Humans in the Loop

Synopsis

After twelve years of marriage, Nehma, an Adivasi Oraon woman, and Ritesh, a Hindu Rajput man, divorce. Nehma returns to her ancestral village with her children—12-year-old Dhaanu and one-year-old Guntu. Village life is hard on Dhaanu, who lashes out at her mother, echoing the biases of her father. As their relationship frays, Nehma begins work as a ‘data labeller,’ training AI models to recognize objects in images and videos. She finds AI childlike in its learning process, and imagines it seeing the world through her eyes, a connection she longs to have with Dhaanu. As Dhaanu grows lonelier and more distant, always tempted to flee back to the city, Nehma faces the challenge of giving her daughter a reason to stay. At the same time, she begins to notice AI adopting harmful human biases, ones that echo the prejudice against her own tribal community. Ultimately, Nehma realises she’s battling not just for her daughter’s future, but for how technology and the world sees people like her.