The Algorithm

This is a screenplay
The Algorithm follows Kyle Rivera, a young mixed-race Chicago DJ from Bridgeport who builds house sets from thrift-store records, family tapes, and dollar-bin finds. After a viral video shows him saving a basement party with a dead laptop and a battery-powered drum machine, he is recruited into an unpaid fellowship at Northpoint Sound, a sleek tech company whose AI, PULSE, can generate polished tracks on demand.

Kyle quickly recognizes PULSE's "original" bass lines contain the unmistakable signature of his elderly neighbor Ray Hollis-a ghost note and slide Ray has played for decades on unreleased soul, gospel, and church sessions. Digging deeper with sound engineer Kayla and a growing circle of older Chicago musicians (organists Bernice and Loretta Hayes, trumpeter Eddie Navarro, drummer's widow Gloria Watkins, and Kyle's own grandfather Frank Chen), he learns Northpoint funded a "preservation" project that quietly fed their private reels into the AI without meaningful consent or payment.

While juggling night shifts, family rent crises, and the fellowship's competitive leaderboard, Kyle gathers spectrographic evidence, signed release forms, and a class-action lawyer. Northpoint pressures him to recant, offers buyouts to the elders, and tries to silence the story. At the high-stakes final showcase, Kyle brings the living musicians onstage instead of relying on PULSE. When the company cuts the power, the band plays unamplified-drums, bass, trumpet, organ, and erhu-turning the room into a human call-and-response that the AI cannot match.

Kyle refuses the record-deal prize on principle. The resulting lawsuit forces a settlement that removes the stolen recordings, credits and pays the artists, and reforms PULSE. Months later, Kyle runs weekly "Basement Sessions" with the same elders, now properly named and compensated, while the community's music continues-live, credited, and human.