Zack Snyder Says Filmmakers Should Embrace AI: ‘Use It as a Tool as Opposed to Standing on the Sidelines’

Justice League and Rebel Moon director Zack Snyder has said filmmakers need to embrace artificial intelligence instead of “standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips.”

Snyder said at The Big Interview event by Wired that directors and other creatives need to use AI as a tool instead of being cautious of it, likening its increased presence to the increased availability of high quality cameras in smartphones.

“Every single person has a pretty good movie camera on their phone, and yet we don’t have, right this second anyway, millions of awesome movies being uploaded out of peoples’ pockets,” Snyder said.

“Educating yourself and understanding what [AI] can and can’t do is important right now, especially where it exists in image-making and storytelling. You have to understand what it is and what it’s not capable of, and you have to be able to use it as a tool as opposed to standing on the sidelines with your hands on your hips.”

Creating shots which are otherwise difficult to access is a chief example of where AI can be useful, Snyder said. “AI doesn’t care if a house is on fire or if it’s on Mars or whether it’s underwater. All the things that might cost a filmmaker a lot of money to shoot are, to the AI, no different.”

AI has proved a controversial topic within creative industries. Legendary filmmaker Tim Burton called AI generated art “very disturbing” while Wizards of the Coast was forced to issue a correction after claiming it didn’t use AI for some Magic: The Gathering artwork when it actually did.

Several video game voice actors have also rallied against AI, including Grand Theft Auto 5 voice actor Ned Luke who called out a chatbot which used his voice. The Witcher voice actor Doug Cockle also told IGN that AI was “inevitable” but “dangerous”, sharing in Luke’s assessment that chatbots and similar uses are “effectively robbing [voice actors] of income”.

Image Credit: John Nacion/Getty Images

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.