‘AI slop’ or not? 2 AI-generated Singapore films set for National Day spark debate

A few commenters also made their feelings clear on YouTube, with one noting: “I cannot believe AI slop like this made it to the local news. Bad directing, cringy dialogue, actors spoke with an American accent, messy timeline. This is a good example of when AI should not be used.”

Responding to the criticism, Pax Chen, founder and chief executive officer of FizzDragon, defended Trace Project in a LinkedIn post published on Tuesday (Aug 4).

“Trace Project is an experiment. It is not a claim that AI filmmaking is perfect, nor that this is the only way to make films,” she wrote. “It is simply one story, created from one person’s experience and imagination, and an invitation for people to decide what they think of it.”

Meanwhile, in response to CNA Lifestyle’s queries, Bersama Majulah’s creator Boh acknowledged “the fatigue around ‘AI slop'”. However, he denies his film as “slop” and asserts that “the soul of the work is entirely human”. 

“The story arcs, character motivations, and emotional truth were written by us long before AI entered the picture,” Boh told CNA Lifestyle. “AI only handles the execution layer – environments, visual effects, and production scaling.”

He added: “The process demands rigorous human oversight at every stage: Prompt engineering, shot selection, editing, and the final cut are all controlled by our team. We call it human-written, AI-realised.”