Guillermo del Toro’s innate love of film comes through when he speaks, even when he’s sounding off with a dire warning about what is at stake as the film industry is rocked by AI and the forces of business consolidation.
“We are on the verge of image illiteracy. We are on the verge of cinema illiteracy,” del Toro told the industry crowd gathered Monday night for the BFI America dinner event held in Hollywood to celebrate del Toro’s selection for the prestigious BFI Fellowship kudos.
Del Toro, the Oscar-winning helmer behind “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy,” “The Shape of Water” and last year’s “Frankenstein,” sounded the alarm about the encroachment of AI in what has heretofore been the thoroughly human-led process of making art.
The human desire to express oneself is as old as the first images crafted on ancient cave walls in antiquity, he stressed. Del Toro also nodded to the rising tide of political polarization that threatens creative freedom around the world.
“The pact between man and image is sacred,” del Toro told the starry crowd at Mother Wolf. Art can help bring people together, he said, “but we are in a time when that is in danger.” He called artificial intelligence a form of “natural stupidity.”
