AI Defeats the Purpose of Filmmaking

“Backrooms” director Kane Parsons recently sounded off on AI in filmmaking during a recent interview with The Australian. The 20-year-old filmmaker said that he was “in the same boat as most well-adjusted people,” and does not want to see the technology take over Hollywood.

“If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would,” Parsons said. “Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”

Parsons explained that he sees a future where AI could make some VFX tasks less laborious, but he added that “right now it’s difficult to discuss objectively because there’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.”

While wanting AI to stay away from his work, Parsons teased that he wants to explore the themes surrounding AI in a future film.

“What interests me more is interrogating it artistically,” Parsons said. “We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.”

He added, “I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects.”

While Parsons is rejecting AI, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors, Martin Scorsese, is embracing it. The “Taxi Driver” director recently joined the AI firm Black Forest Labs as an adviser in a bid to “push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.”

“Cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” Scorsese said in a statement posted on Black Forest Labs’ website. “I utilized 3D with ‘Hugo’ and de-aging technology for ‘The Irishman.’ Now, with this tool, I can share what I’m visualizing more clearly and efficiently to my creative team — the production designer, art designer, and cinematographer — for them to build on to enrich cinematic intelligence.”