Spoiler Alert: Films from the Future re-imagined for AI

Spoiler Alert is an AI-augmented living book version of Films from the Future, and an experiment in using LLM-based AIs to engage with material in a way that was impossible when the book was first published.

Since 2018, when I wrote  Films from the Future, cutting edge science and technology — and their implications — have evolved. yet eight years on (I’m writing this in 2026) the book is more relevant than ever, as technologies like brain implants, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and much more, are rewriting the map of what we can do and what we maybe should not do.

But hardly anyone reads books these days.

And so I thought I’d try something different, and transform the book into an AI augmented living book — a website written for AIs and designed to be explored through them.

Check it out here: spoileralert.wtf

 

A new AI-enabled way to engage with books

Spoileralert.wtf is an experiment in taking a static book and transforming it into a living “thinking partner” through AI. It’s inspired by a growing movement to create websites and content that are primarily geared toward being read by AI bots and agents than humans.

At its heart is a website that contains nearly 100 AI-legible files that cover everything from the book’s content to topic guides, cross-cutting perspectives, links to latest research and breakthroughs, and user guides — all brought together through a single prompt that you can cut and paste into an AI of your choice.

The prompt instructs the AI to use the website as a knowledge base for interacting with the ideas in the book and connecting with them in ways that far transcend the original written words on the page.

Through interacting with the material you can do a deep dive into key movies and technologies, explore contemporary issues through the lens of the book, ask about movies that didn’t make the cut — or weren’t around back in 2018, think through challenges and opportunities you’re facing around tech and the future, ask the AI to help you create educational and training material based on the book, and much more.

And for the technically minded, the website is built around an AI-legible index file – llms.txt. This format has been proposed as a standard for creating AI-readable and legible websites and, while it has not yet been widely adopted, there are growing moves to use this or similar approaches to moving beyond sites created just for human consumption.

To try it the site, simply visit spoileralert.wtf, copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or similar, and start asking questions. You can even ask why the website is called what it is!

Take me to spoileralert.wtf

What’s new on spoileralert.wtf content-wise?

Most of the content on spoileralert.wtf is in the form of markdown files designed specifically for an AI to read and use, but there are a couple of additional pages for human users as well — and all of the markdown files can be read by humans, and can be accessed from spoileralert.wtf/contents.html.

In addition to the 14 book chapters there are:

  • Five guidance files covering everything from how an AI should use the material to information on and from the author, to a educator’s guide
  • Four domain files that act as hubs for material addressing:
    • Emerging science and technology
    • Responsible and ethical innovation
    • Navigating the future
    • And the movies themselves
  • Twenty one topic files on emerging science and technology
  • Thirteen topic files on responsible and ethical innovation
  • Twelve topic files on navigating the future
  • Twelve topic files on the movies in the book
  • Four supporting files covering discussion questions, an educator’s guide (same link as above), next steps, and over 80 movies that didn’t make the book but which are on my radar.

When working with the site using an AI, you can ask questions about any of these

What does it look like using an AI-augmented living book like this?

Because this is such a new concept, there are ten example use-cased on spoileralert.wtf that provide a sense of what it’s like to use the AI-augmented living book.

Each of these was created using Claude Code to simulate an AI-user conversation. Each character has a different personality, profile, and backstory, and this comes out in the conversations.

The approach is, obviously, slightly circular, asking an AI to simulate using an AI. But in developing the site I found that I was too close to the content to assess its usefulness. And despite some of these conversations having the usual AI tells, I found them useful.

I think you probably will as well:

Read the example conversations

Starting points

If you’re curious, have cut and paste the prompt into your AI (and the most capable model in thinking/reasoning mode is highly recommended), and are not sure where to begin, try one of these first questions:

 

  • Why on earth is the website called spoileralert.wtf?
  • I have no idea where to begin, please help
  • Please ask me three questions about what I’m interested in then suggest five starting questions for exploring Films from the Future
  • I saw [movie] recently and wondered what Andrew might have written about it
  • I’m interested in what the book says about [technology or issue]
  • Tell me three things from the book that might surprise me