An interview clip featuring Seth Rogen is spreading online after the actor and writer offered a blunt critique of artificial intelligence in screenwriting while promoting his animated film "Tangles," ComingSoon reported.
The moment came during a 2026 Cannes Film Festival interview with Brut, when Rogen appeared alongside author Sarah Leavitt and his wife, Lauren Miller Rogen. The conversation is garnering buzz on social media amid an ongoing debate over whether AI is helping creative workers — or hollowing out the work itself.
Rogen did not sound torn on the issue.
"I don't understand what it's supposed to do," he said, before criticizing AI-generated clips and pitches that claim they could remake Hollywood.
"Every time I see a video on Instagram that's like, 'Hollywood is cooked,' what follows is, like, the most stupid dog s*** I've ever seen in my life."
He pushed the point further when talking about writers who want AI to take over part of the process.
"If your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process, you shouldn't be a writer, because then you're not writing," Rogen said, adding that "the idea of a tool that makes me write less is not appealing to me, because I like writing."
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Leavitt, whose graphic memoir inspired "Tangles," made a similar argument. As a creative writing professor, she said one thing AI cannot do is move through the creative process of discovery.
"You're not just creating a product that's done. You're going through the process of figuring it out," she said, noting that the team spent 10 years developing the project. Miller Rogen also questioned how any model could replicate the lived experiences that shaped the film.
For its part, "Tangles" did not use AI. "Not at all. It's hand-drawn animation!" Rogen said. "Every frame has a human touch to it."
For audiences, the debate matters because it affects the kinds of movies, shows, books, and art that end up in front of us. When studios and creators use AI to shortcut the hardest parts of storytelling, critics say the result can be flatter, less personal, and more disposable. It can also put pressure on writers, animators, and other workers whose skills help sustain creative communities.
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The AI boom also has large-scale global effects that often get less attention. Generative AI systems rely on data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, placing additional strain on local grids and resources. That growing infrastructure has raised concerns about everything from rising energy demand to the environmental footprint of always-on computing.
In that context, Rogen's frustration speaks to more than taste — it reflects broader anger about tech being sold as inevitable, even when communities and workers bear the costs.
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