Jenna Ortega sounded off on artificial intelligence at the Marrakech Film Festival, saying “it’s very easy to be terrified” of the “deep uncertainty” it brings to filmmaking and the world.
The “Wednesday” star is serving on the jury at the Moroccan fest, which is being headed by “Parasite” filmmaker Bong Joon Ho. Asked about the proliferation of AI in cinema at the jury press conference on Saturday morning, both Ortega and Bong made their opinions clear.
Ortega said that looking back at the history of humankind, “we just always take things too far and I think it’s very easy to be terrified — I know I am — of deep uncertainty.” She added that, with AI, “it kind of feels like we’ve opened Pandora’s box in a way.”
However, Ortega is hopeful that the growth of AI could lead to a new artistic revolution. “In these difficult and confusing times, oftentimes it pushes the artist to speak out more, to do more, for there to be this new awakening and passion and protection and I want to assume and hope that that’s the case,” she said. “But there’s certain things that AI just isn’t able to replicate. There’s beauty in difficulty and there’s beauty in mistakes, and a computer can’t do that. A computer has no soul.”
Ortega said that she hopes AI “comes to a point where it becomes sort of mental junk food and we feel sick and we don’t know why. I think, as terrible as it is to say, sometimes audiences need to be deprived of something in order to appreciate something again.”
Bong agreed with Ortega, saying AI could be “good” in the sense that “it’s the very beginning of the human race finally seriously thinking about what only humans can do.” But, he added with a laugh: “My personal answer is I’m going to organize a military squad where their mission is to destroy AI all over the world.”
Alongside Ortega and Bong, the Marrakech jury includes “Furiosa” lead Anya Taylor-Joy, “Past Lives” and “Materialists” filmmaker Celine Song, “Titane” Palme d’Or winner Julia Ducournau, Bralizian director Karim Aïnouz, Moroccan filmmaker Hakim Belabbes and Iranian-American actor-director Payman Maadi.
Song also didn’t mince her words on the topic of AI, saying: “To quote Guillermo del Toro, who’s going to be here at this festival soon, fuck AI.” She added that it is “completely destroying our planet” and “colonizing our mind and the way that we encounter images, the way we encounter sound.”
“I’m very concerned about it because I think that the No. 1 thing that we’re here to defend as artists is humanity,” Song continued. “It’s trying to encroach on what makes our lives very beautiful and very hard and what makes life worth doing … Deeply and not very respectfully, fuck AI.”
Elsewhere during the conference, Taylor-Joy was asked her thoughts on being part of a jury where she will be judging other actors’ performances. She offered a poignant response: “We live in a world where there’s a lot of premium placed on how loud you can be. If you can out scream somebody else, what your argument is, you’re taught to have an opinion more than you’re taught to have critical thinking. I believe that in silence, even if it is uncomfortable at the beginning, it just teaches you to be a much better listener. I think in general, not only in art but where we’re at in the world currently, I think we’d all be a lot better off if we listened more than we yelled on top of each other.”
Marrakech Film Festival, which runs through Dec. 6, officially kicked off on Friday night with a screening of Gus Van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire.” Its lineup also includes tributes to Jodie Foster and del Toro alongside screenings of “A Private Life” and “Frankenstein”, as well as conversations with Kleber Mendonça Filho, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer, “The Matrix” star Laurence Fishburne, “It Was Just an Accident” Palme d’Or winner Jafar Panahi and “Blonde” director Andrew Dominik.
Marrakech’s official competition comprises 14 features made by first- or second-time filmmakers from around the world in an effort to discover new international talent. Other films playing during the festival include Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet,” Maryam Touzani’s “Calle Málaga” and closer “Palestine 36.”
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