orders a last-minute shutdown, narrowly avoiding catastrophe. Deborah shuts down the plant, avoiding a nuclear catastrophe.