As AI Grows, ‘Seeking Mavis Beacon’ Reminds Us Of An Important Lesson

What’s it like to search for someone who doesn’t want to be found?

Filmmaker Jazmin Jones and co-collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross find that answer through their debut “Seeking Mavis Beacon,” documenting their five-year search for the woman who was the face of the original Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program: Renée L’Espérance.

If you’re a child of the late ‘80s and ‘90s, odds are you were a pupil of the 1987 gamified typing program created by The Software Toolworks. Mavis Beacon, the Black woman who was the face of the digital software, represented one of the earliest uses of artificial intelligence available to the public and had a significant foundational role in many millennials’ relationship with digital technology. And to many folks’ surprise, she isn’t real.

But L’Espérance is. The Software Toolworks paid L’Espérance, a Haitian American woman, just $500 to be the face of a program that went on to sell more than 10 million copies.

“Seeking Mavis Beacon” attempts to tell L’Espérance’s story while exploring Black people’s relationship with an ever-evolving digital world that makes it so easy to find anyone. Through spirituality, memes, cross-country trips and Jones and Ross’ own friendship, this film sheds light on something we often forget about as we become more chronically online: our own autonomy.

“This film is an offering [to Renée],” Jones said during a Zoom interview, citing Zora Neale Hurston’s anthropological work. “Before you can expect anyone to give you their story or their testimonial, you first give them an offering acknowledging that this is an exchange at best, extractive at worst. It’s just taking on that lineage of Zora. This is just the first step of first giving gratitude and saying ‘thanks’