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Demi Moore calls fighting AI ‘losing battle’; Guillermo del Toro slams those saying 'art can be done with a f***ing app'
Cannes Film Festival jury member, Hollywood star Demi Moore, called fighting AI a losing battle ahead of the festival's opening.
Actor Demi Moore has called Hollywood's fight against AI a losing battle, urging the film industry to find ways to work with the new technology in order to protect itself. The actor was speaking ahead of the opening ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival, which she is attending as a jury member.
Demi Moore says AI is here to stay
On Tuesday, the 63-year-old star addressed the media ahead of the Cannes opening in France, where she spoke about the impact of AI on cinema. "AI is here. And so to fight it is to, in a sense, to fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it is a more valuable path to take," the Oscar nominee said.
Demi, star of films like Ghost and Charlie's Angels 2, admitted that the industry is ‘probably not’ doing enough to protect itself from AI. “Are we doing enough to protect ourselves? I don't know. And so my inclination would be to say probably not,” she added.
Demi Moore received her first Oscar nomination for the body-horror film The Substance after its Cannes premiere in 2024. This year, she is returning to the festival as one of nine jurors who will hand out the Palme d'Or on May 23.
AI debate at the Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival does not allow generative AI in competition, but the conversation about the technology's role in filmmaking has been a dominant theme at the festival that positions itself as a gatekeeper of what qualifies as cinema.
On the opening day of the festival, AI did dominate much of the chatter, with even filmmaker Guillermo del Toro taking a swipe at it. The director returned to Cannes on Tuesday to screen a 4K restoration of his acclaimed film Pan's Labyrinth. The filmmaker said the movie, about a young girl and a fascist captain in 1940s Spain, was released 20 years ago.
“We are, unfortunately, in times that make this movie more pertinent than ever because they tell us everything is useless to resist, that art can be done with a f***ing app,” said del Toro.
The 2026 Cannes Film Festival begins
The 79th Cannes Film Festival launched on Tuesday, marking the start of 12 days of nonstop premieres that will culminate May 23 with the presentation of the prestigious Palme d’Or.
The nine-member jury is being presided over by Park Chan-wook, the South Korean filmmaker of Oldboy and No Other Choice, who said that politics and cinema go hand in hand.
