Seth Rogen offers a counterpoint to the Hollywood filmmakers embracing generative AI in their work. More here. There’s a creeping feeling that more and more in Hollywood are pushing the ‘you have to use it, it’s inevitable’ line when coming to AI technologies. As our own Ryan Lambie regularly points out, AI is a technology ... Seth Rogen takes aim at writers who use AI: “go do something else”
Seth Rogen offers a counterpoint to the Hollywood filmmakers embracing generative AI in their work. More here.
There’s a creeping feeling that more and more in Hollywood are pushing the ‘you have to use it, it’s inevitable’ line when coming to AI technologies.
As our own Ryan Lambie regularly points out, AI is a technology whose features are being added to things we use day to day without our consent. And it’s hard to imagine previous technologies – the video recorder, for instance – requiring us to be repeatedly told it plays tapes for us to understand we need it.
Peter Jackson, James Cameron, David Mackenzie and Steven Soderbergh are amongst those either using or investigating the use of AI tools.
One person who’s not? Seth Rogen.
In a new interview with Brut, he’s made his position very, very clear, and it’s increasingly rare to see someone with clout in Hollywood speaking out so openly against it.
Specific to generative AI material, he called the material it spits out “stupid dog shit”. The exact quote? “Every time I see a video on Instagram that’s like, Hollywood is cooked, what follows is the most stupid dog shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”
He saves particular ire for writers who use AI in their work. We’ve seen a particular growth here, in those looking to shortcut research, writing early drafts and even penning stories using generative AI tech.
Read more: Cannes 2026 and the unanswered question about AI in cinema
Rogen argued for those using technology to shortcut the work of writing, “if your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process, you shouldn’t be a writer. Because you’re not writing. Go do something else. And if you don’t want to go through the process, you shouldn’t be a writer. The idea of a tool that makes me write less is not appealing to me, because I like writing.”
This is making headlines though because fewer and fewer people are saying it. And even as the words make their way around the world, an AI summary is collating them to stop clicks going to websites who report on what Rogen said. Furthermore, technology companies continue to add more and more pop ups to their services, almost pleading with us to use their tools. Yet, going back to Ryan, if it was as good as they say, why would they need to do that?
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As he wrote, “It’s the hard-sell approach that makes me suspicious. Nobody had to be aggressively forced to use typewriters or VCRs. We weren’t threatened into adopting smartphones.”
Rogen was promoting the film Tangles, of which you can read more about here.
