Guillermo del Toro stated that he prefers "death" than using AI in his cinema
Renowned film director Guillermo del Toro stated in a recent interview that he is not interested in knowing anything about Artificial Intelligence.
Renowned Mexican director Guillermo del Toro leaves no doubt about his position on generative artificial intelligence: he rejects it outright. In a recent interview with NPR, the filmmaker stated emphatically that he would rather die than use this technology in any of his future films.
With a firm and unambiguous stance, del Toro declared: “AI, particularly generative AI, does not interest me and never will.” And he added, “I'm 61 years old and I hope I can continue to have no interest in using it until I die.”
The Pan's Labyrinth director said that when someone emailed him about his position on AI, his response was very brief: “I'd rather die.”
Generative artificial intelligence is a type of AI that creates new and original content, such as text, images, music, audio, and code, rather than just analyzing existing data.
It even uses machine learning models trained on large data sets to identify patterns and then generate novel content in response to a request.
What else did del Toro have to say?
Beyond the pushback, del Toro elaborated on his criticism, drawing parallels between the arrogance of AI developers and the character of Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's classic novel.
The director, who is set to release his adaptation of “Frankenstein” on Netflix, I explained that I wanted to reflect in Victor the same blindness he sees in today's technicians.
“I wanted Victor's [Frankenstein] arrogance to resemble that of technicians in some ways,” he commented. “He's a bit blind, he creates something without considering the consequences, and I think we need to stop and reflect on our future.”
For del Toro, the real danger isn't technology itself, but what he calls “natural stupidity,” an impulse that, according to him, is responsible for “most of the worst things in the world” and could lead to poor handling of artificial intelligence.
Del Toro's “Frankenstein” adaptation, which arrives on Netflix on November 7, features an all-star cast that includes Jacob Elordi,Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz and Ralph Ineson.