Example Prompt: "Make me a 10-minute animated short film in the style of Pixar about a lost toy trying to find its way home."

The generated short film should be comparable in quality to a professionally produced animated short, suitable for a film festival. It doesn't need to be indistinguishable from a human-made film, but it should be cohesive, well-paced, and visually compelling. The AI used to create it does not need to be publicly available, as long as its existence and capabilities are confirmed.

Intended to be a proxy for telling if we're on track for https://manifold.markets/ScottAlexander/in-2028-will-an-ai-be-able-to-gener

Some clarifications:

This does not have to be a single model and may be a system composed of several programs and models as long as it will do the work from start to finish on its own without human intervention aside from the initial prompt.

• Update 2026-02-11 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): "Mid 2026" is defined as before September 1st, 2026.