The Human Futures Market
A film and dataset · 2025 · ≈18 minutes
ASSET 2015-10-08-A
At 3:47 AM, a female infant enters the market. Every trader on the floor takes a position.
Diego Bonilla
At 3:47 AM, a female infant enters the market. Every trader on the floor takes a position.
01 — the listing
On October 8, 2015, at 3:47 a.m., a newborn girl is entered into a market as Asset 2015-10-08-A — birth weight, Apgar score, ZIP code, her mother's marital status, three generations of teen pregnancy, all priced before she is a day old. Seven algorithmic traders take positions on her future. Across six valuation phases, from birth to a terminal assessment, her Life Value Index falls from 23.7 to zero.
The film — in its own description, made entirely with generative AI — is eighteen minutes of that market talking to itself. The dataset is the same market keeping its books.
Generative-AI short film·≈18 minutes·2025·Seven traders open the market·Six valuation phases·LVI 23.7 → 0.0
02 — the film
The full film, watched linearly — the market narrating a life as a position it holds; faces, voices and floor chatter give the record the human texture the ledger strips out. Below, the floor's own board lets you enter the film at any phase.
The Human Futures Market — the full film.the trailer ↗
03 — the floor
"Funds that price hope are liquidated first. Funds that price failure enter to acquire the distressed positions."
The roster's turnover is the argument. Thirteen funds hold the position across six phases; as the subject's prospects fall, funds that price hope are liquidated and funds built to profit from failure, precarity and terminal decline buy in. The board below is the work's own trading record, compressed to one view — select a phase to see the mutation and watch it in the film.
 QANT-451 | ● position held | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● closing |
 ID-7739B → ID-2245X · OptiMax Futures | ● | ● | ● | ⇄ trader replaced | × exits — closed | |
 POG-1139 | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● closing |
 HPS-3GEN | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | |
 HR-LOVE1 · Hearthstone Resilience Capital | ● | ● | × exits — liquidated | |||
 DMA-SOCIAL | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | |
 DD-CHAOS · Disruption Dynamics | ● | ● | × exits — withdrew | |||
 HR-222X · Second Chance Capital | + enters | ● | × exits — defeated | |||
 ED-RISK7 · Educational Arbitrage | + | ● | × exits — closed | |||
 FD-000 · Failure Dynamics Corp | + enters | × exits — closed | ||||
 GIG-101 · Gig Economy Futures | + | × exits — closed | ||||
 LH-999 · Last Hope Remnant Fund | + enters | |||||
 TH-END · Terminal Holdings International | + enters |
● position held·+ enters·× exits the record·⇄ trader replaced·blank — not listed in the phase record
Phase 1 / IPO · newborn · LVI 23.7
Initial roster: seven traders open the market on Asset 2015-10-08-A.
"I'm shorting college futures immediately."
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗Phase 2 / Update · 4y 7m · LVI 23.7
The position holds; all seven traders remain.
Mother's Facebook: "Anyone know about free speech therapy?" Posted 47 times. Zero responses with resources. Algorithm suppressed reach.
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗Phase 3 / Mark to Market · 14y 2m · LVI 19.3
Liquidated — HR-LOVE1, Hearthstone Resilience Capital.
Withdrew — DD-CHAOS, Disruption Dynamics.
Enters — HR-222X (Second Chance Capital), ED-RISK7 (Educational Arbitrage).
"Infrastructure of Low Expectations confirmed."
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗Phase 4 / Recalculation · 19y 5m · LVI 11.2
Replaced — ID-7739B → ID-2245X, OptiMax Futures.
Enters — FD-000 (Failure Dynamics Corp), GIG-101 (Gig Economy Futures).
OnlyFans plus fast food, classified as entrepreneurship. Going long on decline.
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗Phase 5 / Final Valuation · 38y 7m · LVI 4.7
Defeated — HR-222X. Closed — ID-2245X, ED-RISK7, FD-000, GIG-101.
Enters — LH-999, Last Hope Remnant Fund.
Defeated — HR-222X. The last optimist trader exits the floor.
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗Phase 6 / Termination · 54y 11m · LVI 0.0
Enters — TH-END, Terminal Holdings International.
Closing — QANT-451, POG-1139.
"Every prediction achieved. Perfect pattern replication."
the full phase record, on the work's own interface ↗04 — the settlement
The record ends the way a portfolio ends. Lifetime earnings against lifetime debt; a granddaughter pregnant at sixteen; six generations the model calls pattern replication. The market labels the life a failure — and celebrates the accuracy of every prediction it made at her birth.
Queries entered into the valuation record
mother, before labor — food banks near me
subject, 14 — how to make money fast · sugar daddy websites · am i pregnant quiz
subject, 19 — food banks open sunday · can you overdose on tylenol · cheap birthday cake recipe
POSITION CLOSED.
05 — the argument
The traders are not villains; they are models, funds, incentives. They need no malice — only to measure, predict, and profit from being correct. The disturbing premise is not that the market foresees the life but that foreseeing helps produce it: resources withdrawn, expectations lowered, a mother's plea for free speech therapy posted forty-seven times and its reach algorithmically suppressed. The platforms do not merely observe abandonment; their distribution systems participate in it. A ZIP code is priced as destiny; repetition is celebrated because repetition confirms the model. The film's own language lets the floor call precarity "entrepreneurship" while going long on decline. Whether the film exposes these deterministic scripts or risks restaging them is a question the work forces deliberately — the viewer is made to audit the auditors.
"I wanted the film to feel less like a warning about future AI than a document from a system already fluent in pricing people. The traders are not villains in the traditional sense. They are models, funds, strategies, incentives. They do not need to hate the subject. They only need to measure her, predict her, and profit from being right."— Diego Bonilla, director
06 — the reception
Among the winners, Best AI Short Film — Red Rocks AI Film Festival, 2025.
Scholarly notice so far is brief: Maria Elisa Rodrigues Moreira's peer-reviewed article on Requiem Diurnus (Texto Digital) situates the film within Bonilla's computational practice — a 2025 work, about eighteen minutes, created entirely with AI. A dedicated critical study has not yet been written. the article ↗
credits
Diego Bonilla — writer, director, and builder of the market. A film and dataset by Diego Bonilla · Hypergraphia, LLC / modular.film · 2025 In its own credits: "Made entirely with generative AI."