AI is becoming a bigger problem in the entertainment industry, and actors are speaking out against it. Wednesday star Jenna Ortega is the latest actor to condemn artificial intelligence. While serving on the jury at the Marrakech Film Festival, she used her platform to express her fears and hopes about the future of AI.
Ortega explained that throughout humankind, “we just always take things too far and I think it’s very easy to be terrified — know I am — of deep uncertainty.” She explained that, with AI, “it kind of feels like we’ve opened Pandora’s box in a way.”
“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,” Ortega 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.”
She added 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.”
Fans react to Jenna Ortega’s AI statements:
A clip of Ortega’s comments was shared on the r/FauxMoi subreddit. Many people have taken to the comments to agree with the star.
“I support this. I have literally been trying to stream movies and TV shows (illegally, of course) and will see ads on my free movie streaming sites for turning pornstars into ‘your fave celeb’ with Jenna’s face, and I got heated. It’s unacceptable, and many famous people are being victimized,” one person wrote.
“Honestly, I feel like 70% agree to this, or maybe I live in a bubble, but nobody actually likes AI content, maybe using it helps with ur drafts is useful, but anything real that someone wants to spend money on is ‘slop,’” another added.
“I don’t know how AI is not banned yet, it’s gotten so harmful, every day there’s thousands of videos generated by AI that spread harmful misinformation, and so many people are falling for it, especially older people,” someone else shared.
“‘Mental junk food’ is such a brilliant way to describe AI. Reconstituted slop that is forced onto us by a system that makes it harder to access real nourishment (fresh veggies, education, community). Billionaires don’t let LLMs guzzle their data, and they don’t eat Big Macs (except you know who…), but they’ll shove it down our throats,” one commenter added.
The video was also posted to X, where people are sharing their thoughts.
“I get what she means. If everything becomes AI-generated, the baseline shifts, and we stop noticing the craft. It feels like the real challenge is finding the balance where AI helps the process without flattening the soul of the work,” one person commented.
“Jenna dropping the realest take Hollywood’s too scared to touch. She basically said what everyone in the industry whispers off-camera: AI movies look shiny, but they’re empty calories. No soul, no grit, no weird human spark — just algorithmic sludge dressed up in 8K. And she’s right… audiences will eventually get sick of it,” someone else shared.
“I’m ready to be permanently deprived of AI,” a commenter added.
“I couldn’t agree more. AI will usher in the end of the great film cycle, where a greater extent of possibilities have been explored in terms of technical ability. Then there will be a return by the viewing public to an appreciation for celluloid and vintage methods for filmmaking,” someone suggested.
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