New time-travel movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die features an AI antagonist, and director Gore Verbinski says it’s a “timely” story that focuses on a “terrifying” threat.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die begins with Sam Rockwell’s time traveller entering a diner in the present, and telling the patrons that AI has pretty much destroyed humanity in the future. He then assembles a ramshackle crew, and endeavours to stop that happening – for the 118th time.
Dexerto saw the movie at Fantastic Fest, and wrote in our Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die review that it “captures both the humor and horror of where the world is heading.”
We then spoke to director Gore Verbinski about why he wanted to tackle those themes, as well as how he feels about the AI revolution.
Gore Verbinski believes Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is his most “timely” movie
It’s been nearly a decade since Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski last made a film, but he said the topical nature of Matthew Robinson’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die script drew him in, making it the most “timely” movie he’s ever made.
“I think it’s important that this movie comes out now,” added Verbinski. “I think it’s important that this movie is seen with an audience.”
As for how he personally feels about artificial intelligence, Verbinski said: “I think it’s inescapable. It’s coming. It’s inevitable. I’m both apprehensive and excited, [but] it’s terrifying at the same time, and I think the title of our film is sort of a mantra right now. You can either ignore it, or you can be afraid of it, or you can surf it.
“It’s definitely got its hand firmly on the baton. I think humans have been around for 3,000 years, and I think there’s a big change about to happen.
“This is a revolution, but it’s not windmills or the steam engine or personal computers. This thing is a digital organism that we’re birthing, and I think it’s inheriting some of our primal flaws in its source code.”
The problem with artificial intelligence
We then asked Verbinski how he feels about AI movies, or films that incorporate AI elements, to which he replied, “I’m just troubled with the fact that the promise of AI has been focused on.
“Instead of trying to solve cancer or take us to Mars or these things that could solve some genuine issues, it’s going after storytelling, it’s going after illustrations, it’s gonna write your song for you. It’s like saying it’s gonna breathe for you, it’s gonna f*ck for you. It’s gonna take away.
“There’s certain things we need to do as humans, like sit around a campfire and tell each other stories. Why is it taking away the things that make us most fundamentally human? Why not go after the jobs we don’t want to do?
“I suppose that’s because it’s a language model and because it’s early stages were been born out of studying us like ‘What is our user profile? What do we buy? What do we like? How do we consume? What do we hate? What keeps us engaged?’
“I think the fact that it’s been used prior to becoming sentient, in so many of those aspects, it’s kind of all that’s going to be written into the source code – it’s fundamental. That’s really probably why it’s being directed towards the arts.”
Why AI is “starting to drink its own p*ss”
Finally, we asked Gore where he believes all this is headed, to which Verbinski responded: “I think there’s no doubt that you’re going to be able to go, ‘I want to watch a movie, surprise me. I want to watch a movie that’s, you know, the Godfather with talking frogs,’ and it’s gonna be there, it’s gonna be good, there’s no doubt. But what did it just take away?
“Isn’t there something in us that makes us want to create whatever you love? You love fly fishing, it’ll fly fish for you. ‘No, I mean, I want to go fly fishing!’ I think it’s weird to take away what makes us human.
“I think maybe there’s gonna be something really interesting happening, because it’s ingested so much from the Internet, and it’s spitting back so much stuff, so fast, back into the internet, that it’s starting to drink its own p*ss, and I think you’re gonna see that sort of two degree little turn. It’s gonna get quite surreal, really quick. I want to buy an Encyclopaedia Britannica pre-AI, to just have. Like, we used to know this sh*t!
Nissan modifica i suoi piani: la GT-R elettrica non è più una certezza