“The Housemaid” Director Paul Feig Slams A.I. as 'Technology Literally None of Us Asked For'
“The Housemaid” Director Paul Feig Slams A.I. as 'Technology Literally None of Us Asked For'
Benjamin VanHooseTue, June 23, 2026 at 8:52 PM UTC
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Paul Feig on June 19, 2026Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock -
Director Paul Feig was presented with the Nantucket Film Festival's Visionary Storyteller Tribute honor on June 20
In his acceptance speech, Feig took aim at artificial intelligence, calling it "technology literally none of us asked for"
"A.I. is not us. It's not who we are," the filmmaker added
Paul Feig is firmly against artificial intelligence.
The director of films like Bridesmaids, Spy and The Housemaidwas honored with the Visionary Storyteller Tribute at the 2026 Nantucket Film Festival on Saturday, June 20.
After a personal tribute from Rose Byrne, Feig, 63, accepted the accolade inside the Siasconset Casino in Massachusetts and spoke about the future of storytelling and entertainment as A.I. looms over the industry.
"I've always loved the term storyteller. Telling stories is one of humankind's greatest gifts to the universe," said Feig in his speech, adding, "I've always been in awe of storytellers ... the screenwriters and authors and playwrights and journalists and all who take us on a journey through their words and visions, and make us see a world through different eyes."
"Our stories unite us," he added. "They bring us closer together by breaking down the idea of 'the other' and making us all one: a planet of people who are strong and weak, confident and neurotic, wonderful and insufferable and all the other things that make us deliciously human."
Feig, who is also known for movies like Ghostbusters (2016), A Simple Favor (2018) and The Heat (2013), said he thinks storytelling is "as important as the food that we eat and the air that we breathe."
Paul Feig and Rose Byrne on June 20, 2026Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock
He went on to criticize A.I. and the potential threat it poses to Hollywood.
"Today, a lot of us in the storytelling business are being confronted by a rather terrifying technological development: A.I.," he said, calling it "technology literally none of us asked for" and something "billionaires are investing huge amounts of money [into] to reduce their workforce and raise their profits."
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"The reason I bring this up is not to be a purveyor of doom," he continued. "I'm here to try to bring us some sort of reassurance, because A.I. is not us. It's not who we are — it's who we were. Years ago. Months ago. Days ago. Hours ago. Minutes ago. All A.I. can do is take what we've done and log it and scrape it and mix and match it and turn it into something that seems original. But it's not original. It's our old ideas. It's our old experiences, the things that we wrote and said and lived through already."
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The filmmaker continued, "Until the day we die, we keep changing, we keep evolving, we keep having new experiences and new thoughts and new ideas. We are living, breathing human beings who face an infinite sea of choices and possibilities.... A.I. lives in our past. We live in our present, and we will live in our future. And all A.I. can do is follow and try to sound and be like us."
"But it will never be us," Feig said. "It can only be an amalgamation of what we leave behind, and it's up to us, the storytellers — and, my friends, we are all storytellers here, whether you're in the business or not. Anything you recount to someone else that you went through is a story. It is up to us to keep moving forward, to keep living life and love and friendship and challenges and joy and sadness and all the things that brought us to where we are."
He concluded in his speech, in part, "Because we are not A.I. We are not an artificial intelligence. We are H.I. We are human intelligence."
Feig is currently working on the anticipated sequel to The Housemaid, The Housemaid's Secret, starring Sydney Sweeney and Kirsten Dunst. Michele Morrone will also reprise his role from the original film, which was led by Sweeney, 28, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. The twisty drama hit theaters on Dec. 19 and totaled almost $400 million worldwide.
Also at the Nantucket Film Festival, The Invite writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack received the Special Achievement in Screenwriting Award, and The Five Star Weekend star Chloë Sevigny was honored with the Compass Rose Award for Career Achievement.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
