Steven Soderbergh Isn't Afraid Of AI Hurting The Film Industry

While Hollywood is bracing to see how artificial intelligence will affect showbiz in the coming years, at least one cutting-edge director — Steven Soderbergh — doesn't seem too concerned about the technology taking over the industry.

Soderbergh, who won industry acclaim for his 1989 feature film debut "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" and went on to capture the best director Oscar for the 2000 crime drama "Traffic," told Variety that there is simply no way that AI can replicate the human experience.

"I may be the Neville Chamberlain of this subject, but I am not afraid of AI in this specific context," Soderbergh told the publication, referring to the former British Prime Minister who employed the appeasement strategy with Nazi Germany prior to World War II. "It has no life experience. It's never been hungover. It's never made a meal for anybody it loved. It's never been scared walking home late at night. It's never felt insecure because somebody that it went to high school with 20 years ago has become incredibly successful."

Soderbergh told Variety AI is "just another tool" at this point in time. "If it helps you finish a first draft of a script, great. But can it finish that thing and make it great on its own? Absolutely not. As of today, it is not keeping me up at night."

Other Hollywood power players have differing views, as the writer-director describes it. Among them is Tom Hanks, who already recognizes his power to be immortal with the help of AI.

Steven Soderbergh is undoubtedly an innovator in showbiz, having previously embraced the power of mobile technology by shooting his paranoid thriller "Unsane" entirely on an iPhone. However, from a thematic standpoint, the filmmaker told Variety, "Cellphones are the worst thing that's ever happened to movies."

As such, Soderbergh takes pleasure in that his 2014 drama series "The Knick" and 2021 movie "No Sudden Move" were set in time periods well before cell phones came into existence. "One of the pleasures of doing 'The Knick' or 'No Sudden Move' was that this s**t didn't exist," Soderbergh told Variety. "I think you could talk to a hundred storytellers, and they would all tell you the same thing. It's so hard to manufacture drama when everybody can get a hold of everybody all the time. It's just not as fun as in the old days when the phone would ring, and you didn't know who was calling. I remember that fondly."

While Soderbergh laments the simplicity of the past, his next project — the Max miniseries "Full Circle" — is set in modern-day New York City. A kidnapping drama starring Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, and Dennis Quaid, "Full Circle" debuts on Max on Thursday, July 13.

Earlier in 2023, the filmmaker directed "Magic Mike's Last Dance," and while it was billed as the third and final installment in the male stripper movie series, Soderbergh's vision for the "Magic Mike" franchise may be much bigger than we imagined.